Looking To The Sky

There’s Always Next Year

The last couple months I made a huge effort to finish up my pilots license knowing that I had a hard date I needed to be done by before I took off for a while out of the country.  Well sadly, that date came before I could finish.

Not that I didn’t make the effort for it to happen.  I finished all my requirements, I studied so much, I spent a lot of money flying with my instructor, and I even paid a designated examiner $350 to be tested.

I went in the 18th of September and had my first attempt at my test.  I thought I was ready to make this happen as I studied so much the last couple weeks.  Well of course all the stuff I did study wasn’t on the oral exam, and the sections I should have studied was what he was looking for.

So that attempt was ended that afternoon and I then had the next week to make things happen. So after our exam, we scheduled to fly on Tuesday, the next day he was available and I was able to get a flight on the books.

I spent the weekend studying and focusing on this exam knowing that I only needed to go over a couple sections I was quite rough on.  Come Monday, I felt awesome.  I was ready to make this happen.  Then Tuesday came.  Tuesday had some of the worst weather of the week.  So I cancelled that morning just to have the weather clear up a bit during the early part of the afternoon – but no plane or examiner.  I then had another chance later that day around 4pm, but again, the weather got the best of me.

Next chance was Thursday.  My last day in the Portland area.  Wednesday comes around and that afternoon I get a call from my examiner and he tells me that Thursday isn’t going to work for him…BOOM – my world has crashed…ouch.  Thursday had some beautiful weather…but you can’t control the weather I’ve realized.

If anything from all this, I’ve learned that the weather is fickle and though you can hope for the best, the weather can do whatever it wants.  Therefore, when I’m flying and decided to take off to some far away city, I better be prepared for crappy weather to come down my way and not be in a major rush.

I was very upset that Wednesday evening all the way through Thursday, and it wasn’t until today that I’ve felt better about things realizing that it isn’t the end of the world and I’ll just have to wrap things up in February when I get back from some much desired traveling.

Flying is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever done, but being ready and safe is far more important when it’s just you and your friends or family in your plane.  Just remember that.

As the Boy Scouts would say – Be Prepared!

Until next February.

Jason

Categories: Private Pilot Completion

Tags: Checkride, no-flight, Testing, Weather

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