The big day has arrived!

Talk about a prescription for anxiety... Checkride, nerves and waking up at 5am... I was nervous alright and the coffee was just kicking in as I headed out to the airport. I had to be up in Anderson, SC for an appointment with my FAA Flight Examiner Randy, so I had to leave early to be at the airport by 6:30am. We had about 1 hour of time before we had to fly up to Anderson which we spent going over as much as possible before we had to leave.
My flight instructor Brian pre-flighted the plane for me while I was finishing up the flight plan and checking weather for the day to see how our flight was going to be.
We departed PDK at about 7:30 and headed NNE towards Anderson. The weather was a little hazy and the visibility was really only about 5-7 miles, not ideal conditions by any means, but was still clear enough to fly in. With my experience level I wouldn't had done it on my own, but with Brian there I was fine.
We got to Anderson, SC about 15 minutes before our scheduled time with Randy so I got to detox a little before starting.

The Oral Test:
Well it was here; the start of the Private Pilot Checkride! I was trying not to be nervous, but it was very hard not to be. Randy was great, did his best to make me feel comfortable but still wanted to make sure I knew my stuff.
We started going through the all the questions on airspace, requirements, instruments, maintenance, logs, records, etc etc. He went over the flight plan and a weight and balance form to make sure we were safe to fly.
I got stumped on a few things and Randy made a few suggestions on things to study up on, but overall he said I did very well.

The Flight Test:
I got a small break before we headed out to the plane to begin the preflight. Once the preflight was completed I climbed into the plane got everything organized and dialed the radio to get the weather, set the instruments and prepared to taxi to the runway.
I called up the radio and informed "Anderson Traffic" that I was taxiing to Runway 23. I got to the beginning of the runway and began the runup checklist to make sure everything was running properly. Once that was complete I called up Anderson Traffic again to let everyone in the traffic pattern know that I was departing runway 23. Randy had me do a soft field takeoff which simulated a grass or soft field takeoff. This meant I had to taxi continuously and keep the nose wheel light by pulling back on the yoke and 1 notch of flaps. I had to then take off in ground effect while I gained speed and then climed out at normal airspeed. I turned left to keep in the traffic pattern and turned out to my desired heading as I had planned in my flight plan.
Once I identified my first checkpoint in my flight plan he had me deviate to another airport. This meant I had to calculate the new heading, time needed to fly there and fuel calculations as needed. Once I gave him the ETA to get there he concured with my calculations and had me head to another location to begin my maneauvers.
This was the interesting part as he put me through a series of turns, banks, slow flight, stalls, emergency procedures, unusual attitude recovery. The unusual attitude recovery was interesting as I put on a view limiter so I couldn't see outside the airplane and he put the plane into a set of various banks and gave me back the airplane when it was going into a stall and told me to recover and fly straight and level for a bit. I managed to level it out recover fairly quickly although it threw me off a bit and I had a little difficulty initially maintaining a straight course, but I was able to figure it out soon enough. I think it must have been the nerves as I had no problem while performing the same technique with my instructor. Either way, I'm a perfectionist and it was definately good enough for Randy, so we moved on.
We then went back to the airport and did a few more landings, take offs and a no flaps landing which meant I needed to slip the aircraft to loose altitude and land. This was with a crosswind as well so it was interesting.
After that he had me taxi back to the hangar and park the plane and meet him back inside....

oh boy.. the nerves... Did I pass, did I fail? He made a brief comment while he exited the plane which I thought included a "Congratulations" or something to that effect, but I wasn't sure.
I walked back to the hangar after securing the plane and met my instructor outside the the front door, he had a smile on his face and held out his hand and said...

... "Congratulations, you're a pilot!!"

No sweeter words were ever heard... well a few, but at that time it was the best thing anyone could have told me! I was elated to say the least.
I went back into the hangar met with Randy again who printed out my temporary license gave me his official congrats, went over a few things in the flight that I needed to brush up on, but otherwise said I flew very well and he was happy to grant me my Private Pilots license.

Talk about being taxed, both mentally and physically. The heat that day didn't help either. It was a balmy 95 degrees Farneheit (about 33C) and humid as hell. I was tired and running on adrenaline by this point in time, but we got back in the plane and flew back to Atlanta, this time as an official Privat Pilot!

We got back to the flight school and I got to ring the bell which officially signified that I had passed my checkride. When they heard the bell all the instructors in the building came out and congratulated me on passing my checkride. I closed up and settled my account at the school and I was DONE!!!

When I got home Jan had prepared a small congratulations celebration with the kids and a couple friends complete with a bottle of celebratory scotch.. Now where's that cigar...



This is just the beginning and I'm looking forward to where my pilot license is going to take me. I'm already contacting places to rent planes to keep flying. I look forward to taking to the skies with my lovely wife and kids and taking any of you with me that are daring enough to join me...

Anyone up for a flight???

Pre-Checkride signoff

With all my flight requirements done and out of the way it was time for the school to sign me off for my checkride. In order to do so they needed to evaluate my flight skills. This consisted of me demonstrating various maneuvers that would be asked of me on a checkride.
I found I had a little brushing up to do and some of my landings needed a little polishing.
I did about 3 flights with my instructor and we worked on all the necessary items I needed. This really helped fine tune my landings and I was able to pull off short field landings/takeoffs very nicely. He threw in an engine failure while we were in the pattern and I was able to land without difficulty. When we got back we scheduled the checkride for the following Saturday and I was done with my flight requirements... now I had nothing to do but to study and be nervous for the next 3 days...

Last Cross Country Solo

Well, I've been a little late filling my entries for my blog, so here's getting it up to date.
On May the 19th I went on my last cross country solo flight. I took the same route from PDK Atlanta to Anderson, SC, then on to Gainesville, GA and back to PDK. The flight itself was fairly straightforward and I was able to fly my flight plan without difficulty.
Once I landed in Anderson I got my bearings set for Gainsville, took off and flew direct to the airport. (I'll include some pictures I took while flying once I can get them off my iPhone.

When I got to Gainesville the left tank was a little empty so I filled up at the FBO and proceeded on my way back to PDK.
As soon as I gained some altitude I saw there was some light rain falling between me and PDK. The visibility was still good and I could see past the airport to downtown Atlanta so I decided to go for it instead of turning back to Gainesville. The rain I encountered was fairly light and only in a few sections, so my "go" decision turned out to be the right one.
By the time I got to the airport there was a little rain falling and although the visibility was a little less, it was still easy to fly through. I landed on runway 27 and taxied back to the flight school.
I found out my instructors were a little worried as they called me on my cell phone while I was on my way back to Atlanta to see if I had turned around, so they were glad to see that I was able to make it back safely and made the right calls.

And so concluded the last solo flight I needed putting me just over the amount of Solo flight requirements I needed to complete my flight requirements. Now onto the checkride...