This is my time.

A successful flight today. By no means perfect but I was generally happy with the way things went. Hard to explain but I just have a much better mental handle on the whole thing. I know what I need to do. I also know that I can do this.

Bob and I had a brief conversation about timelines. He’s not going to be available for one weekend this month. We both agreed that would be a perfect opportunity for me to do a full practice flight test with another instructor.

In reality I’m going to treat this like my actual flight test. For all intents and purposes it’ll be exactly the same. The ground portion, the flight itself, all with someone I’ve never flown with before. Someone I’m going to feel mildly uncomfortable in the cockpit with. Someone who’s little quirks I don’t know and someone who doesn’t know me that well.

 Although it sounds daunting it means I’m in the awesome position of effectively having to pass my flight test on the second attempt!

By the time the real thing comes around, I’ll have “been there, done that!”

Happy that we were both on the same page as far as this goes, Bob asked me about my plans for our next lesson. “It’s your prep time now, for your flight test. Tell me what you want to do.”

I thought for a moment. “Let’s go for it, let’s do a complete practice flight test together.  As realistic as possible. I think I can do all the manoeuvres now but I want to get a sense of how it all pans out time wise. I need to get a feel for the pacing because at the moment I just don’t see how it all fits into such a short flight”

Bob agreed that this was an excellent idea. “ground portion and all?” he asked.

I nodded and paused briefly before adding “can you send me a practice flight planning scenario as well? The day before or something? Like I’d get from the examiner.”

Bob didn’t hesitate in agreeing that this was another good idea.

This is my time for sure. It’s my time to get my license. It’s so close I can almost feel it.