Dan’s Pilot Times

Although I don’t really have time at the moment to write more about my private pilot checkride yesterday, I can simply say that I PASSED!  Obviously I’m super thrilled and proud to have completed this journey.  Over the next day or so I’ll find the time to write about the actual test experience…but I simply had to provide a quick update!  {Off to work now.}

I finally got around to taking the FAA Private Pilot written knowledge test today and passed it!  With a score of 90%, I think that may qualify as heartily passed it, dare I say, even aced it?!  In any case, I was stressing much more about the exam than necessary, it really wasn’t bad at all.  You get 150 minutes (2.5 hours) to answer 60 multiple choice questions (each with 3 possible choices).  That was way more than enough time as I finished in about 50 minutes (and I took my time).  It’s a computerized testing system, with the ability to ‘mark’ questions and come back if need be.  So, I breezed through the 50 or so questions that I could answer instantly or with little/simple calculations.  The other 10 I came back to and worked about 6 of those with multi-step calculations, the remaining 4 I took confident educated guesses because I simply didn’t feel like working on them much more knowing I had likely passed with plenty of buffer.

I never took an official ground school class, just learning from the Gleim Publications books – the Pilot Handbook to learn the theory and rules, and the Private Pilot FAA Knowledge Test Prep book to prepare for this test.  As I mentioned in my last blog post, learning from books only cost me about $40 (verus $200-$300 for full ground school course).  I would definitely recommend these books, and the Pilot Handbook will be a great reference to check back on when needed in the future.

All that’s left now is about 1 more hour of standard solo practice flight time, and then my practical test!

This past lesson was my first with simulated instrument flying (IFR), or “flying under the hood” (it’s really just a big visor). I heard and read all about relying 110% on your instruments when in the clouds/fog, but I never fully understood the truth behind that until now. At one point my CFI had me fly straight then close my eyes. Then, I had to perform small turns and “level the plane” by feeling. Upon opening my eyes, I found I was in a fairly steep descending right turn (and had I not had instruments to correct me, I would be a goner). Needless-to-say, it is indeed critical to solely trust your instruments when flying IFR …your body does get disoriented and your feelings become totally unreliable. Anyways, we flew around with me under the hood for 0.6 hours, then we worked our way back to Westosha using VOR navigation techniques. On final approach, my CFI had me flip off the IFR visor and I landed the plane visually (thankfully). Considering I had only about 2 minutes of full sight before landing, I was pretty satisfied with the quality of my touchdown.

Before flying, we actually also worked on my pre-solo written test. It wasn’t that hard as I’ve kept up on my textbook reading and it’s all stuff we’ve covered countless times during the lessons. Now all I need is another CFI to just do a quick “pre-solo check flight” with me (a rule of our flight club). Once that’s complete, my CFI said I’m totally ready to fly solo. Woohoo!

This lesson I logged 0.9 hours of total flight time.