Snow does private...a FSA diary

Good for you Snow on your solo-xc! It's a great feeling isn't it?! More of those good feelings to come for you. Keep up the good work and the diary.

Blue Skies,
SkyKing
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Wow, a whole week since I've written, I try not to post everyday to avoid making a million posts but I hadn't realised it been that long, anyhow...

Day 48 - Monday, November 17th

No flying today, just a bit of study and bumming around today.

Day 49 - Tuesday, November 18th

Today I got to do my duel night cross country. We flew upto Ormond Beach which is just north of Daytona. The flight was 3hrs and the 1st hour was spent doing night touch and goes at Vero Beach. Also did some simulated electrical failures and landings without lights. The electrical failure didn't prove to be much of a problem with the red florecent light I got for Christmas a few years ago, sure came in handy, It made everything in the cockpit perfectly visable.

Then headed north, with a killer tailwind, had about a 130-135kts groundspeed, a few clouds about but mainly calm weather. We did only one touch and go at Ormond because we were running a bit tight on time plus we'd have to battle that headwind on the return trip. It was suprisenly busy and Daytona approach who told us to keep squawking our assigned number and contact him again after doing our touch and go was unable to respond for 5 mins or so, finnally he did and we crossed through class c airspace and SLOWLY made it back to Vero, even at 5,500ft we were still only getting a 85kts groundspeed! Got back and landed fine, after the tower had closed so had fun playing with the pilot activated lighting. It's fun flying at night, although I wouldn't like to try a forced landing!

Day 50 - Wednesday, November 19th

Another lesson with my instructor today, just practived all the manovers that are required for the private checkride plus did some hood time.

Day 51 - Thursday, November 20th

Two lessons today, one with my instructor and then a 2nd one solo. Unfortunatly I couldn't have the IFR cadet for solo so I had to preflight another plane after tieing the other one up, oh well good practice I guess. I'm getting confident flying solo and have no problems with the manovers solo or returning to the airport, although did have nearly a 12kts cross wind returning to the airport, handled it well I thought.

Day 52 - Friday, November 21st

Well today is my last lesson with my instructor before my private checkride, which will either be tommrow or Monday. Had a 1 hr duel, doing all soft field and short field take offs and landings since the rest of my airwork seemed fine. I had a CFI student gemini with me as well, he probably didn't learn much because my instructor didn't have much to correct me on, I later apoligised to the CFI student for not making more mistakes and making the learning experence better for him lol
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Afterwards we had a 3hr breif on all the private oral materal, I discovered I needed more study in areas like how often various weather reports come out and the different types of hipoxia. If the checkride is tommrow I'll have a lot of study and planning to do so I got right into it after getting home. Oh and when I say checkride I'm refering to the 'mock' checkride, which in a way is a FlightSafety checkride held to higher standards than the actual checkride. Once you pass the first one the 2nd one is easier and is usally done with the same check pilot too, so he/she already knows what you can do, plus if you fail the first one for some reason you technically haven't field an offical checkride, so no black marks. I checked the schedule and to my releif I'm not scheduled, so that leaves me a bit more time to study at least.

Day 53 - Saturday, November 22nd

More study today, also to expand a little on the checkride, I have to do a crosscountry plan to Clearwater and have to do two weight and ballances, one actuall one and one made up one which has 4 ppl and baggage, I don't supect the little cadet can make it to clearwater with reserves with that much weight abord. I'm also told you don't actually fly the entire route, just enough for the check pilot to know you know how to fly one and correct etas etc on the fly. I've managed to read through most of the private oral test guide today so I oped to take the evening off and watch a new dvd I got.

Day 54 - Sunday, November 23rd

Well you guessed it, more study today, I finished reading the oral guide and I am ready to start on the x-c planning. However I went and checked Monday's schedule and I'm not scheduled again! Hum, hopefully I'll have my mock checkride by Tuesday because my instructor has to sign me off my actual checkride and he's going away on Wednesday. Not sure what the deal is but I have heard rumors of a shortage of checkpilots recently and a class mate had to wait several days for his checkride. Hum I also need to get my private licence next week in order to start comerical ground school the following week, if not I'll have to wait until January for comerical, but I guess at least I'll be able to start step 2 flying reguardless.

All for now folkes, I'll let you know how the checkrides go in the next few days, till then!
 
Snow....If all you are waiting for is your checkride they will let you enter the commercial groundschool without it. Not really a big deal either as commercial groundschool is pretty much a repeat of private ground
 
Hello again folkes, sorry for not posting more often but things have progressed rather slowly this past week, between thanksgiving and a shortage of check pilots it took me a week, spread over 3 days just to get my mock checkride done! Hopefully the actual one can be done soon and all in one day.


Day 55 - Monday, November 24th

Well still no checkride today, but I keep on studying, finally get word that I have an apointment tommarow but it's only the oral segment because this check pilot has a cold and can't fly, oh well better than nothing I spose.

Day 56 - Tuesday, November 25th

More studying in the morning and then I have the oral section of the checkride at 3pm for about 3hrs. It went ok excipt I didn't know as much about weather charts as I thought, mainly because we rarely use them for weather breifing, just the text format, I also got the MEL (minimum equipment list) the wrong way around. Name suguests the minimum equipment you need to be airworthy but it's actually the other way around, a list of things that are allowed to be inop. Also my minimum equipment list for VFR/IFR wasn't too flash either but I passed it none the less. I'll do some more study on that topic before the real one. Also since there wasn't any flying today I didn't do the winds for the flight planning so that will have to be done tommorow.

Day 57 - Wednesday, November 26th

Got up at 4:30am so I could be down at the flightline at 5:30am for a 6:30am start, still didn't get it all done in time, and on top of that this check pilot wasn't expecting to do anything more than the flight part of the checkride so after doing to oral we ended up running out of time and had to postpone to that afternoon, later in the day I was informed it was going to be pushed forward till Friday. Which was kinda annoying because I wanted to get it out of the way before the weekend so I wouldn't stress, oh well. Went out to bomadere's tonight, not a bad crowd but I hear it's only like this on Wednesdays, the happening crowd kinda circulates. Also got to talk to some flight attendents and a pilot from a NorthWest connection airline, no idea what they were doing in Vero! Least he informed me there should be more hiring going on in about 2 yrs from now, about the time I'll be having enough hours.

Day 58 - Thursday, November 27th

Well I spent thanksgiving by the pool, spose it's not somthing people in most of the country can do! Other than a big breakfast not much exciting in the food department going on. Watched the footy and relaxed as much as possible with the checkride looming over my head.

Day 59 - Friday, November 28th

Well this time the checkride wasn't until 10am so I was able to get there 1.5hrs early and make sure all my winds aloft and such were right for my cross-country planning. We went over a bit of what was expected and what we were going to do. As the winds were going to pick up as the day went on I oped to do the take-offs and landings first. Things went ok although there seemed to be a difference in what was expected of me by the check pilot and what my instructor has been teaching me. Also did the first few bits of a x-c with a deversion and using the E6-B to calculate ground speed, ETAs and fuel burn as we go etc. Also did stalls, emergency landing, turns about a point and steep turns. I was still a little unsure how I went but the check pilot said I did fine and was within the pts the whole time, although having the check pilot do a bit of talking on the radio for me had me a bit worried as if I was mucking up somewhere, she later informed me they only do that when they have already seen the radio skills of the aplicant are ok. I feel having the mock checkride was a good idea because now I know what to expect and was given tips on how to improve, so I'll go into the actual checkride much more confident than I would have otherwise.

Day 60 - Saturday, November 29th

Did a little reading on weather reports, somthing I was a little unsure of on the mock checkride. That evening went to the 'Outback Steakhouse' with some mates. I'm certian I was the only REAL Aussie in there hehe, and I had my driver's licence and university jumper to prove it. Great food though! (ok so when do I get paid for this promo)
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Much tom foolery was had this evening but I won't get into that here!
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Day 61 - Sunday, November 30th

Another lazy Sunday, seems like there's nothing but jets using the airport today, I've seen 6 take off in the past hour! Since the offices were closed Friday I have to wait until tommarow to sign up for my actual checkride and also get permission from the cheif pilot to start comerical without having my private yet. Since my instructor is away and won't return until Wednesday, my check pilot said she would help me out with the process. So I could have my private licence as soon as Tuesday, sooner the better because I want to be able to focus on comerical ground school, which I think will be 6hrs a day instead of the normal 4, so I won't have a lot of time for anything else, but is good because I'll get it done in 8days rather than 12. Actually after getting my private I wouldn't be suprised if I don't have any more lessons until next year because after ground school I'm jetting off for the holidays until the weekend after new year's, although maybe I'll go up on a Saturday, I am kinda looking forward to flying into a class C airport with my instructor.

This up coming week should busier and I'll keep you all posted as best I can, oh and another question do you guys think I should start a new section for the next step of training (time building) or keep going on in this forum?

<FORM METHOD=POST ACTION="http://jetcareers.com/ubbthreads/dopoll.php"><INPUT TYPE=HIDDEN NAME="pollname" VALUE="1070211939Snow">


New post for next step of training?
<input type="radio" name="option" value="1" />Yes, start a new post
<input type="radio" name="option" value="2" />No, keep going in this post
<INPUT TYPE=Submit NAME=Submit VALUE="Submit vote" class="buttons"></form>

Cheers!
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Day 62 - Monday, December 1st

Well today I went down to the flightline to sign up for my checkride. Since my instructor is away until Wednesday I had to get the head cheese to approve me to enrole in comerical ground despite not having my private yet, and also pointed me in the right direction to getting the paper work for the checkride done. I basicly just had to update a form to include the hours I added from the mock checkride. I'll meet the requirements everywhere excipt I'll need an extra 0.1 hood time since i was a bit sort on the mock, not a problem just .3 to go. Signed up ok and checked the schedule, I'm on tommarrow for a 8am breif, so that means I need to get to the flight line at least 6:30am and wake an hour before, ah well beats getting up at 4:30 for a 6:30 breif! I cram in the last bit of study before going to bed early.

Day 63 - Tuesday, December 2nd - Final Checkride!

Ah the checkride day has finally arrived! I was quick to get ready and was down at the flightline by 6:15, and a chilly 48F here too, had to wear my flight jacket on the walk over. Did all my preperation with time to spare, I tried to relax a bit by reading a popular mechanics mag but I couldn't help going over things once more. Breif started at 8 and went for 2 hrs, I was feeling much more confident having learnt my weak areas on the mock, all that studing paid off, no real suprises.

After the breif I walked out to the airplane and did all the pre-flight, I was almost finished when the check pilot finally came out. Since the winds were picking up he said we should fly first and worry about the mechinical side of things when we get done flying. In the time I pre flighted the aircraft the wind had gone from 7 to 14 kts, fortunally it was right down the rwy. Decided to get the landings out of the way first while the wind was somewhat tame. Started with a softfield t/o then came back around for a short field landing to a stop and then a taxi back, then we did a short field t/o and it was off to do the x-c. Flew a couple of legs, reculated time and fuel burn as I went and then deverted and did the same thing. Once that was over we did power on/off stalls and clean/dirty flight, as well as steep turns, s-turns about a road and a simulated engine failure. Then we did some hood time, basics such as turns, climbs and decents. Since we had a bit of time to burn we decided to do somthing fun like steep turns under the hood and tracking a vor (both not private PTS items) Oh and while I'm thinking of it we also saw a cool sight of a C-130 refueling a helo going through the training area at about 2000ft. We then returned to the airport for a soft field landing. It was 14G22kts and I absolutely greased one in, you couldn't even tell we touched down, along with the headwind I'd say our touchdown ground speed was about 25-30kts! As I taxied off the tower handed us off to ground and said "That's the best landing I've seen all day" well what could I say, I was stoked! We taxied back to the ramp and as we were tieing up the check pilot asked a few quick systems questions which I knew well. We went back did the paper work and I heard the magic words "congratuations your now a private pilot" WOH HOO! I was relived to say the least and all the studying had paid off. I got 95% for the oral and 92% for the flight. I collected my FULL stripes and headed off since I was already late for my first comerical class, although not before pinning on my wings!

Conclusion...

Well there you go folkes, that concludes my section on getting a private licence at FlightSafety Academy. After 63 days and 35.5 hrs I finally got my private licence! From now on I get to log all the duel time as PIC! Not to mention I can fly solo whenever I want now!

Due to popular demand I'll start the next phase of training in a new section (well that's what I had planned on doing anyhow
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) It gets a little confusing from here on because the flying and ground school arn't done in the same order. For ground school I do Comerical, Multi, Instrument, but for flying I do time building, multi, instrument and then comerical last. Incase your wondering why they do this, it's so the training you do for multi and instrument go towards the hours required comerical, so there's less time building to do. Although we do start learning comerical manovers in the time building section. Anyhow I'll lable the next one time building and include the comerical ground school in there. Since multi and insturment ground go with their respective flying sections. That will just leave the long comerical flying section till last. Hope that all makes since, I'm still trying to figure it out my self
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Ok hope you enjoyed it, feel free to add comments or questions in this post and lookout for the next section "Snow does time building!"
 
Congrats on earning those wings..its a great feeling. Step two is a blast you get to fly all over the place..try not to go to the same airport twice..that takes all the fun out of it...
 
Congrats Snow. Now all of your friends will want you to fly them around!

Just make sure you share the expenses equally!
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Dave
 
Congrats Snow!
You did your private in 35.5 hours? That is really low time, you must be a pretty good stick! Have fun in step 2.
 
Snow,
congratulations on the PPL. I enjoyed reading your progress on the PPL. Nice score by the way. Don't forget to pick up your letter of achievment for scoring above 90/90. It will go nicely with your resume. Look forward to following step 2...ILS
 
Thanks so much Snow for all your effort in that post. It was one of the most interesting posts I have read on JC. Congradulations on getting you Private I am very excited for you.

Just wondering when you moved to the US and also how you got residency. I live in New Zealand and would love to move to the US one day.

Cheers mate look forward to your time building post.

Ryan
 
Glad you enjoyed it, I'm currently posting about my comerical training now in another post as well. I'm actually a dual Australian/US citizen, so coming here wasn't a problem for me.
 
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