I'm not going to make you read. It was a spectacular morning.

Mt Diablo looking South East

Concord Airport

Windmill Farms of Contra Costa

Byron Airport

Discovery Bay

Point Edith Wildlife Area

San Francisco Bay

San Pablo Bay, Mt Tamalpais

Since I am an avid geek when it comes to flying apps and during my training tested out a number of iPad and iPhone apps, here are the ones that I think are the best and most useful apps on the market for students and pilots alike.

For moving maps and navigation there are a few good choices, and there were specific things I liked about each of the apps below, but in the end, WingX Pro7 is the one that ended up on my home screen.

WingX Pro7 (1st choice)
This is just a great app. They chose to forego a lot of flashy impressive graphics and concentrated on straightforward usefulness. The main screen has 12 big plainly marked buttons that get you directly to where you want to go from the excellent moving map feature to the Airports/Facility Directory & AOPA Airports, Navigation Charts, Route Planning, Wx Text, TFR's and more, getting to what you need fast is bold and simple which is a great help in the cockpit. The documents button takes you straight into the included AIM reference library with quick access to anything you might and includes some very helpful additional information like FSS phone numbers for the entire country and the Pilot/Controller Glossary. It's very easy to find and save all of your favorite airports and use them for flight planning, and clicking on any one of them brings up all of the information you'll find yourself needing en-route including runway diagrams, frequencies, facilities, Remarks, FBOs and more. When en-route, the ability to toggle between the full screen and split screen moving map is excellent. In split screen mode you can see each of your way points and destinations with a summary of the most useful in flight information, like frequencies and phone numbers. Tapping any way point on the moving map brings up additional information including current weather, METARs, TAFs, wind, temps, AIRMETs, PIREPs and NOTAMs. You can overlay a number of important options on top of the moving map  including terrain, obstacles, airspace, airways and a half dozen other items. One of my favorite features is the ability to position any area under the centered "crosshair" and instantly see ground elevation.

ForeFlight (2nd choice)
I really liked this app and used it quite a bit when I first started using my iPad in the cockpit. It has an elegant and intuitive interface and flight planning can be done quite easily, although there were a couple of features that kept me from buying it in the end, namely, the inability to quickly clear a flight plan and start another and the lack of elevation marking. Honestly, this was a close second to WingX Pro7 and I had a difficult time deciding between the 2. With the exception of what I mentioned above, this is a really slick and easy to use app in the cockpit and makes flight planning fun.

Garmin Pilot (3rd choice)
I know several people who use this Garmin app and really like it, and indeed there were things I liked about it once I figured it out, but I found the interface unintuitive. I don't like fumbling around trying to figure something out in the cockpit and while this app has a lot of promise, it just isn't quite there yet from an interface standpoint, so I personally wouldn't recommend it for students.

Other favorite apps include

Sporty's E6B
While I still rely on my trusty "old school" E6B calculator, Sporty's E6B is a super slick and easy to use calculator. Honestly, you can calculate anything about your flight so quickly that this will become one of your favorite pilot apps on your iPad or iPhone.

AOPA FlyQ Pocket
This free app is so good, so easy and so useful it should be a part of every pilots "tool bag". While you can plan and save flights as well this app's best feature for me is the ability to get information about any airport almost instantly. FlyQ instantly pulls up information about airports and facilities near you and tapping on any one of them provides a host of additional information including METARS, Weather, Runway information, Satellite views, nearby NAV Aids and much more. Super slick, super easy, free, this one is a no brainer.

WnB Pro
Weight & Balance Pro. It does one thing, and one thing well. Set up and save the information for any aircraft and you can do weight and balance calculations fast. Sure WnB Pro takes all the fun out of doing all that impressive math in your note pad, but if you need a calculation and you need it fast, or you need to try out a variety of scenarios, this is the way to go.

Spin-a-Wind
I'm sure this one got it's name from it's first and most useful tool, calculating runway crosswinds in a flash, but it has a few other features which make it worth installing like the ability to quickly calculate temperatures, density altitude and airspeed. Using it's main feature is just plain fun, pick a runway, wind direction and speed and instantly see runway wind speed and direction.

Last but certainly not least, here are 2 apps that I found amazingly useful during my flight training.

MotionX-GPS
I can't say enough about this app. Launch it at the start of your flight and forget about it until you land. MotionX will track you entire flight using the built in GPS function of your iPhone or iPad. I still use it during virtually every flight and love looking at the "track" when I'm back on the ground. Not only is it just flat out fun to see where you flew, I found that during my training I could very easily determine how I had done performing maneuvers like S Turns over a road or turns on a point. Click the Share button when you land and MotionX instantly emails the GPS files to you or anyone else you specify. Not only can you open and view them, if you want, you can even fly them again using Google Earth!

PrepWare Private Pilot
This is a study and test app for the knowledge test. If you're a student, just download it. With hundreds of possible questions you can study and test yourself over and over again while preparing for your knowledge test. This app is so much like the actual computer knowledge test that if you can consistently receive a passing score here, you'll be sure to pass the real thing when the time comes.

Here's my final app suggestion and one that's not a flight app at all.

iBooks for the iPad.
Locate any PDF online and email it to yourself. Click on the attached file in your email on the iPad and save it to iBooks. I found it difficult to carry around all of the necessary reading materials on a daily basis during my flight training and having the ability to download just about anything and read it on my iPad meant being able to study just about anywhere. Between the AOPA and the FAA alone, there is so much information out there in PDF format available to pilots you can pack your iPad chock full of a library of information that is always at your fingertips. From the FAA Pilot's Handbook to an arsenal of flight training materials to the POH for the training plane, this was by far one of the best things I took advantage of during my training and I highly recommend it.

Ok, well, there you have it, my list of favorite pilot apps for the iPad and iPhone. I hope you find it useful!

I've read every book, studied every guide, watched every video and taken every online course I could find time for. I've spent countless hours studying weather charts, winds aloft, and practicing E6B calculations for time, fuel, distance and density altitude, created dozens of flight plans and calculated weight and balance for every possible scenario I can think of. I've studied about meteorology and physics, airspace and FAA rules and regulations, spent hours with the GPS and struggled to wrap my mind around VOR navigation.

I've practiced each maneuver time and time again both solo and with my instructor. I've pounded away at diversion practice, lost procedures, radio communication, tower work and emergency equipment failures. I've performed hundreds of short field, soft field and cross wind take offs and landings. I've flown during the night and day, over mountains, over water, in clear skies, haze and smoke, in calm winds, turbulence and wind shear. I've read and listened and watched and practiced flying in some way every day since I began, but today, I was going to have to prove that I have what it takes to call myself a pilot.

I'm pretty confident about my flying, and have rarely been nervous in the air, but after flying almost daily over the past 4 months, I haven't been in the air now for over 2 weeks, and today, I was going to have to fly better than I ever have. In order to prove myself in the air however, I first had to make it through the oral exam, for me, the most intimidating part of the testing process. I've never done particularly well at oral exams. Even though I may know the material inside and out, oral exams are intimidating for me. Don't get me wrong, anyone who knows me knows I love to talk about things I know something about, but there's a distinct difference between talking about a particular subject and being questioned about your knowledge by someone who clearly knows much more than you do. This is something I have always struggled with in some way in my life and it boils down to one simple thing, while I consider myself reasonably humble, I don't like being wrong, and I especially don't like being called out on it. This obviously puts me in a difficult position because as I've stated before, as much as I'd like to, I know I don't have all the answers and I know I'm going to be asked questions that I don't have the answers to, that's a given, so the challenge is, answering enough of them right to show I've put the effort in to learn.

I was nervous, I didn't think I was going to be, I did everything I could think of not to be, but the fact is, I was, and I knew it was going to affect me today. I got up this morning and rode 26 miles in my spinning class thinking that might help calm me down...it didn't. In retrospect, maybe I should have gone to yoga, or over to the local ashram for some meditation, on second thought, yoga and ashrams make me nervous, so that wasn't going to happen. I took the day off of work so I could relax a bit in the few hours before my test, but of course, all the best laid plans, that's not what I did. Instead, I opened the books, one after the other, speed reading my way through anything I didn't quite yet have a handle on. This didn't help to calm me down, it just made me more aware of everything I still didn't know. Despite the fact that my instructors, my wife, my friends and my fellow pilots all told me not to worry, that I was going to do just fine...I ignored their wisdom and worried instead, I couldn't seem to shake myself out of it.

The only thing I like less than being wrong is failing, I hate to fail, I know it sounds arrogant, but I don't do things to fail, that's never a goal. I can accept that it's part of the learning process, and indeed I do fail and subsequently learn from it, but that only makes me appreciate it, it doesn't mean I like it.

Ok, snap out of it man, you have a half an hour to pull yourself together and get to the airport.

I left the house and headed to meet JP at the airport as we had to fly up to the neighboring town of Santa Rosa since they don't do the flight testing here in Sonoma. I planned to meet JP a little early, one, so I could relax...right, and two, so we could go over any last minute details and make sure we had everything we needed in the plane, flight manuals, log books, maintenance logs, the POH, airworthiness and registration certificates, medical certificate, proof of citizenship, check, check and check. Gas? oh ya, we should probably do that. It's the little things.

Flying calms me down, so what I really wanted to do was get in the plane and get off the ground. In the air I can clear my mind of everything other than flying, it's a nearly instantaneous physical and mental response, it's my meditation, my yoga, my ashram. On the flight up to Santa Rosa JP and I kept the conversation light, talking about the wind and the weather, we didn't discuss the test. He knows what this is about, for a young guy, he's been through 6 check rides of his own so he had a pretty good idea about where my head was at. John has been amazing throughout this process, helping me with every detail and offering to spend as much time with me as I needed along the way keeping me confident and positive at all times. Did I mention I hate to fail? Well, there's something I hate worse than failing and that's letting someone who has worked so hard on my behalf, down when I do. He's done everything he could to get me here, and if I fail, it's a reflection on JP, and I didn't want to let him down.

Arriving in Santa Rosa, I taxied the plane in and parked it near the Jet Center. JP and I gathered up everything we might need and headed over to the testing center to check in with the office and meet the examiner. After some polite conversation, and some checking of the paper work, applications and log books to make sure I had all of the proper endorsements and such, JP excused himself and headed off leaving me and my somewhat exposed nerves with the examiner.

My examiner is a veteran pilot with 30 years of flying experience and by all accounts a heck of a nice guy who's seen hundreds of students roll through his doors over the years looking to become pilots, but he's no pushover. He immediately reminded me of my oldest brother, the kind of guy that makes a joke, but isn't kidding. He's ex-military and ex-California Highway Patrol so even his smile is pretty serious. After outlining what to expect and what needed to be covered, the oral questions began, one subject more or less rolling right into the next. To my surprise, most of the questions I had answers for, and the ones I didn't, I could find easily and quickly in the pages of the reference materials that I was allowed to bring, which included things like the maintenance logs, FAR/AIM and the POH for the Cessna. I don't know how impressed he was with the hundred or so torn color paper book marks I had placed in the pages, but I was sure glad I had, you see, while  it's important to have much of this information committed to memory, it's equally, if not more important to be able to find it when you don't.

At one point he had me pull out my flight plan, the one he had called to give me last night, a flight from Santa Rosa to Palm Springs in the Cessna with he and I in the front, 2 additional passengers in the back and 75 pounds of baggage. As soon as he gave me the plan last night I had to laugh. Like I said, this guy has been around the block, and he knew that you couldn't fly a Cessna 172 from Santa Rosa to Palm Springs with 4 people and bags without making some serious adjustments, but that's ok, flight planning is actually one of my favorite aspects of flying. I love to plan flights, so just for grins, I came up with a few options. When he asked me to show him the plan I had come up with, I said, "well, which one do you want?" to which he responded, "what do you mean?". "Well, how important is it that everyone goes, and how soon do they need to get there, and if everyone goes, how important are those bags; if we can leave someone behind, we can fly straight through, if everyone needs to go but we can leave the bags, we can take a little extra fuel which adds some margin of safety, but if everyone and the bags needs to get there, well, we can still go but we're going to have to leave with a lot less fuel and stop somewhere en-route". I'm not recommending this particular approach mind you, it's just the way I think. My instructor used to chuckle whenever I'd show up for a cross country because he knew I'd have 4 different flight plans. My examiner looked over my plan of choice, with everyone and bags on board, and a fuel stop along the way, and complimented me on my thoroughness. I'm not sure if he was being sarcastic or not when he said in his smiling but not kidding manner, "you're funny". I wasn't feeling funny.

2 hours and a lot of questions later, he seemed satisfied that I knew enough to now go prove I could fly. It was a huge relief...and I mean HUGE relief to get through the oral. I shouldn't have been so worried about it, and my examiner was a heck of a nice guy, serious and all, and he wasn't trying to trick me, he just wanted to know if knew what I needed to know. I get it, he doesn't want to be up in the air with me if I don't know what I'm doing, I don't blame him. It wasn't nearly as challenging as I had imagined it, in fact, it was very enjoyable,  but I let my imagination get away from me.

He gave me a little time to go get things ready and to take a little break before heading up into the air which I was very grateful for. I went out to the plane and got everything situated and set up for the check ride. Honestly, I couldn't believe I had made it that far. My nervousness and anxiety was now being fueled by adrenaline and my normally calm attitude in the plane was about to be considerably challenged. This hasn't been my flying experience to date and I knew this was going to be nothing short of difficult if I couldn't calm down, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't seem to.

"Focus, deep breaths, get some water, you know this stuff, you've done it over and over again, just do it the same way today, fly, you love to fly, just go fly" that was the mantra from one voice in my head, but it was the other one that was working on me, "what will he have me do, what airport will I have to divert to, how far will he want me to take it, does he expect me to contact Oakland Center for flight following, what type of emergency procedure will I have to do, engine, controls, instrument, it's windy today, will I be performing S turns, turns on a point, unusual attitude recovery...and on and on". What does it matter? Psyching myself out was the worst of all options, I had to get a grip.

He watched carefully as I performed the pre-flight, something I had done many, many times before, still I pulled out the checklist to be sure I hadn't over looked anything...remember, one of the things the PTS specifically states "exhibits appropriate use of check lists". My CFI gave me one last piece of advice before leaving Sonoma when I asked about using checklists during the check ride. He said, most matter of factly, "no one has ever failed a check ride for using too many check lists". Point taken.

When I had finished the oral test and prior to leaving the testing center, my examiner had asked if I had any questions. Indeed, one of the things that had thrown me off during my previous mock check rides was the uncertainty of what could or couldn't be said in the cockpit. Was it ok for me to talk out loud as I performed each function and maneuver for example, could I ask for clarification if I didn't understand a particular request? If he asked me to divert to another airport, how far did he expect me to go? Do I complete my calculations and fly to a landing or will he give me instructions to discontinue and move on to something else? These were things specifically that caused me some uncertainty during my previous mock check rides, so I just wanted to be clear on the rules.

I also asked about what I could use in the cockpit, could I use my note pad where I kept the identifiers and frequencies for most of the local airports, if he gave me a diversion, and most surely he would, could I use the sectional on my iPad for navigation and could I use it to make in flight calculations or would he prefer I use my E6B, a paper sectional and a plotter? Again,  it didn't matter to me, I just wanted to be sure I knew what the rules and expectations were and didn't want to be fumbling around with something in the cockpit that I shouldn't be using.

I had other questions as we continued as well, for instance, I noticed as I was performing my pre-flight that 2 other pilots appeared to perform their run-ups where their planes were parked, and having never performed a run-up here before, and no area clearly marked on the airport diagram, I asked what the proper procedure was. I'm sure I should have known, but I wasn't going to start moving without asking, and as much as I hate to fail, I am adamant about the fact that pilots should never pretend to know how to do something they don't know how to do, and if I was going to fail, I might as well fail right now, before I ever get started. "There's a run up area at the end of the taxiway". "Thank You".

I made my call to Santa Rosa Ground, and for what may be the last time used a phrase that I hoped would work to my advantage one more time, "Santa Rosa Ground, Cessna five three zero echo romeo, student pilot at the jet center request taxi to one four" and off we went. At that moment I was relieved that I had made 2 previous solo flights up to Santa Rosa, had I not, I would have been pretty nervous about what was going to happen next. Even though I had only landed to a full stop at this airport once prior to today, I was happy I had, it also took a little pressure off that I had studied the airport diagram in detail over the past few days and it didn't hurt that I also clipped a small copy to the yoke in front of me just in case.

I taxied out to the end of one four, swung around into the run area and ran through the run up at the end of which I contacted the tower and made my call for departure. Within a minute we were off the ground and flying. The first thing on the agenda was to fly via my flight plan, of course we weren't really going to fly to Palm Springs, but we did fly far enough that he could see how I was navigating, judge my use of the instruments, GPS, etc. Next came the diversion, having practiced this over and over again I was ready. Even though I had my iPad on the kneeboard, I didn't use it, instead opting to whip out the sectional, E6B and the plotter and within 60 seconds or so had our new course, distance, time, ground speed and fuel burn calculated to our new destination.

The next hour and a half was a non-stop performance test with one maneuver leading right into the next, steep bank turns, slow flight, stalls, and on it went. Thankfully, during a couple of my previous solo flights I had practiced this very thing, coming up with a list of maneuvers and running through them in sequence without stopping for anything other than clearing turns. While I certainly wasn't going to be performing the same list I had during my solos, it did at least prepare me a little bit for what I was doing now, with one significant difference, beyond my initial clearing turns, the examiner continually cleared the airspace during the maneuvers, which made the pace of it all even quicker than I had anticipated.

One maneuver after the other, while I knew I wasn't flying my best on all of them, I did everything to the best of my abilities under the circumstances. Of course, when you're under this type of scrutiny everything is accentuated, so I noticed every little thing, deviations in altitude and speed, course etc., but in the end, they were not as significant as I imagined them at the time. My examiner did take notice at one point of my now more than apparent overall anxiety however, and did ask me what was going on, to which I answered, "to be honest, I'm nervous". When he asked me why, there was only one response, "You" I said, "You make me nervous". "Am I that intimidating?". "It's not you personally, it's what you represent". By that, of course, I didn't mean authority, or the FAA, I meant ultimately, success or failure.

Much to his credit, he then suggested we do something about that. "Let's just fly for a bit, when you get comfortable and get set up we'll start, whenever you're ready". From that point on things started to fall into place. We headed up to Cloverdale, of course, yet another airport I have never flown into, (how do they know?) to get some takeoffs and landings out of the way. First a soft field landing, followed by a short field take off, then a short field landing followed by a soft field take off, then bam, right off the runway and not 400 feet off the ground, he pulls the throttle, "so what are you going to do now?". "If you don't push that back in I'm going to put is down in that field up ahead". "Good answer, I like you" he said, the throttle went back in and up we climbed. No sooner did we hit about 2500 feet the throttle came out again. "Now what?" he said. "Looks like we lost the engine", and then I ran through the emergency engine failure procedures and guided us down towards a large open field. Another moment of un-clarity, and I mention these for the benefit of others preparing to go through this, how far does he want me to take it? When I practice these with my CFI we generally start them at 3500 - 4500 feet or so and fly them down using 1500 feet as our landing altitude, at which point I simulate a landing and go around, but my examiner didn't offer anything beyond, "show me you can do this".  Having completed my in cockpit emergency checklist I continued to fly the plane down, but descending through 1000 feet I made the decision not to descend lower to this unknown field, pulled the plane up and did a go around. He was expecting me to take it to 500 feet, I was anticipating taking it to 1500 feet. It turned out to be ok, but it was another moment of unclarity, and one that could easily put the examination at risk.

It went on like this as we made our way through the list of maneuvers that had to be covered until he finally said, "Get us back to Santa Rosa, correctly and safely". It was about 10 minutes back to the airport in a somewhat uncomfortably quiet cockpit. I didn't have any idea what was going through his mind but mine was racing. Did I pass, did I fail, did I totally blow it? "You know you're not done" he said, "not until we come to a full stop". Right...tower, land, ground, after landing checklist, taxi, shut down check list, there goes my mind again. I made my call into the tower 10 miles out and got my instructions, "Approach on extended final and report 2 mile final for one four".

I love flying, I have to tell you, it's just never the same. While I've practiced landings and touch and goes at Santa Rosa over the past couple of weeks, it's all been in the pattern. Here I was coming in for my last landing of the test and doing so on an extended final in a 15 knot crosswind from the west, two things I had never done at this airport before. I couldn't believe it, seriously, it couldn't have been nice and calm, just today, just for me? Make it or break it time. I positioned myself on the VASI and held a constant slip into that 15 knot wind from the west greasing the Cessna down the center line for what turned out to be the best crosswind landing I had ever done. I rolled off the runway onto the the taxiway and made my call to ground for clearance into the ramp, taxied the Cessna in, parked it and ran through the shut down checklist. As my examiner sat next to me taking notes, I still didn't know what to think but I was glad one way or the other, it was over.

Extending his hand out to me he simply said, "Congratulations, you're a pilot" "And by the way, that was an excellent cross wind landing, excellent control, one of the best cross wind landings I've seen". I was totally stunned.

My examiner said he'd meet me inside while I secured the plane, and upon entering the Jet Center, I must have looked like a kid with a key to the candy store. The news had proceeded me and everyone in the lobby congratulated me on passing my test, none of whom however, were happier, or more proud than my instructor John. You see, I didn't know it until that moment, but not only did I pass my Check Ride today, I was John's first student who made it all the way through. It was a most significant day for both of us, one of great accomplishment, one that brings tears to my eyes as I write this, and I was as happy for him as he was for me.

For the past 5 months I have flown everywhere we had been together and even though I had just earned my wings and for the first time could fly us back to Sonoma as a certified, legal, licensed Private Pilot, I handed John the key and asked him to get us home. As we left the ground and headed back to Skypark he said, "you've never actually seen me fly, have you, for all you know, I can't". I was willing to take my chances.

Needless to say, it was a great ride home for both of us full of laughs and congratulations and smiles, a beautiful, casual, sunset ride that I will never forget.

I don't know where it's going to take me, but today I accomplished something I have been dreaming about all of my life, today, I'm a pilot. I may never stop smiling.

I want to thank everyone who has read and commented on these posts over the past few months. I've done my best to keep them relevant and true to my experience.

I guess now I'm going to have to find something else to write about.

My very best regards to all, enjoy every minute.

Blaine Transue

Today was knowledge test day, and while I have studied as much as I possibly could throughout the summer I still felt like there were areas where I could have used more time. Personally, I found it difficult to prepare myself for the written exam, not so much comprehending the particular areas of knowledge, but in psychologically preparing myself and trying to predict what might be asked, which, of course, you can't do.

Here's a few things I'll say about the whole process.

1) Figure out a pace for your training that allows you the time you need to get the ground work and studying done. While it was great for me to push my way through it all in a matter of months, flying nearly every day does not allow for much extra time to study, especially if you're working full time, and it puts extra pressure on you that could be relieved by stretching out the process.

2) Study something every day, no matter what it is. There is a mountain of material out there and it would be nearly impossible to read it all, so rather than become overwhelmed by it, just pick a subject that interests you and read about it.

3) Get material from a variety of sources. While my flight school set me up with a package of excellent materials, there are a variety of other sources out there. My flight school supplied a set of DVDs from ASA, Private Pilot Virtual Test Prep, for example, that were a good compliment to the reading I was doing throughout my training. I found that after reading, watching the DVD on the same subject matter helped my comprehension of the subject. Of course, there are even more great resources on the AOPA website like their excellent online courses at http://www.aopa.org/asf/online_courses/. Unlike the DVDs, the online courses at AOPA are much more interactive and you can return to them over and over again. The dynamic nature of the courses I found, was also much more engaging, and for me, that results in better understanding and retention of the material. I highly recommend taking advantage of their excellent free resources for student pilots. The FAA also publishes a vast array of free material for student pilots on their website http://www.faa.gov/training_testing/. I downloaded dozens of files and publications from these sources that helped immensely during my instruction.

4) Prepare in a variety of ways. Since it's not really feasible, or at least it wasn't for me, to carry around all of the books and training materials at all times, create opportunities that allow you to study in other ways. Bookmark websites on your computers and mobile devices, download PDFs and copy them to your computer or iPad. I can't tell you the number of times I found myself with 15 or 20 minutes somewhere when I would just open a link or a PDF and get a little studying in, whether I was waiting for my food to arrive at a restaurant or just taking a short break at work, I tried to take advantage of any spare time and leverage all of the resources at my disposal.

5) Read the PTS Test Guide and Requirements. Don't wait until a week before your test to start looking at the requirements. Start reading through the test guides and requirements a month or 2 before you plan on taking your test. While you can't predict what specific questions will be asked, knowing the types of material you're going to be tested on, and what the FAA expects you to know about it will make the process much less stressful. There's a reason they call it a test "guide". All of the PTS standards and additional training material, including sample test questions can be found on the FAA website here http://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/airmen/test_standards/

6) Take practice tests early and often. You may not need to go as overboard as I did, taking the practice test dozens of times in the final weeks, but I would certainly recommend taking the practice tests at least a few times prior to your exam. The questions on these practice tests are very similar to the questions you will be expected to answer on the knowledge test. If you can get a passing grade on the practice tests, you'll probably do the same on the real thing, but don't be satisfied simply with a minimum passing grade. Take the practice tests enough that you pass with as high of a score as you are capable of. The more questions you fail on your knowledge test, the more you will need to go back and study anyway, as all of the failing subjects will be covered again during your oral exam later. There are some excellent practice test sources out there, like the sample questions available from the FAA at http://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/airmen/test_questions/ or the ASA PrepWare course at http://www.asa2fly.com/Prepware---Download-Edition-C361_category.aspx, not to mention the tremendous amount of excellent information on the AOPA website at http://www.aopa.org/training/.

7) When you take the test, answer all of the questions you know the answers to and skip the ones you are uncertain about until the end. They give you plenty of time to complete the test so don't panic. Answering all of the questions you are certain about will give you additional confidence and help to calm any anxiety you might have which in turn, will help you focus when you return to the questions you were unsure about. Jot down the question number of those you need to return to and then return to each one in sequence and answer them as best you can. Remember, they aren't trying to trick you, they're trying to test you, and in most cases there is only one logical answer to the question being asked, so take your time and think them through.

8) Lastly, try not to second guess yourself, if you think it's right, it probably is.

Well all this is sage advice to be sure, and you'd think that if I followed it myself I would have scored 100%, but alas, that was not the case. While I did pretty well, I did not follow item number 8, and returned to 4 questions 3 different times at the end of the test. In all 4 cases I changed my answer at the end, and in all 4 cases, my original answer was correct, and while I was a little disappointed in myself for over thinking those particular questions, I couldn't help but laugh a bit at myself at the same time.

I'm sure I would have liked to walk out the door with that perfect score, but then, that may have just given me a false sense of security about my abilities because realistically, I know that I don't know all the answers, and that I still have a lot to learn about flying, but I have to say, passing the knowledge test is a nice notch on the belt and makes you feel a lot closer to becoming a pilot.

For now I can't get this dumb smile off my face and I'm going to enjoy the moment.

1 down, 2 to go.

B

One of the things that's been gnawing at me throughout this process is the limited time I seem to have to learn specific things, like getting a real handle on the Garmin 430's in the cockpit of the Cessna, so last week I found and installed a 430 simulator on my computer. I had actually been looking for one for the past couple of months but hadn't come up with anything until one day last week, when my CFI sent me a link to one he had come across.

I would highly recommend finding a good simulator if you have a GPS in your training plane, and I do so for one important reason, trying to figure out the GPS while you're flying, especially learning to fly, is a major distraction and it's a lot safer for everyone if you can practice setting it up on the ground.

The simulator actually works quite well and is very much like using the actual Garmin 430 in the plane. I just pretty much left it up on my screen all the time and whenever I had a few minutes, would practice running through the functions. It's a remarkable little device that 430, and while navigating it isn't completely intuitive, once you get a feel for a few of the basics, you can accomplish some very important tasks.

The first thing I wanted to be comfortable with was finding an airport by it's identifier and then setting the GPS up to track directly to the airport, something that comes in really handy all of the time, but especially during those surprise "diversions" that your CFI will throw at you. Once you're comfortable setting up the "Direct To" function, you can make a reasonable fast and efficient switch to a new track. Once you have the airport identifier entered and selected, there's a lot more information you have access to, most notably, communication frequencies which can be entered into the active and standby modes on the radio. If you spend some time with the simulator you can even learn to do some basic flight planning including waypoints and fuel usage. While all of that was fun to learn and will come in very handy on long cross country flights, I was really focused on learning to use the GPS in critical situations so I spent a lot of time setting up diversions, setting the Direct To function to a new airport, dialing in the communication frequencies, and calculating distance, speed, time and fuel burn.

Call me crazy, but I don't like being unfamiliar or uncomfortable with anything in the cockpit, so I spent a good 15 hours practicing with the simulator running through as many scenarios as I could come up with. The pressure of flying maneuvers in the checkride is enough, but once you start tossing in radio communications, GPS navigation, dead reckoning, diversions, lost procedures, emergency procedures, airspace etc, it can get pretty intimidating and I don't mind telling you, I need every advantage I can get.

Since time is running out quickly, I wanted to get back up in the air for one more solo flight prior to my checkride. Not only did I want to apply what I had learned on the simulator to real time flying, I wanted to get a little more tower practice in at the airport I would be flying out of for the test, practice a couple of diversions and perhaps an emergency engine failure or 2 if I had the time. I have also been testing out some software for the past month or so on my iPad so I was anxious to try and put everything to use on a solo flight.

After pre-flighting the Cessna, I set the GPS up for my destination airport, KSTS. I used what I had learned to get everything pre-configured before ever leaving the ground so en-route all I needed to do was switch over to the Com 2 channel as I approached Santa Rosa. Of course, no sooner did I get airborne and headed in the right direction did I toss a diversion at myself intentionally choosing an airport who's identifier I didn't have memorized. Within 15 seconds or so I had the GPS set up and was navigating towards my new destination, Angwin, a small airport at the top of a mountain about 20 miles north. For practice, I also pulled out the sectional and calculated my distance, heading, time and fuel burn on my E6B (I know, I could have used the GPS) and managed to accomplish it all in just over a minute. With that behind me and a smug grin on my face for said accomplishment, I rewarded myself by flying over Angwin and giving it a thorough examination just in case I ever did want to actually land there.

It was a spectacular day and the view was incredible, with Napa Valley under me, Lake Barryessa off to the East and the Mayacama Mountain range in front of me, it was nothing short of amazing. After getting a good look at Angwin I reset the GPS for Santa Rosa and turned to my new heading. 10 miles out I made my call into the tower and a few minutes later was flying through the pattern and in for some landing practice. I stayed in the pattern for 3 landings and takeoffs, 1 each short field, soft field and on the last pass, a normal landing to a full stop and taxi back. It's amazing how much flying you can do and without getting in much ground work at a towered airport, and this was another thing that I needed some experience at. Talking to the tower and flying touch and goes is one thing, but there's a lot going on after you hit the ground to a full stop at a towered airport. Ground tower work is an incredibly important component of flying and having read about the many accidents and runway incursions that happen on the ground, it is another item that I want to be really comfortable with.

Here is my limited and admittedly naive rookie advice on the subject of landing at towered airports. Know the airport you are landing at. Study the runway and taxi diagrams in advance so you know where everything is, that way, when the tower tells you to hold short of one eight left for landing traffic and then taxi straight via Charlie, left on Alpha, right on Kilo, hold short one eight right and contact the tower on 122.8, you actually know where that is and can visualize it. Visit the AOPA or FAA site on the web, download and print the airport diagrams for any airport you might be landing at and carry a copy in the plane with you. I clip mine to the yoke before landing so I don't have to fumble for it in the cockpit once I'm on the ground, and if I've studied it a bit before hand, all I really need to do is glance at it to verify my position after landing.

As a VFR pilot, most of the airports I fly out of are Class D, small airports that generally only have 1 or 2 runways and 1 - 4 taxi ways, and if I know before hand that the only places I can be are Charlie, Alpha and Kilo and which direction each of them takes me to the runway, it makes listening to ground control and reading back instructions a whole lot easier. Experienced pilots and ATC controllers are used to the dialogue over the radio and many of the pilots have flown in and out of the same airports a number of times, so they already know what the airport looks like, where taxiways and runways are and they're already anticipating what the controllers are going to tell them. I have to tell you, as a student pilot, having never flown in or out of most airports I visit, I don't have a clue what the controllers are going to say if I haven't looked at the airport diagrams first, and when they give you instructions, its a lot like listening to people speak fluently in a foreign language, so I can't stress enough how important it is to do some research in advance, not to mention the fact that airport familiarity is a requirement for flying anyway, so it's good to develop these habits during the entire training process.

Of course, "easier said than done" as they say, if you're like me and taking lessons in between work schedules or on your lunch break, everything about the lesson tends to be hurried. In my case the plane is scheduled in 2 hour slots and there's generally a lesson before and after mine, so you only have so much time to get everything accomplished, but there are a few simple things I've found, like looking over airport diagrams in your downtime, that can alleviate a lot of pressure when you're flying.

There are other simple things you can do to prepare. If you look at most runway diagrams carefully you'll find that there are really only a few choices. You're going to land on one of 2 or 3 runways and there are only a couple of options for exiting. Learn what and where they are. Have the radio preset to the ground frequency in advance, so when the ATC controller tells you to contact ground on point niner, you don't have to guess, fumble or ask for clarification, you just flip the Com switch to channel 2 and you're ready. Always have a small note pad and pencil ready so you can jot down a quick note. It doesn't have to be sophisticated, it just has to be recognizable. Everyone develops their own skills at this, but I find that something as simple as C, L/A, R/K, HS14 works for me. Translated that would be straight on Charlie, Left on Alpha, Right on Kilo, Hold short of one four. Again, you'll find that at most of the airports you'll be flying in and out of there are a limited number of taxi ways and runways so it's not that difficult to get a feeling for what you'll probably be asked to do when you are on the ground. On the other hand, if you haven't looked at the diagrams previous to landing, it can be not just intimidating, it can be downright dangerous.

Here's the last and probably most important thing I'll say on the subject. Let the tower know you are a student pilot. Everyone, experienced pilots and ATC controllers alike, appreciate what you are going through and they will make every attempt to be sure you heard and are clear about the instructions. If you don't tell them, they will assume that you are an experienced pilot and understand the instructions being given.

I get it, believe me, that you want everyone in the air to think you're an experienced pilot with 1000 hours, but flying and vanity are not good partners, nor is flying the place to pretend to know something you don't. Seriously, let everyone know, they'll respect and appreciate you all the more for it because the bottom line is, every pilot and controller whats the same thing, a safe flying experience. I have found that in every instance without fail, once I identified myself as a student, everyone went out of their way to be sure I was comfortable and clearly understood the instructions. This simple acknowledgment will relieve a huge amount of pressure and it goes something like this, "Santa Rosa tower, Cessna five three zero echo romeo, student pilot clear of one eight, holding at Charlie request taxi to the ramp" or when approaching "Santa Rosa Tower, Cessna five three zero echo romeo, student pilot 10 miles east, three thousand five hundred and descending, in for pattern work with bravo". You'll be amazed at the result of speaking those 2 simple words...student pilot.

So, done with my landings and tower work I headed back to Skypark, but along the way, since this was going to be my last flight before my checkride, and I had a few extra minutes, I decided to practice some S turns over Highway 37 and finish off the flight with a couple of turns around a point, 2 maneuvers I just can't get enough of. Both maneuvers went  well, and I headed back to my home base happy that I had taken the opportunity to make one more solo flight.

While I have mentioned little about it in this journal, the "ground" work has been one of the most difficult aspects of learning to fly and for a couple of primary reasons. As you might have concluded, I've been on a very aggressive flying schedule, flying at least 3 days, and sometimes 4 or 5 days a week while working more than full time, which doesn't leave a lot of time to study in between. I don't know how all flight schools work, but for me, there is always a reading and ground study component of every lesson, be it studying aerodynamics, or meteorology, or flight maneuvers, airport markings or navigation and flight planning, not to mention, that little thing called the FAR/AIM, there was and is always something more to learn. This isn't like picking up a cheesy Daniele Steel novel as you fade off to sleep either, this is all highly technical reading which takes as much concentration as flying, but every day, without fail I open the books and read and study and take notes, and read it again. I study every night when I get home and every morning before I leave and on the days I don't fly, I set aside an hour or 2 during the day or on my lunch break to study some more, and still I wonder if I will ever get through it all.

It sounds exhausting right? Even reading about it sounds exhausting but this is the amazing thing to me, I love every aspect of this flying thing. Studying may be something you have to do to get to the end of the process, but for me, it's also something I want to do. I want to know everything I can about flying, I want to be the best at this that I can possibly be, I want to know everything I possibly can that will make me a better, safer, more confident pilot. The most difficult aspect for me is not the studying, it's finding the time to learn everything I want to learn. If you're reading this journal because you're thinking about taking lessons, consider your available time and set realistic goals, it may be that it's better to extend the duration of your lessons and spread them apart to allow for enough time to study and absorb material in between.

There is a tremendous amount of material available to student pilots, between the excellent resources on the AOPA and FAA websites alone, you can can learn about every possible aspect of flying. There are also a number of really excellent online safety programs like Wings where you can study and quiz yourself online. Since it's all but impossible to carry around all of the books and study materials at all times, personally, I had to develop a system that would allow me to study just about anywhere. Much of the material you will study in books is also available free online including the FAR/AIM, PTS (Practical Test Standards), practice tests, study materials, weather, flight maneuvers, airspace, you name it, it's all out there. In my case, I downloaded PDF files for just about every aspect of flying I could find and loaded them on to my laptop and iPad, so pretty much no matter where I was, I could open something up and study. I'm hoping, that as I approach the end of my training, I'll be able to post a number of links to those resources here to make it easier for other students to find and assemble, after all, you're going to eventually end up in the air with me, and I want you to have all of the knowledge and skill available when you do.

Ok, I'm going to hop down from this soap box now. Am I ready? I'll find out in a week. For now the flying is done and it's time to bury my head in the academics of it all for one last push before the knowledge test.

B

Today was my final "Mock Check Ride", a 4 hour lesson set up to prepare me for my actual check ride on October 9th. Between now and then I plan to go up for at least one more solo, but other than that it looks like I've made it through the training for my private pilots certificate. Am I ready?

Today I was flying with a new pilot, a veteran out at Skypark who has flown just about everything from Cubs to DC-3s. Today we would be taking our first flight together and honestly, I had no idea what to expect. I think that was one of the most difficult aspects of today's flight actually, the anticipation of not knowing. There is so much material that you study in flight training and anyone who thinks it's just all about going up and whirring around is in for a bit of a shock. I knew there was a lot of material and I way underestimated it, and there were any number of times along the way that I simply felt like I wasn't going to be able to get through it all, yet here I am, taking my final flight lesson with a written test and check ride scheduled in the next 10 days.

I don't know if today turned out to be the best reflection of what a mock check ride should be, but I have to say, I had a great time flying and learned a lot from my new "examiner".

The first thing Mike did was grill me on a little of the material I should expect in the oral, although, admittedly, he said this wasn't his strong suit, so we spent about 30 minutes going over some of the basics until he was confident that I could at least talk about flying the plane. Next I took the opportunity to go over the ground rules...or air rules I guess would be more appropriate, something I didn't do earlier on my previous mock check ride. Not knowing what to expect when being "examined" can lead to a lot of anxiety, which in turn can lead to some pretty anxious flying. This time, I just wanted to know what the rules were in advance. Would he be offering any instruction or just evaluating my flying, should I perform clearing turns before every maneuver, or before sets of maneuvers if they were grouped together, would he be asking me to do several maneuvers in a row, if I didn't understand his intent was it ok for me ask, could I talk about what I was doing during each maneuver? These were the things that tripped me up during my last ride, and since I was unsure, not only did I make mistakes, it made me anxious about my flying, which is never a good thing.

With the rules and expectations now clearly stated, we got on our way. Following my CFI's advice from our last flight together, I pulled out the check lists and went over everything step by step. Read, touch, do, read, touch, do. Because I have been flying 4 or 5 days a week for months now, I have acquired some bad habits which now I have to try my best to break, one of which is running through mental check lists instead of having them physically in hand. It's really good practice to use them on every single flight and apparently, essential if you want to make it through your check ride as the PTS clearly states "appropriately uses check lists", so I'm using them.

Pre-flight complete we board and head out for the run up, again, first thing on my mind, pull out the checklist and perform everything in order. As I performed each task on the checklist I read it out loud, a tip from my CFI John who said, let the examiner know what you are doing as much as possible, don't make them guess. Makes perfect sense to me. One of the first things I asked Mike was if it was ok for me to do just that, talk about what I was doing in the cockpit at all times.

After the run up I taxied down to the end of 26 and along the way Mike instructed me to do a soft-field takeoff, which of course brought up my first question. Knowing that there is a hold short line at the end of the taxiway, and that a true soft field take off requires you to keep rolling, what did he want me to do? Should I stop and do my before take off check list at the hold short line, or should I do it as we rolled out and continue right out on to the runway? Much to my surprise, he had me run through my before take off check list as we were moving, clear final, make my call and continue to roll out onto the runway. I have to say, for safety reasons I wasn't terribly comfortable with the idea, especially since I had never done that particular approach before at this or any other airport. This, of course, also brings up another big question, as a student, when do you call the shots regardless of what an instructor or examiner is telling you? He clearly wanted me to do what he had stated and wasn't trying to trick me into anything, yet my instincts told me that I should stop, run through my check list, clear final and then simulate the soft field approach. Final was clear and there were no other planes in the air so I dutifully followed his instructions, but given the choice to repeat it, I would have made the decision to stop the plane, completed my check list, cleared final and then simulated the approach. Besides the obvious safety issues, it was simply contradictory in my opinion, to intentionally perform several tasks wrong in order to prove that you could do another correctly, and again, it had an unfortunate side effect, infusing some undo uncertainty and anxiety into the situation, which in my opinion, should be avoided if possible.

Rolling out onto the runway I pulled the yoke back to lighten the load on the nose wheel and continued my roll-out, pulled the plane off the runway and immediately pitched the nose forward to gain speed while still in ground effect, then after gaining speed, pitched the nose up and started my climb out at Vx. We then proceeded to head out west to the usual maneuver area over the shallow mountains west of Petaluma where I started running through maneuvers. First there was some slow flight, then steep bank turns and some stalls, but just about the time we were getting settled in to have me fly under the hood, the view started to change out my left side.

The practice area we like to use is over the mountains between Petaluma and the Sonoma Coast and on a typical day, meaning any day I've ever been out there, there is no other traffic in the air, but not so today. Just as I was setting up to do a 90 degree clearing turn to the left I noticed a plane pop up on the traffic screen of the GPS, 1000 feet below and to me left and moving quite fast. Not only did one pop up, but then a 2nd, and a 3rd and a 4th and just outside my left wing, in a wide sweeping turn heading what appeared to be straight towards me, were 4 vintage military fighters flying in formation. Time for some PIC decision making.

I had checked in the morning and noted that there were TFRs in the Bay Area due to an air show and the presentation of the Space Shuttle fly over, but the TFRs covered SFO, about 30 miles south of us and the area we were in was well clear of the TFRs, yet here we were, close enough to feel like we were in formation with 4 military planes. They shouldn't have been there if they were part of the airshow, yet, here they were and right on us at twice our speed. All I knew was that I wasn't comfortable sharing their airspace, and certainly wasn't going to be flying under the hood and practicing maneuvers with these guys out here.

Mike could see them on the radar but could not see them out the window. "Mike, we're getting out of here", and with that I whipped the Cessna right and headed...away. We made the decision to let them have "our" airspace and head over to Petaluma for some landing practice, although, little did we know, these guys had the same intention and at twice our speed ended up in the pattern in Petaluma just ahead of us. Imagine, if you will for a moment, that this is supposed to be a mock check ride, full of approved sequential maneuvers and such, yet here I am, following formation "fighter" planes through the pattern into land.

As it turned out, there had to be 8 other planes in the air coming into Petaluma at the same time, so we had planes arriving on extended finals, planes coming into the 45 from opposite directions and planes already in the pattern. Cool..."uh Mike, so what type of landing are you looking for here?". I could see that my "examiner" was as thrown off by all the activity as I was. We could have made the decision to bail on the plan at Petaluma as well and exit the pattern for calmer fields elsewhere, but the uncertainty of constantly changing plans comes with it's own challenges and dangers, so we decided to at least get one good landing in and then see what happened in the pattern.

The pattern traffic calmed down fairly quickly and we made the best of it, pulling off a few landings and some pattern work and then headed out for some cross wind landings at Gnoss Field, of course, another airport I have never been to. I'm starting to see a pattern with these guys, they like to figure out places you haven't flown and then have you go there for some practice, sure, why perform these landings where I'm confident doing them when you can prove yourself somewhere you've never been before?...no problem, I love a new airport.

Heading over to Gnoss Mike did give me a couple of pointers, 1, that there are a set of towers just off the left side of 13 when taking off, and 2, that there is always a crosswind that frequently changes direction. Well, he was right about those towers, although I didn't see them coming in for what was basically an extended base leg, you can't help but see them after you take off. If you perform a straight out departure at Gnoss, you head directly for some residential covered hillsides which extend to a peak elevation of probably 800 feet or so, high enough that you have to pay attention to what's under you. The general noise abatement and safety policy is that you not head over those homes however and that you make a left crosswind turn at 600 or 700 feet. When you make that left crosswind turn however, it appears that you are heading straight for the towers, which without referencing my sectional, look to be about 800 feet or so. It's certainly enough to keep your attention. Making a couple of passes through the pattern Mike had me perform 2 more landings, 1 cross wind and 1 short field, before departing out to our now clear practice area.

After a couple of good clearing turns Mike instructed me to put on the "hood" and fly IFR for a bit. I did as instructed and verified with Mike that he would be clearing traffic during the maneuvers since I would not be able to. Mike ran me through the usual set of IFR maneuvers including straight and level flight, slow flight, climbs, descents, turning climbs and descents etc. All in all I spent a surprising 1/2 hour under the hood, and while I'm comfortable flying by instruments, I hadn't anticipated the amount of time that would be focused on it. After some IFR fliying we headed north to Santa Rosa. The objective at Santa Rosa was 2 fold, to give Mike an idea of my tower work and to get in a few more landings.

There is often a lot of traffic at Santa Rosa and today was no exception, but even so, I was getting used to it by now and was happy I had made a couple of recent solo flights here and put in some serious practice. I made all the right calls as we approached and after a few laps through the pattern and 3 landings we were off and heading south again, this time, to another familiar practice spot to run through S turns over a road and turns on a point. I could always use more practice at these particular maneuvers, put I'm pretty confident about being able to pull them off reasonably well and after a set of S turns in each direction and some sage advice from Mike about how they should be done, we headed out to the end of the bay over a set of trees along a river to practice turns on a point, something I wouldn't spend much time talking about except that I have learned a few things about these maneuvers, and there are things you can do to improve your chances of success, none of which I did today, by the way.

When picking a spot for turns on a point, I would suggest picking something over open ground where there are few distractions or distortions in view. By this I mean, pick something in the middle of a big, empty, flat open space, or a clear intersection of perpendicular roads. If all sides of your intended turning point are somewhat symmetrical, I believe it makes it easier to judge your distance from the center. My favorite spots are the intersection of multiple dirt roads in an open field, or something like a water tower in the center of a large piece of land. Of course, that wasn't what I chose today, today I picked a stand of trees along an oxbow bend in a river...what was I thinking? It actually went well, but I wasn't making it easy on myself that was for sure.

After performing turns on a point in both directions, we headed east to our 4th airport of the day, and one of my local favorites, Napa County Airport. Napa is not only a towered airport, it's an ATC training airport, so not only do you have students like me flying into the airspace, you have students in the tower controlling the airspace so you're always guaranteed that something unexpected is going to happen. I made my call and we accepted our clearance to approach in closed right traffic for 18R, of course, just as we were about to make said approach, the tower called with a correction, "Cessna 530 Echo Romeo, approach on an extended base and report at 2 miles". Okie doke...(that's not what I said) I swung the Cessna around and we headed in on a base to final for 18R, cleared for the option. Oh, but one other thing, "530 echo romeo, land and hold short of 24 for departing traffic"...that would over ride the previous "cleared for the option" as we obviously could not be performing a touch and go with departing traffic on an intersecting runway. "Will land and hold short of two four, 530 echo romeo"...and that's what I love about Napa.

I put the Cessna down for a nice short field landing and exited the runway at Echo, the first taxiway to the left. holding short of the intersecting runway I switched over to ground and made my call requesting taxi to runway one eight right. "530 echo romeo, hold short of one eight left for landing traffic then taxi right via Alpha to Kilo and hold short of 18R". Hmm, did she just say "taxi right via Alpha?". Now, I know where I am on the ground, and I know that I need to turn left on Alpha to Kilo, not right. I certainly didn't want to find myself heading into oncoming traffic on the taxiway going the wrong direction. I wasn't going to move until we were on the same page. "Napa Ground, confirm cross one eight left and turn right on Alpha to Kilo". "Correction, cross one eight left and turn left on Alpha, left on Kilo, hold short one eight right". This is exactly where all of that situational awareness and aeronautical decision making comes in, as the pilot in command you are the final authority on the operation of the aircraft and this stresses again how important it is to know where you are and what you are doing. Mistakes happen, but if everyone is paying attention, they can be avoided. While I have heard others correct a call made to other planes in the ground or in the pattern this  was the first time for me that I needed to correct the tower on instructions though. It gets clearer every day, this is a team effort out here, so don't be shy.

When we arrived at the runway, we were number 3 behind another small Cessna and a Piagio so the call from the tower probably should have been "line up and wait one eight right" but I wasn't going to push my luck and ask for another correction as it was perfectly obvious what was to be done. We were going to try to get in a few landings, but with the time spent sitting on the ground and the amount of traffic in and around the pattern, we decided to call it a day and head back to Skypark. By this point we had been in the air 3 hours, and 3 hours of maneuvers and landing practice at 4 different airports in busy traffic is enough to wear on you a bit, so we headed in for one final short field landing at Skypark.

All in all it was a great day of flying, and I learned some sage advice and a few new skills from my experienced "evaluator" Mike. I'm hoping the actual check ride has fewer curves, but this is flying, and it's rarely the same from one day to the next.

So now with all my flying time behind me, I'm off to bury my head in FARs, AIMs, PSTs and a stack of paper and computerized prep ware, after all, if I can't get past the written, the rest of this doesn't really matter much.

B

At this stage in the game there are a number of aspects of flying that I'm pretty comfortable with, flight planning, cross country, night flying, ground reference maneuvers, normal, soft field and short field takeoffs, flying under the hood, solos, unusual attitude recovery, even tower work to some extent, but there are a few areas that still elude me, and I'm doing my best to keep from getting frustrated. At the top of the list are a number of instruments and the on-the-fly calculations required while in flight. As anyone keeping up with my journal is aware, VORs remain a challenge, some days I feel like I get it, and some days, well, I don't. Several other challenging aspects include on the fly calculations for density altitude and airspeed and a clearer understanding of airspace. I know it's just a matter of practice so this weekend I'm going to pound away at every piece of information I have at my disposal in an attempt to get through it. That said, today was about landings and tower operations.

JP and I spent a little time before today's flight talking about the particular challenges I'm facing. He's a great instructor, always keeping me positive and focused, and he's right there to help me, over and over again with anything I'm struggling with. This is actually a very important aspect of instruction. If you're flight training, make sure you talk to your instructor all the time about the challenges and difficulties you're having, as well as areas where you feel you are doing well. While they have a pretty good idea based on your performance of where you are at in your training, these folks aren't mind readers. Your time is best spent on those areas where you feel like you need the most assistance, so make sure you let them know. I'm a fairly confident guy, but that has gotten me in trouble more than once in this process when my CFI's have just assumed I was comfortable with a particular aspect of my training, when in reality, I felt like I was barely grasping the concept at all.

Discussion behind us, it was time to fly. We jumped in the Cessna and I got us all dialed in for Santa Rosa. It was actually such a comfort to just program the GPS for our destination knowing that I wasn't going to get a surprise diversion to another airport, or have the throttle pulled back for emergency engine failure practice. For the past week or so everything has been about refining skills for the checkride, and as much as I enjoy it, it does put me a bit on edge knowing that I'm going to be tested during every aspect of flight, but today was different, today was just about getting some softfield landing and tower practice in, so there were no flight plans to follow, no maneuvers to practice and no surprises.

The flight up to Santa Rosa was smooth and fairly quiet, although JP and I did go over a few things, what was my approach going to be, what were my radio calls etc. Of course, as soon as I tuned in the frequency for SRTS (Santa Rosa Airport) we realized it was going to be a challenge. ATC was busy...really busy, negotiating pilots coming in from all directions and they had their hands full, so full it was hard to even break in and let them know we were 10 miles out and heading in for some pattern practice, something under  the circumstances, I'm sure they were thrilled to hear, but make the call I did, and with in 5 minutes we were in the pattern.

While it would be great to get to Santa Rosa on a calm day when everything was blissful and organized, today wasn't going to be that day, but hey, all practice is good practice, and airport chaos is just part of what you have to be ready for when you fly. I think JP would have preferred to head out somewhere else, but we had made the trip and I was up for the mayhem, I mean, why not...this is going to happen and personally, I'd prefer it happen with JP in the seat next to me.

On our first approach it was fairly clear that ATC had their hands full because we watched in somewhat amazement as the pilot in front of us extended his downwind approach over 5 miles north, which of course meant, even though we had been given clearance to land, that we were going to continue to follow him through the pattern. The ATC controller was busy juggling a half dozen planes that had all converged at once on the airport, so there were planes in closed traffic in the right pattern with us, and planes coming in for GPS and IFR approaches both directly downwind and in a left pattern, all for runway 14, and there were several other Cessnas, one of which had a very similar call sign as us, which made listening to all of the radio jabber that much more interesting. It didn't matter to me, I was loving it. When JP asked me what I wanted to work on today I said tower practice...tower practice I wanted, and tower practice I was getting, in spades.

We rolled with the general chaos and confusion, and proceeded to make several touch and go landings after flying similar bizarrely extended patterns. Unfortunately, when ATC extends your pattern like that it eats up a lot of your lesson time which was part of JP's frustration. JP wanted to focus on softfield landings, and when you only have an hour, or an hour and a half it can be frustrating to use it flying around in long extended patterns, but to me, its all about the experience, and this was as real as it gets. By about the fourth flight through the pattern things started to calm down, and we got in a few more landings.

On the way back from Santa Rosa I tuned the VOR into Point Reyes and JP did his best to once again get the whole idea through my obviously very thick head. Some of it clicked, some of it didn't, 1 step forward, 2 steps back. I know when it happens I'm going to feel very good about it, but right now I'm not feeling like the sharpest knife in the drawer.

Well, it's Friday, and I have the whole weekend to see if I can figure it out before I come back on Monday. We're going to spend a few more hours next week hammering away at written and oral test prep, and then the following week is likely to be all about check ride prep, so for now I'm off to practice take offs and landings, density altitude and weight and balance calculations.

B

I've been flying so much lately I don't even know what day it is. What I do know is that today put my skills to the test.

Today I was scheduled for the last of my required solos. This was going to be a 2+ hour flight with landings at 2 airports I had not been to before. When I had originally scheduled the flight, there was nothing on the schedule again until 3, so I arrived thinking I had plenty of time to plan and get on my way, but as we know, this is flying, and things change. As it turns out, the Cessna was scheduled again at 1pm and JP had his checkride for his CFII endorsement at 3, so I my no pressure solo just took on a little pressure. No worry, I was there a little early and I already had my flight plan drawn up, so JP just needed to go over it and endorse my log book. Even as prepared as I was however, I didn't get off the ground until about 11:15 which meant at best, I wouldn't get back until about a quarter after 1pm. I checked with Travis and told them I could reschedule, but they wanted me to go ahead and go, even if it meant doing a little rescheduling.

I had several good checkpoints on my flight plan along the first leg to Colusa, the first at the top of my climb just over the town of Yountville, the second on the east side of Lake Barryessa and the third over a private airstrip at McCabe Ranch. Besides the solos and maneuver practice around the local Sonoma area, I had flown several other cross country duo flights with my instructor and several cross country solos in the past 10 days, the longest of which was the flight to Rancho Murieta just the day before yesterday, so I was feeling good about today. Flying over my first check point over Yountville I compared my actual time and altitude to my flight plan and noted that I was actually 30 seconds ahead of schedule, partly because I climbed faster than I had anticipated and my ground speed was a bit faster than I had planned, still, a less than one minute differential made me feel pretty good about my planning. I had marked a couple of landmarks on the map as well as I'm trying to focus more on ground recognition and was very pleased when I passed over my landmark, the intersection of 2 roads in Yountville, exactly as planned.

My next check point was on the east side of Lake Barryessa. Flying over Lake Barryesse at 5500 feet was incredible and I was all but giggling to myself in the plane. I was focused on the task at hand for sure, but you can't help but enjoy a view like that, especially when experiencing it on your first big solo flight. I had my iPhone in the seat next to me, so I took a quick shot of the Lake on my way over and then got back to business. I found myself wishing I had more time to fly around the lake a bit, but I had a mission I needed to accomplish and honestly, that was enough to focus on today. Since I had my iPad with me on the kneeboard today with ForeFlight loaded and running my flight plan I was able to see the winds aloft change in real time and took note of the fact that I now had a bit more of a tailwind and thus a little faster ground speed than I anticipated, even so, I hit my second checkpoint on the east side of Lake Barryessa within a minute of my flight plan.

I was stoked, the flight was beautiful and I was making all of my checkpoints and I have to tell you, at the risk of sounding totally corny, today, I was feeling like a pilot and was grinning from ear to ear. Flying over the mountains east of Barryessa and out into the Central Valley I made it to my 3rd checkpoint at McCabe Ranch. While I never did find the gravel private airport on the sectional map, I could clearly see the intersection of the roads I had marked as landmarks and once again was right on schedule.

Last night I had taken some extra time during the flight planning and had prepared several things which I used today on my flight. Along with the FSS directory information for each airport, I downloaded and printed the available airport diagrams, additionally I located both airports on Google Earth and printed out satellite views of each which I found to be incredibly helpful. Not only did I have a clear idea of what the runways
looked like, but I had a good idea of what the surrounding area and terrain looked like making my approaches much more confident. Coming into Colusa I already knew what to expect and found the airport just as anticipated. The approach was in left traffic and paralleled a main road, since I had seen it on the satellite image I was already comfortable with the idea, I also knew that I had plenty of room and no obstacles along the base and final legs of the pattern so there shouldn't be any big surprises.

Colusa is, well, let's just say it's a quiet airport. I didn't hear or see any other planes in the pattern, and after landing, short of a few dusty planes surrounded by grain elevators, didn't see much happening there either. Fine with me, I was just landing, snapping a pic for my CFI to let him know I arrived and was on the ground and then I was back up and on my way to stop number 2, Lampson field at Clear Lake.

Climbing out of Colusa I crossed my first check point, high tension wires that ran parallel along the east side of the mountains. I get really excited at this point when I see something on the ground that I made a note of on my flight plan, as it gives me some much needed confidence that I can plan and execute a flight, which, if you haven't done it, is trickier than you might imagine. I've said it a number of times before, but I don't mind saying it again, things look a lot different from the air and it takes practice to recognize even the most common objects. My next checkpoint wouldn't come for quite some time now, so I had to make it up and over the mountains between Colusa and Clear Lake. I stuck to my planned headings and every once in awhile looked down to cross check it on the iPad, although, half way over the mountains I discovered why it's a really good idea to have a physical, paper flight plan in the cockpit.

Looking down at my iPad during one such cross check all that was on the screen was a simple message, Heat Warning! Say what? I didn't even know such a thing was possible, but sitting on my kneeboard in the blazing summer California sun coming through the windshield my iPad had physically overheated and there was nothing more than the simple message on the screen, no ForeFlight, no flight plan, no GPS. I was very happy at that moment that I was confident about my flight plan, so I shut the iPad down and tossed it in the seat next to me. Flying over the mountains towards Clear Lake I was treated to yet another spectacular view, but just as I was about to get comfortable and soak it in I hit some mountain turbulence that ratcheted up my alert level a few notches. Now I have experienced turbulence, but honestly, with the exception of some mild turbulence during my previous solos, the only moderate mountain turbulence I had experienced was on my long cross country to Reno a couple of weeks ago with JP in the seat next to me. This turbulence made that turbulence seem like kid stuff.

Coming over the first of 3 mountain ridges I hit my first bit of turbulence and was amazed at how quickly the plane was tossed back and forth. I rolled with it and made my adjustments accordingly following the protocol I had read time and time again, keep the wings level & reduce throttle. Sage advice I might add, while the experience didn't frighten me, it was getting my attention, after all I didn't have an experienced CFI sitting next to me to take the controls if it got worse, I was going to have to fly this plane over these mountains, and there were a lot more of them ahead of me. Coming over the second ridge there was a steep valley below me and for just a moment the turbulence seemed to subside and I felt a sense of relief, however falsely so and poorly timed I might add. At just about that very moment I hit a downdraft. Now I've read about these a few times and paid close attention to the warnings, and while I've been in more than a few updrafts, I hadn't experienced anything quite like this before. This wind shear took the plane down, as in significantly down, in nothing more than an instant. I'm not sure how to even describe it except that it was an immediate drop in altitude...not a glide, or even a steep glide as one might expect, this was a slam that would have pinned me to the ceiling had I not been belted into my seat. In the instant it happened I just reacted, full throttle, nose up, climb, FAST!

Right in front of me was ridge number 3, the last ridge before crossing the lake and suddenly I found myself, let's just say, uncomfortably low. Having just been slammed down like a fly by the massive force of nature, and climbing my way back up to altitude, now I was really paying attention. Not that I wasn't before but now all of my senses were firing. I know it probably sounds frightening, and admittedly, for a brief moment it has that affect, but the truth is, I was confident in my abilities and I knew I could fly the plane, I knew I was going to get through this and in some strange only pilot sort of way, it was terrifically exciting, Now THAT was flying! By the time I hit the fairly calm air above the lake and started my descent down to Lampson field on the far shore, I was exhilarated, laughing, thrilled that I had handled the situation well, and piloted through that on my first long cross country solo.

Coming over the lake I made my call into Lampson field, flew a 45 into a right downwind pattern and landed the plane. I was actually so excited by everything that had just happened that I forgot to stop and take a picture for JP. Instead, I taxied down to the end of the runway, made my call and was off again. Departing Lampson field is a little trickier than landing at Lampson field as just after you take off you make a fairly hard right bank and climb out north over the lake, a little tricky, but amazing, I'm really looking forward to going back there again.

Heading south now back over the mountains towards Sonoma, I would climb to 5500 feet as I passed through the Mayacamas mountains, and as it turned out, some more moderate, but not quite as severe turbulence, out past Mt. St. Helena and down through Sonoma Valley and back to Skypark.

I landed at Skypark at 1:20, exactly 2.1 hours from the time I left. While JP was a little concerned that he didn't hear from me after Colusa, since I forgot to snap the usual pic and send him a message, I was very pleased with what I had just accomplished.

Today I had the chance to experience a little of everything and a lot of flying. Another great day in the air, it just keeps getting better.

B

While I had already done a number of cross country flights over the past 2 weeks, I was really excited about my flight today because today, I was going to do a long cross country by VOR. Now, if you've been keeping up with these posts, and my training, you know I've been struggling with this VOR stuff, and of course, this really bugs me because I'm a very technical person. I have always been the guy who sets up your stereo, or your new LED TV with surround sound, or wires your local network, yet here I have been struggling with this one odd little instrument.

I spent the weekend reading over the material I have on VOR tracking as well as watched a couple of good online videos on the subject and this time, felt like I finally had a handle on the whole idea, in fact, I didn't just think I understood it, I knew I had it finally figured out and today was going to be the proof. Over the past few days in working up my flight plan I had visualized the flight a number of times clear down to the way the VOR indicator would be turning during each part of my course. I had gone back over my notes and was confident that I could set up the required VOR frequencies in advance making the flight today go even smoother.

When I got to the airport JP and I went over my flight plan and with his endorsement in my log book. The fog was lingering around over Napa later than usual today, so while I was waiting for it to lift, I had plenty of time to go over my flight plan, call for a weather briefing and perform a thorough pre-flight on the Cessna. I had the cockpit all set up with my sectional map and flight plan just in case I needed them, and even had my iPad loaded with the route and flight plan, and at the ready on my new kneeboard. I wasn't planning on using it for navigation, but I did have a new app I wanted to try out along the way.

I climbed into the cockpit and finished my pre-flight procedure during which time I also took the opportunity to get the Garmin set up with the frequencies for the necessary VORs and ran through switching everything back and forth a couple of times just to be sure I had everything right. This was going to be a smooth trip today out to Rancho Murieta and back and I was finally going to put this whole VOR mental block behind me.

After my run up I taxied out to the end of runway 26, made my departure call and was off heading south for my intended climb where in route I would lock in my position on the VOR and turn on a course to intercept my planned radial...or not. As I climbed I noticed that the Garmin wasn't receiving a signal from the VOR so immediately my smooth flight had been challenged. Of course, as a student I immediately assumed that I had configured something wrong on the Garmin, after all, this VOR station has always worked before during my training flights, so I made the decision to climb to 5500 feet, my intended flight altitude, and circle around while I attempted to figure it out. I made a sweeping 360 as I ran through the Garmin settings several times, but to no avail as I couldn't get it to read the VOR, so here I was, only 5 minutes into my flight and my solid plan, and my confidence, has has been shattered. If I couldn't even figure out how to set up VOR tracking on the Garmin, then I had no business attempting a cross country via VOR tracking. At just about the moment I was going to confess my ignorance, abort my flight and head back in to Skypark I decided to try one more option.

Flipping the Garmin over to the second VOR station at Sacramento I immediately picked up a signal and all I could think of was, "you're kidding, all of this studying and planning and the Scaggs Island VOR just happens to be down? Is that even possible?". I made a decision to roll with it, and intercepted the 231 degree radial to the SAC VOR station. OK, so I'm not an idiot, I did have the VOR set up correctly but even with this new found realization, it took a few minutes to gain my confidence back. By now I was already 5 minutes behind schedule which meant mentally recalculating my flight plan. Since I was flying via VOR I was using the flight plan both as practice and backup just in case, well, just what happened, happened and I couldn't fly via VOR for one reason or another.

From that point forward everything about the flight went just as planned, I tracked the VOR inbound to SAC and then tracked my intended radial outbound to Rancho Murieta and cross checked the flight using my paper flight plan and intended compass headings along with the app on my iPad. Although it was a rocky start, I was turning this cross country into a multi-threaded learning experience. I found Rancho Murieta just where it should be, made my call into the pattern, landed, shot a quick photo of me and the Cessna safely on the ground to message back to JP as I knew he'd be somewhat concerned by now, and headed back out.

The flight back went perfectly. Knowing that the Scaggs Island (SGD) VOR was not transmitting, I used only the SAC VOR to track a radial inbound, then outbound back towards Sonoma. My tracking was so successful in fact that I flew directly over both the SAC VOR station and the SGD station on the fight back which helped to put a lot of anxiety behind me. Having successfully navigated via VOR today I took a few extra minutes to extend my flight up and over Sears Point, through the Petaluma Gap and into the beautiful Sonoma Valley, sort of a pilot's version of patting one self on the back.

Even though my confidence in my perfect planning had been shattered in the first few minutes I used the opportunity to make adjustments and in the process felt like I made some good aeronautical decisions. Instead of retreating back to the airport in defeat, I was able to determine that the initial problem was not pilot error, but mechanical error beyond my control and came up with another alternative solution that resolved successfully. All in all, I think this is what the whole experience is about. Things happen when you fly, whether it's runways that are shut down unexpectedly or VOR stations not transmitting, you simply have to be ready to deal with them. As student pilots, of course, we always tend to think that any adversity must be of our own device, it must be our own ignorance and naivete of the situation, but in reality, it can be something very real, like instrument or mechanical failure.

Now I'm really looking forward to my next opportunity to plan a cross country flight via VOR!

B

While I wasn't aware of the plan, today I was scheduled to fly solo via VOR to Rancho Murieta, a small airport on the east side of Sacramento. Although this was all well and fine with me, I wasn't aware of the plan in advance, so I didn't have time to prepare a flight plan as I usually would have which meant working one up as part of my 2 hour lesson. This actually put some pressure on, number one, because at best, Rancho Murieta was a 2 hour flight there and back, number 2, there was a lesson right after mine in the same plane, and number 3, I had not drawn up a flight plan via VOR before. I dove right in and started to do my best, but it was pretty evident in the first 15 minutes or so that this just wasn't going to work out.

I was still struggling with writing up the flight plan via VOR and had a lot of questions for JP, and while I could have just jumped in the plane and winged it, pardon the pun, I just just wasn't comfortable with that. Even though I knew that I could set up the airport in the GPS and fly the route that way, that wasn't the objective, so while it would have been a nice solo experience, it wouldn't have provided the actual instruction I needed for this particular lesson.

Since everyone, including myself was starting to get a little nervous about the timing, I made the decision to abort the flight and use the time concentrating on other things, like fully understanding and completing the proposed flight plan. I broke out the sectional map and JP and I went at it, spending a lot of time going over not just the VOR route, but many other aspects of the sectional as well, something we actually hadn't spent a lot of time doing at this point. If you've spent any time with a sectional map in front of you, you know that these things are really intimidating. There is so much going on that you can barely tell what lies underneath all of the various information, codes and symbology, all of which is there for very important reasons.

We spent the next hour and 15 minutes going over the sectional, the route, and diagramming VOR tracking on the white board. I have to say, it was extremely valuable and despite not being on the agenda today, it was time very well spent. I know I've said this before, but a lot of flying is about being flexible, and today was one of those days where we put a lot of theory into use. Making the decision "not to" fly is equally if not more important than making the decision "to" fly, and in this case, it was exactly the right choice.

By the time we were finished, not only did I have a much clearer picture of the route I would now take tomorrow instead of today, I had an acurate and well thought out flight plan, and a much better understanding of VORs and the sectional map in general, certainly nothing wrong with that lesson.

With a half hour left on the clock and the plane waiting outside, we climbed in and flew the pattern at Skypark a few times practicing sort field and soft field take offs and landings, and even managed, out of necessity, often the case at Skypark, to get in a few cross wind landings.

All in all I much preferred the decision to abort the flight and get comfortable with the planning than I would have jumping in the plane and heading off unprepared. You'll hear it over and over again in your training, Aeronautical Decision Making and Situational Awareness...this is what it is all about.

Another great day as a (student) pilot!

B