Quite the update

I can't believe it has been since the beginning of August since I last updated my blog.  The last time I wrote I had flown a total of 29 hours, now I'm over 40.

Where to start, my oh my.  I've accomplished every aspect of flight training I need and I'm about to schedule my oral and practical exams which is the last of the hurdles between me and my Private Pilot Certificate.

 This past month my flight instructor Mike got a job offer and accepted it down in Memphis, TN.  He started his ground school this past week and is enjoying it so far.  Before Mike went down there for his own training both he and I went on a night cross country from Bolton Field up to Ft. Wayne, IN.  Along the way he had be put on these things called foggles.  They allow the student to only see the instrument panel and nothing out side.  This was pretty fun as he had me do an instrument approach into Ft. Wayne.  Well it would have been much cooler if we had been able to pick up the glide slope on our instruments.  Since we couldn't we cut that part of the lesson short.  The flight it self was pretty good and a great experience.

Now since Mike has been away I got linked up with a new instructor, to me, Mark.  Mark is a great teacher as well and has some great pointers.  We've been up twice this week and are looking for one more on Friday(weather depending).  Both flights were more instrument only flights which finished my requirements for training.  But we did things a little different today.  I've always wanted to land on grass strips as this training can open up a wide variety of "off airport" opportunities for landing and back country exploration.  All I can say is it's one hell of a ride!  Even on a nice manicured landing strip  at Marysville airport, KMRT, it was quite the ride.  It really helped me nail my regular landings and was a blast doing it.  Mark would ask me if I was having fun since apparently I wasn't smiling.  Of course he was asking me this right after we had landed and I was turning us around on the runway to taxi back.  This of course brought me back into the moment and gave me a huge smile because I was in heaven doing these landings.

With every thing done I'm looking at a potential test date of next week.  So it's time to study hard and get ready for the exams.


Around 42 hours in and a lifetime to learn....I can't believe it's so close now.  I can hardly wait!