Stranded In The Southland

Friday, July 04, 2008

Checked Out On A New Plane

So, I went ahead and got checked out on the new aircraft, which involved over an hour of flying around, demonstrating steep turns and stalls and all that, plus some touch-and-goes at an alternate airport. The touch-and-goes were actually useful, as my instructor signed me off to fly solo over to the new airport (right near my house) so I could practice, which should be a big win.

I also go signed off to take my written test, finally. I had previously thought that, because all of the questions and answers were available, that this would be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, the FAA doesn't do such a great job of building tests; there are a bunch of questions for which you simply have to memorize the correct answer, rather than reason from knowledge. There are questions about which map to use for which kind of planning that make almost no sense at all. C'est la vie -- I've almost finished memorizing the correct answers, so hopefully I'll get a decent score.

I'm delighted that I've been able to make some more progress on this. I'll try to keep up the momentum!