Before I go into detail, I suppose I should first just say that my checkride went splendidly and I'm now the proud possessor of a private pilot's certificate with 42.5 logged hours. Surprisingly, I find that I'm actually more excited about this accomplishment than I was when I graduated from college. I suppose that might be indicative of misplaced priorities, but college felt like something that I simply had to do. Sure, when I was done I had put in a lot of work and succeeded at something difficult, but it had been something that was practically a requirement, so it wasn't all that remarkable that I did it. Nobody gives you a ceremony when you properly raise your kids, although I'm sure that's not an easy task. But it's just something that's expected of you. Learning to fly, on the other hand, was a mountain that I climbed willingly and purely because I wanted to, and I guess that's why there's a greater sense of reward when I reach the peak. Besides, my college degree doesn't let me do anything nearly as fun as flying an airplane. (OK, maybe indirectly it does).

So, now I'm a pilot. What does that mean? The biggest difference between the student pilot certificate I had during training and my private pilot certificate is that now I can legally carry passengers. So now we'll have to see who I can sucker into being my first passengers.

Onward to the recounting, then. The evening before the checkride was spent working frantically to prepare everything I needed, planning a cross-country flight from Hammond, LA (HDC) to Lake Charles, LA (LCH), etc. I suppose I could have done nothing more than the standard cross-country planning I've learned to do during my training, and it wouldn't strictly have been wrong, but the objective was to demonstrate that I knew how to perform every step of the process correctly, so, just like showing your work on a math test, I was advised to prepare a binder where I carefully highlighted the ways I had used all of the various performance charts to calculate the airplane's expected performance, calculated how much of a correction angle I would have to fly on each leg to compensate for wind drift, etc.

I'm generally someone who favors function over form, and I'm not usually one to worry too much about making things pretty, so it was weird to realize how much I enjoyed the process of preparing that binder, using different colors of highlighters to reflect the conditions at the start of the flight vs. the end of the flight, or conditions at ground level vs at cruise altitude. Maybe I missed my calling as a secretary.

I was actually kind of disappointed that the examiner only briefly paged through the binder, glancing over everything to be sure it looked right. Examiner! See how each performance chart has the resulting figures neatly printed and outlined in a pink box? Doesn't that look nice? He did comment that it was a very good idea to prepare the binder, and that if I do that for each of my checkrides for future certificates, I'll be in good shape. I suppose that will have to do. And at least now I have a nice, handy reminder of my experience that I can go back and look at years from now.

Overall, the entire experience was much less stressful than I anticipated. I had to wait to get the forecast winds aloft until the morning of the exam, since the values forecast the night before are not as accurate. But about half of the navigation calculations depend on the winds aloft, so I basically had to leave a full half of my calculations to be done the morning of the exam. I had my checkride scheduled for 1pm, so I arrived at the flight school at 11am to check the weather and finish my preparations. Even so, I was rushing to get things done as 1pm rolled around, and if the examiner hadn't ended up being late, I wouldn't have been done before he arrived.

But he was late, so things worked out fine, and I even had five or six minutes to calm my racing, stressed-out heartbeat before he walked in the door. He had flown to Hammond in his un-airconditioned homebuilt plane, so he was actually sweatier than I was, which did wonders to set me at ease. It also helped that he was incredibly friendly and kind.

So we sequestered ourselves in the exam room for the oral portion of the exam, which lasted about two hours. This was the part that I had been most nervous about, because there's such an incredible amount to know, and I had been having trouble remembering the more esoteric, less-frequently-used parts of the regulations. But it turned out that I had been way more worried about it than I needed to be. The oral exam really felt more like a friendly conversation about airplanes rather than a test. He asked me questions, mostly about the commonly-used aspects of aviation that anyone with 40 hours of flying experience really should know by heart, like, "What are the magic words you can say to ATC to make use of their radar services?" (Answer: "VFR Flight Following"), and after I answered, he would generally tell me some kind of story, either from aviation history or his own experience, to underline why that information is important. For the most part, the questions weren't dry, exam-like questions like "What is the minimum altitude you can fly over a national park?" He stuck more to hypothetical, situation-based questions to see how I would handle being a pilot in the real world, like, "You've just gotten your license and you're about to set off on a cross-country trip with your family. You told them that you could only carry 50 lbs of luggage, but they brought along more than that. What do you do?" (Answer: Explain to them that we will either need to leave some luggage here or drain some fuel before leaving and stop for fuel halfway, which will add an hour or two to the length of the flight).

He also asked if, based on the weather report I had obtained that morning, I would have set off the hypothetical cross-country flight he had had me plan out. I answered that no, I wouldn't — there were some storms that were supposed to move in over Lake Charles later in the day, and while supposedly I should be able to make it there before the storm rolled in (as long as everything went according to plan), I wouldn't be comfortable taking that chance — weather can come in faster than they predict, or the winds can behave differently than forecast and you could have a headwind the whole way there, etc. He said that that was fine — more experienced pilots might decide that it's a comfortable margin and make the flight, but it's all about what I'm comfortable with, and if I don't feel comfortable making the flight, then it's absolutely correct to postpone it.

So the oral exam went well. Next we headed out to the plane and set off on the practical portion of the exam. He had me do a short-field takeoff, and then we flew out away from the airport and climbed up to 3,000 feet, and then he had me perform the high-altitude maneuvers: steep turns, slow flight, power-off and power-on stalls. Those all went well, and I didn't have any problem keeping it well within the established tolerances.

It had been explained to me that a good sign that you've failed is if the instructor has to take the controls — as long as his hands stay off the yoke, you're probably fine. It was disappointing, then, when he took the controls and said, "OK, my airplane." I started to wonder what I had done, until he told me to put on the view-limiting goggles. Ahh, good, we're still in business.

Once I had the goggles on, he turned the plane back over to me, and had me do some instrument flying — maintaining a heading, altitude, and speed, turning to a heading, climbing to a given altitude, etc. Then he did the same thing I did with Mike at night last month — he took the controls and had me look down at my lap, he did crazy things with the plane, and then he turned the controls back to me and had me recover back to straight-and-level flight as quickly as possible. I think I did pretty well there too, not just leveling the wings and nose but also adding power if I was slow and cutting power if I was fast.

He took the controls again to let me take the goggles off, and then when I had the controls again, he pulled my power and had me set up for an emergency landing. We were conveniently right above the interstate, I-12, so I selected that as my landing spot and went through the attempted engine restart procedure as we descended down to 1,000 feet, at which point he had me add power and level off.

Now we were conveniently at the right altitude for performing the ground-reference maneuvers (which have to be done between 600 and 1000 feet above ground level), so he had me select an altitude (I chose 900 feet) and perform turns around a point and S-turns across the interstate (it's curious that in 11 years of driving, I've never noticed a plane doing S-turns above me as I drive down the highway).

With that done, he had me navigate back to the airport with the VOR beacon. I didn't forget to ID the VOR (listen to its morse-code identifying signal, to be sure you've tuned the right beacon and it's working properly), and I tracked it in pretty straight. Throughout all of this he was asking me various questions, like where I would set the plane down if we were to lose power at this point (away from the interstate and at only 1500 feet). When we got back to the airport, we did some touch-and-gos so I could show him different types of landings and takeoffs. They were pretty good — the only aspect I'd like to have done better on is my short-field landing. I've always had trouble making those smooth, and this was no exception. When I'm trying to get the plane down right at the very start of the runway, I usually end up dropping it to the ground a little harder than is comfortable. It was well within tolerances and certainly in no danger of causing any damage or anything, but firmer than the average passenger would like it to be. But he didn't comment on it, so I guess it wasn't too bad.

He actually did something to me that Mike had never done — he pulled my power right on takeoff, at only around 100 feet off the ground. I knew in my head what to do in that situation but it was the first time I had to actually pull it out and use it. There wasn't enough altitude to turn around and land on the runway, so the proper procedure would have been to just land straight ahead. Odds are we wouldn't have been able to come to a full stop before we hit the trees past the end of the runway, but I'd rather roll into some trees at 20 mph than try and turn around and end up crashing off field altogether. And, as I've heard so often, it's important to "fly the plane to the accident site," meaning even if the plane hits the ground and you've "crashed," don't just sit back and hold on and wait for it to stop rolling/sliding — there are still things you can do to improve your chances, such as steering between two trees so that the wings hit them instead of the main fuselage.

Of course, we didn't take it that far — once I had made my decision to land straight ahead and established my optimum glide speed, he let me add power again and continue climbing. When we had done all of the rest of the types of takeoffs and landings, he told me to fly back around the pattern and position myself at 1000 feet abeam the end of the runway, right where we had left off the first emergency landing, and then he pulled my power to let me continue the earlier emergency procedure and set the plane on the ground with no power. He said that if I didn't scare him, this would be a full-stop landing and we would be done. We made it down just fine (and it was actually a fairly smooth, soft landing), so we taxied back to the flight school, I shut down the engine, and the test was over. He said that I had done very well and that I had a good instructor, and we headed inside to complete the paperwork.

When I had paid and was getting ready to head home, I was struck by a sense of shock at the fact that I wouldn't be back the next day. Over the course of the last few months I've settled into a comfortable routine, and a regular part of my life is waking up every morning and driving to the flight school and socializing with all the friendly instructors. I've become friends with many of them, and I found myself lamenting the fact that I'll no longer have that daily social visit anymore. This is going to be such a change, figuring out what to do with those four extra hours every day. It will also be a shock to suddenly no longer be spending $150 every single day, but I think that one will be easier to get used to. I think I'm coming to terms with that one already.