Been awhile

I wish I had a better excuse for not posting in three months, but I really don't. I spend countless hours on the Internet engaging in "non-work-related" activity, so you'd think I would be able to carve out 10 minutes to write a blog post. Well, that's what I'm going to do now...

As you can imagine, stuff does happen in the span of three months, and quite a lot has for me on the aviation front. For starters, I finished my commercial single engine rating. I guess Plan C ended up being the charm. As I wrote in one of the previous posts, our Arrow went down and, though doctors did everything they could, they were unable to save it. I still don't believe they've replaced it yet, although the word is that they are trying. Long story short, I went back up to Philadelphia and completed the checkride at the place where it all began. I won't go into too much detail, but the oral was about an hour, and the flight was 2.5. Yikes! The oral was a strange affair, as we spent the entire time talking about regs. It wasn't even a question and answer, it was more of a free form discussion. Even when we did talk about my flight plan, the only question asked was "can you legally make this flight?" (There was a tropical storm off the coast that day). At the time I was silently counting my good fortune, but several days later something really hit home: being a commercial pilot is really about staying out of trouble. If something goes wrong, the NTSB is going to try to blame you, and they will do anything and everything to support their case. Are your logbooks accurate? Did you get a weather briefing? Were the aircraft's maintenance records up-to-date, and did you know they were/weren't? A quick read through the accident reports on NTSB.gov will confirm this. See how many are attriubuted to pilot error: CFIT, inadvertent flight into IMC, failure to maintain aircraft control, you name it, they will pin it on you. I won't talk much about the flight, but like I said, it was 2.5 and covered everything in the PTS, some things more than once ;)

With that out of the way, it was time to figure out where I should hemorrhage some more money, and I settled on the multi add on. I almost hesitate to tell this story, because it only involved a Plan A, and I have the next Plan A already in effect.....hmmmmm.....alright I will (please aviation Gods of Karma be nice...) After some shopping around, I located a relatively local outfit that offered a 3-day multi add on. The aviation Gods were kind, and we agreed to do the checkride on the second day, which meant a weekend away from home. The wife and daughter were in NJ, so I didn't even have to feel bad about being away. As if it couldn't get any better, I had two days of perfectly cloudless sky. The place was O & S Aviation (www.osaviation.com) and I can't recommend them enough. They are located just west of Chapel Hill, NC in beautiful NC countryside. It really was beautiful, and if I wasn't doing VMC demos or securing "failed" engines, you can bet I was taking in the views. After 7 hours of flying around a Twin Comanche on one engine, I was ready for the checkride and before you know it, I was on the way home with yet another temporary certificate. The only bad part was that the radio in my car is so bad I couldn't pick up any NFL games on the way home, which I love doing on a Sunday afternoon road trip. Oh well!

For that other Plan A I mentioned...this Friday I'm going out west to see about getting this CFI rating. I'm not going to say where, or with who, or for how long, because I don't want to anger the aviation Gods. I passed the writtens a couple of weeks ago in fine fashion: I finally learned after all this time that the best way to deal with a written is to spend a weekend hammering through practice tests, and take the tests on Monday. Wish I had figured that out a couple of years ago! I have now learned in my FOI (Fundamentals of Instruction) studies that this is referred to as "rote" learning. Hey, I guess I did learn something!

Anyway, I've been studying my arse off for the CFI and writing lesson plans like a madman. I decided to write one lesson plan for every subject area in the PTS, which should put me in the range of 50 or so going into next week. That may be overkill, but that way I know I will have covered everything that an examiner should on a checkride. My goal is to basically be ready for the oral, so next week will be spent on review and trying to learn to teach - and fly - from the right seat. I know I am shaking my fist at the aviation Gods by trying to do this in the western US this time of year, and trust me, I am definitely worried. My knuckles will be bloodied by knocking on so much wood this week...

Of course, the one little detail I haven't covered is the matter of my spin endorsement.....ah yes, right on cue there are the sweaty palms...I've talked to one of my instructors about doing that before I head out, so by the end of this week I should have another post on how that wasn't so bad after all...knock on wood