Well, I'm doing it. Here it is.
Monday morning, I was quite anxious. I was afraid that the weather would not cooperate, and that I'd have to cancel. However, I called in to the weather briefer (it's a free service by phone) and got told that it would be doable during the day, but not all the time. Some of the day, it would be, but, during a few points, the clouds would drop enough that I couldn't. However, I went in to the airport anyway and finished the planning.
Winds started picking up, enough that they were gusting past the limits of the aircraft. Basically, the plane, when taking off, is only allowed to have so strong of a crosswind--any stronger, and I might not be able to keep it going straight down the runway. Worse, there'd be a chance that a freak gust could get under a wing and lift, flipping the plane. That would tend to ruin your day.
Well, the clouds lifted a ways and the winds dropped, just as I was about to get going. I was adjusting the rudder pedals when a cable snapped. Thankfully, it was just a cable for adjusting the pedals' position, not the actual cable to control the rudder. However, I had to wait for the cable to get replaced, and, by the time it was ready, the winds had picked up again.
Just about literally praying without ceasing, I taxiied down to the runway, did the pre-takeoff checklist, and sat there for a few minutes, figuring out the gust patterns. When I managed to do that, I got off the ground and headed north to Bluffton, where I'd be having the examination. On the way up there, I did a little bit of practice maneuvering. The most fun were a few practice stalls and a series of S-turns along a road.
Well, I got up there and had a couple things go wrong. First was I didn't totally follow the checklist, accidentally. As a result, mixture was not quite properly adjusted. Basically, this controls the fuel-to-air ratio, something not so important in a car as a plane, since the car stays at the same air density, or at least changes gradually. Anyway, I'd leaned the mixture, as I should have, but I'd forgotten to rich it all the way. As a result, when I landed (rough landing, too, because I caught a gust at exactly the wrong moment), the engine shut off. After about two seconds of near silence, I figured out what was wrong (yeah, it took me that long) and I realized why the propeller blades were quite visible.
Rather embarrassed and calling myself names, I restarted the engine and taxiied in. I was kind of nervous, thinking that the examiner would have seen all that fiasco, and would tell me to just skip it and go home. However, I got in there, and she was all smiles and happiness. I asked her if she'd seen the landing, and was told that coffee was more important than watching me land then, since she figured I could handle it. :) I figured this was a good thing, seeing that she wasn't going to be super tough.
Well, I started to explain what had happened. I said that the engine had shut off when I landed, so she quickly asked me why. I started to say that I hadn't re-adjusted the mixture when she cut me off to inform me that she had done the same exact thing countless times over the 70 (yes, seventy) years she had been flying, and not to worry about it until I do it three times in a row. :D
Time for the oral exam. Basically, I had to prove that I knew how to plan a cross-country trip, that I knew how to check to make sure the aircraft is legally (and safely) flyable, that I know all about the different airspace types, how to navigate, and the list went on and on... It was really fun, even though it lasted about ninety minutes.
After all of that, I got a few minutes' break to visit the facilities (known in the book, Cheaper by the Dozen, as "examining the rear tire." Also, I grabbed a few snacks.
Well, after the few minutes' hiatus, I went out and preflighted (not preflew) the plane. The examiner (whose birthday it also was, I'd forgotten to mention) got in, and off we went. Basically, we started out on the cross-country trip to see how well the planning would work out. After going to the first checkpoint, she had me divert to another airport, estimating it by just looking at the chart. In short, we flew off to there for a few minutes, then started the maneuvers I had to demonstrate. I had to do steep turns, climbing and descending turns, constant-rate and constant-airspeed ascents and descents, several different types of stalls, a few maneuvers with reference to the instruments only, turns around a point, engine-out (just throttle pulled back, not actually turning off the engine) glide and decision on where to forced-land it, S-turns along a road, and plenty of other things I'm not thinking of, probably. It was all fun, although a bit bumpy and a bunch windy.
We got back to the airport and did a few landings and trips around the traffic pattern, and then she told me to taxi back in. With a big smile on her face, she told me that she was never scared or really nervous even, so I'd passed. By this point, my grin greatly outdid hers. :D
While she was taking care of the paperwork, I made a couple quick phone calls--one to home and one to a guy from church who lives about 2 miles from the Bluffton airport. He'd never been up in a plane before, so by the time all of the paperwork was finished, he was there. We went up for about a half hour. All of the time and work and money I'd put into the lessons were worth it to see the look in his eyes as we lifted off. It was a blend of amazement and wonder and joy. :)
That's it for now. Expect pictures before too horrible long. Horribly.
PS: Sorry about the formatting. Blogger just doesn't seem to like me. Maybe if I used it more often I'd get better service. :P
Logansville, a small village here in Logan County.
Flooding near Belle Center, which is in the upper part of the screen.
Ridgeway, also nearby.
West Mansfield, near here.
And lastly, Zanesfield, near here.
