Getting Back Into Flying
The astute reader of this journal may notice that A) I've been very busy this summer as evidenced by the total lack of posts, B) I haven't flown since April, and C) that I only flew once in April and the time before that was in February.
Oddly enough, I did buy a share in a plane to help with my flight training. However, because I don't yet have a pilot's license, I can't actually... fly it. I could fly it with an instructor, but my instructor lives in Santa Fe and my plane lives in Los Alamos. So I am currently paying a (albeit reasonably low) monthly fee to look at an airplane I own as I drive by on my way to work. In November, we're re-doing our insurance for the plane, and I'll have to be on it this time. If I'm still a student pilot, it'll cost me an extra $400 to be insured. So it's in my financial interest to get off my ass and finish my license.
Unfortunately, I have a bunch of travel coming up in October... so that basically gives me this month to finish it up. Luckily, I was basically done with all of the training when I stopped flying in February (due to a sudden relocation to Kazakhstan). First step is the written exam. I'm taking that.... today. In five hours.
I've been studying like mad using the "Study Buddy" over at Sporty's to great effect. There are 60 questions on the exam pulled from a pool of almost 700 questions. The pool of questions and the correct answers are available at Sporty's along with a helpful tool for studying. A buddy, if you will. At this point, I get about 98% right when I run through the entire pool. Given that the passing grade is 70%, I shouldn't have a problem. The real goal, though, isn't just to pass... it's to beat Momo's score (98%) to score as high as possible because the difficulty of the oral exam is scaled inversely to the performance on the written.
Given that I will pass the test today, I begin getting my actual flying ability back up to speed on Monday night. I'm not sure how long or how many flights it will take me to get back to the point where I can pass a checkride. Once I'm ready, Michael will sign me off for taking the oral and practical, then I'll schedule that with an examiner. Assuming I pass that, I will be issued a private pilot's license immediately.
From there, the next step will be to get onto the insurance for my 182. The insurance requires me to have 10 hours in the plane with an instructor before I can fly solo. Also, because it is a high-performance aircraft, I require a high-performance endorsement from an instructor before I can fly it solo. These two things will happen at the same time. Michael suggested that we also throw in a mountain flying endorsement, and just do a long weekend where we fly the 182 all over the place including perhaps some landings at Leadville, CO (the highest airport in the US) and Aspen, CO. With the successful completion of this training, I will be certified to fly my own plane, carry passengers, etc. And then the fun (and draining of the bank account) can really begin.
