- Jul 19, 2005
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As of 6:00PM today, I am FINALLY an INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT! WOHOO!!
Well, today started off exciting! My checkride was scheduled for 3:30PM over in Pasco Washington. I fly out of Ellensburg, so its a good hour flight just to get to Pasco. Last Thursday I was supposed to take this test, but all the IFR planes were grounded! Urgh!
So, I get to the airport, spent HOURS on my flight plan, and reviewing the approaches I would be doing for the test. I called Flight Service and found out the ILS was out of service at Pasco! Aaahh! I am required to do a precision approach for the test, so decided wed just go another 36 miles down to Walla Walla.
Next setback the chief flight instructor decides he wont let me go as I wouldnt be getting back until around 8, and doesnt want me coming back at night since I am not night current. (but, Im not carrying any passengers) Anyway, a half hour later, the examiner agrees to speed things up so I can get done before 7:00.
Well, I get there, we start filling out all the paper work and all that stuff. The oral itself was maybe 45 minutes at the very most. All that time I spent on performance calculations, and the flight plan. Just for two questions, not even related to it. lol pfft He asked two questions about lost com, a couple about filing alternates, one about instruments, asked some questions about charts and symbology, and boom! We were done.
But then he said, well, do you have the other charts for Walla Walla? I said sure, I hadnt looked at them as I was just planning on doing the ILS into Walla Walla and doing the other approaches back into Pasco. So, he said, well, lets just do all of our approaches over there. So, we decided to get vectors for the ILS, full procedure NDB (Yikes, I hadnt done an NDB approach in at least 18 months!) then partial panel VOR. Well, at this point I didnt know to be excited, as this gives me an excuse in case I dont do so hot, or the opposite its a disaster! I had never flown to Walla Walla before, and hadnt even looked at the charts before that time in his office! And that was extremely brief.
So, 45 minutes later we finally get out to Walla Walla and do the ILS. BEAUTIFUL! It went great, had those needles pegged the entire way down! Did a missed approach, then did the NDB that went great actually! Thank you God for not having ANY wind that day!! Then the partial panel actually went quite well also. I was very pleased. We went missed, he told me to take my hood off, and said congratulations, you did excellent!
WOW! I felt incredible! He said that he was very impressed with my flying, especially the fact that I didnt even have proper time to prepare for those approaches. He said it would have been impressed if that was my home base! How cool is that?!
My logbook is quite old (9 years) and is falling apart. It's only about 1/2 full, but I feel that todays check ride was a great way to close that chapter in my flying career, and life and move on. So, I've decided to "retire" my logbook and begin my Commercial training using a brand new logbook.
Im proud of my successful comeback in such a limited time, considering the setbacks I had! Lol This officially closes a significant chapter in my life! Im glad to move on now.
I just want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who gave me advice and even read my rants about everything! And thank you so, so, so, so much for the prayers!! You're all wonderful!
Commercial license, here I come!!
