Flyboy's Long Farewell, or Make Way for Greasemonkey

Let's talk about my flight training. Just where the heck am I with all that, anyway? The short answer is, pretty darn close to the end. As I mentioned previously, I have a new instructor, Mike, who is just about the best thing that's ever happened to me, as far as flight training's concerned. He's got me seeing things differently, which means I'm performing better than I ever have before. When he first started teaching me, he told me I was a little behind the curve on some things, in part because of the quality (or lack thereof) of my prior instruction. When we finished my flight period today, he told me I'm pretty much on top of things now. That's quite a change for one month of sporadic flight periods. So I've got to finish honing a few maneuvers and get some oral exam stuff locked into my brain, and I"ll be ready for my commercial check ride. Realistically, I'll most probably be a commercial pilot before the end of September.

Also, I just had a conversation this afternoon with Belinda (former instructor/assistant chief flight instructor), and she's agreed to do a little bit of instrument review with me when I've finished my commercial and she's finished teaching Private Ground Training (probably mid-October). In order for my instrument rating to remain valid, I have to do at least 6 instrument approaches along with holding procedures and VOR tracking within the previous 6 months. Failing that, I get an additional 6-month grace period to meet those requirements, otherwise my instrument raiting is useless to me until I complete an instrument proficiency check. All that said, I haven't done ANY instrument work since my instrument check ride back in March, so I'm due. In fact, by the time I get to doing my review with Belinda, I'll be somewhere in the first month of that grace period. I'm sure Mike would gladly do the instrument stuff with me, but I'm also sure he's got his own way of doing things. With Belinda, I already know what the expectations are and what she's going to be looking for. Seems easier that way.

Now let's talk about AMT (my mechanic program). AMT is a 15-month program, broken into five three-month phases. Phase 1 is General; it's sort of an overview of everything we're going to cover in detail in the other four phases. Phases 2 and 3 are what get me my Airframe rating, and phases 4 and 5 are for my Powerplant rating. Phase 1 ends with a final exam on September 25. As it currently stands, I'm fairly sure I'm at the top of my class (although my whole class is only 9 people) and I'm really enjoying the program. The Powerplant instructor told me one day after class that Phase 1 is, at least in his opinion, the hardest phase, so if I'm doing okay with this one, I shouldn't have any real trouble finishing the whole show. That's great news! And since this is September 2008, we've (or at least, I've) started to mentally count down the time we're in Douglas, rather than counting up. What I mean is, I used to say, "Man, we've been here 2 years and one month already. How much longer will it be?" Now I'm saying, "We only have twelve more months before it's time to move to wherever God sends us next." It's the greatest feeling in the world, being able to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.