Sleep studies and fingerprinting

Neither sound too attractive, do they? So there I was back at the sleep clinic for a "titration" which is what the doc is calling it.

This means I got to take another sleep study to ensure the first diagnosis of sleep apnea is correct and the CPAP machine I've been sleeping with is doing what it's supposed to.
So imagine me, sitting in a chair, getting wired to whatever machine they're hooking me up to. I have about 20 cables attached to various parts of my head and upper torso to monitor various levels of sleep, heart rate, breathing, etc. Then you get in bed and they tell you to have a good nights sleep....... what's wrong with this picture.

Thankfully falling asleep has never been too difficult for me considering that I had a short sleep the night before and had helped replace the transmission on my jeep and various other forms of activities that fill my regular day.

Overall the night wasn't too bad, a little restless due to the contraptions I was hooked up to, but I managed to get a number of good REM sessions throughout the night... No, not the band...
I was actually woken up about 40 minutes late as I was in "a very deep sleep" and the technician didn't want to wake me up.
Once I was woken up I was told that everything looked good and I will get the final report from the Doctor on Monday. So fingers crossed...


Fingerprinting process:

I picked up my fingerprinting cards from my Flight school and went to the local police fingerprinting office to get my 2 sets of print cards. I paid my 15 bucks and got all my digits printed and sent off.

I'm still getting a chuckle out of the AFSP or Alien Flight Student Program as the thought of Aliens flying through the sky brings a few cool t-shirt ideas to mind...

Anyway, once that's done I should be cleared by the TSA to begin lessons, now just to finish up the medical portion and I'm good to go.

Medical and TSA updates

Good news... I PASSED!!! Went to get my Aviation medical exam this morning for Class 1 pilot certificate and passed with flying colours. One more thing out of the way.

The medical exam consisted of your basic physical, vision, movement, coordination, balance, getting groped by the doctor an coughing a couple times....
The only thing I still have to clear is my sleep apnea issue. The doc tells me that I need to get something from my physician stating that my sleep apnea is not an issue and that I no longer have issues with hypertension or elevated blood pressure.
Once I get this I should be good to go.

(See link for details on this: http://www.avscholars.com/AvScholars/Channels/Learn_to_Fly/medicals.htm)


TSA finally emailed me back stating they have accepted my application and that I can now take the next step to get finger printed. Kinda like saying "oh, I trust you... but we want your finger prints just in case..." oh well, what can you say, It's the government, you can't blame them for being paranoid.
I can't be too hard on them, they did respond in a decent amount of time, for a government organization that is.

In any case, once I get my fingerprint cards from my flight school, I can go and get inked and then I can officially start my flight training.

More to follow soon... hopefully.

TSA has 2 gears; slow and neutral.

Well, I finally heard back from TSA. They've received my application but state that I didn't clearly list the type of plane I was going to be training in. Since my school uses Cessna 172's I updated the application and sent it off again.

I also scheduled my FAA medical exam today for this Thursday. I'm going for a class 1 medical which is overkill for what I'm working with right now and is only needed for captains flying passenger jets.
However, since I want to do that one day I want to make sure that there aren't any complications going on at the moment that would prevent me from moving in that direction. I'm hoping the sleep apnea I have doesn't interfere, if so I may have to rethink my goals, but being optimistic for now.

Security Clearance

A quick update on the process so far. I've submitted my security clearance request and it's currently under review and my "Alien flight fees" have been paid... Yes, I thought the same... this post has just set off buzzers and sirens at SETI (google it) now that there are aliens flying through the sky.
But... back down to earth (pun intended). The process costs about $130 dollars and I still have to get finger printed and all that, so it's not over yet. As I was reminded in an email I got with the go ahead to pay for this process "THIS EMAIL DOES NOT ALLOW YOU TO BEGIN FLIGHT TRAINING, NOR DOES IT INITIATE ANY WAIT PERIODS"

Amazing!! I get a notification that I can officially wait on the waiting and that I'm not in a wait period.... needless to say, I'm waiting...

more later.

The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step

In my case, the first step began about a year or so ago and after many thought intensive bouts of pondering the meaning of life I finally decided that I wanted to fly; both for fun and for a career if I could pull it off.

After spending about 40 minutes in a P51D Mustang last summer (eternal thanks to my dearly beloved girlfriend Jan) I was hooked! I had to do this. I had to be a part of aviation and part of the world that has captivated my imagination for as long as I can remember.

This is the Mustang I flew in

Needless to say, life gets in the way every now and again but now I was ready to begin. The waiting was killing me.

The next step in this process was picking out a flight school.
After much research and looking into the available flight school options in the North Atlanta area, I finally decided on a school based out of PDK airport, the busiest General Aviation airport in the south from what I'm told.
There are some benefits to this. The first is that it has a control tower which means that you get very good practice at working with a control tower and coordinating your flight with everyone else trying to take off and land at the same time. Undoubtedly this will come in handy should I when I become ready to fly for an airline or just flying out to another airfield somewhere.

So anyway, Jan and I showed up for our scheduled intro flight on the 5th of October. I met my instructor for the day, Tom, and he got me situated in the flight simulator to test out my skills at the wheel... or yoke... before entrusting me with control of the aircraft. I don't blame him, I would probably do the same thing.

According to Tom my hours on the Microsofts Flight Simulator X had paid off and I seemed to have a knack for the simulator portion at least and could take off and fly around without too much difficulty.
The landing was another story... I had gotten familiar with the controls at home, but these were a little different. After about 3-4 tries and a little more education on approach angles and tips on vectors for the approach and bleeding off airspeed by pitching the plane up, or increasing airspeed by tipping the nose down or increasing power if I didn't have enough altitude, I was able to successfully land the aircraft. I did this a couple more times simply because it was fun. :)

So that portion was done and Tom felt confident that I wasn't going to be a problem for him in he cockpit, so we went out to the plane.



The trainers the school use are Cessna 172's. Fairly standard planes and "very forgiving" according to Tom. I'm going to be needing a lot of forgiveness while learning this, so I'm glad this is an option...
We went over the preflight check, ran through all the checklists and cranked up the prop. Got a brief class on communicating on the radio, taxiing to the runway and all the fun preflight stuff you get to do.
We then rolled onto the runway with the appropriate clearance, pushed the throttle in and off we went up to 2500 feet, or as close to it as I could keep it.

From there on out it was me at the controls. We took a flight up north, circled lake Lanier and headed back.



I'm definitely going to have to get my stomach used to the turbulence as it does get a little bumpy in a small plane. It was a nice flight, but after 30-45 minutes I was ready to get back on the ground again.
From what I hear this goes away after 3-4 flights, so fingers crossed...

Now just to get TSA clearance and a medical Certificate. Once I have that, I'm on my way to my Private Pilots license.