Omnipot

The checkride was close.
All my flight trainings shifted into maneuver brush-ups with Toshi, which wasn't much easy to me.

Slow flight, stall, steep turn, instrument navigation, emergency, forward slip.... all these are the names of maneuvers I must perform at my checkride with FAA examiner.
Well, it's only a checkride for private pilot's license so all of these are said to be the 'basics'. But once you want to pursue the perfection, it'll be quite a long way to go.
(Okay, let's forget about it just for now. I'm not that good.)

Toshi: "Show me power-on stall."
Me: "Okaaaaaay!" (with agressive backpressure resulting in dynamic stall)
Toshi: "You idiot! I don't mind this, but you'll make everyone scared to death!"

He suddenly cuts off the power and says,
Toshi: "Now, it's an emergency. What would you do?"
Me: "Oh, wow, wow"
Toshi: "Don't tell me wow-wows! You'll have only one chance or die!"

So I was dead for several times.

There are many different landings too. Normal landing, Short field landing, Soft field landing, Obstacle landing...etc.
You can also slip the aircraft from high altitude and let it descend tremendously. (That was fun)

Anyway I wasn't good at those too.
Toshi: "Okay, I'll be relaxing here. Land softly."
Me: "Al-righty!!!"
(And hit the ground with dynamic impact with several bounces...)
Toshi: "Goddammit!!! You wanna ruin the aircraft or what!?"

......I'm sorry....

In spite of all these, I finally got scheduled for my checkride. Phew.
Thank you so much Toshi.

Written Nov.11 2006 Naoko

I finally had a checkride this day. Woke up at 5 o'clock, arrived the school at 7, and said hello to Mr.Blalock, the FAA examiner.

First was the oral exam, which made me little nervous and some questions were difficult. The whole oral exam took several hours (it was a long, meaningful conversation) and thankfully, he said okay to me.

The actual checkride has started from 3 p.m. The wind was 330 (slight crosswind) and the wind velocity was between 7kts to 17kts. I repeated in my mind "I've done this before, I can do it" and I took off with Mr.Blalock.

He asked me to do some basic maneuvers such as slow flights and steep turns. At the same time, he has demonstrated a dynamic turns which made the aircraft bank more than 90 degrees! (I could never forget about that moment)

The checkride took exactly one hour. It was good thing that I did my landings bit smoother than usual.
So what has become of the result?

I PASSED!!! WOOHOO!!

Am I really a private pilot now? Really? No kidding?
I was almost afraid if this was all my dream and I'd wake up soon!

Toshi came to me, smiling, and we shook hands.
I couldn't find any other word but saying "Thank you very much" to him.
How could I explain all my feelings? Thankfulness?

He taught me how to fly, but he also taught me how to face the real world. The training was about aircraft, but he has trained my spirit as well.

The total flight time was 55hr, including the checkride.

Written Nov.13 2006 Naoko