I had to fly down to Winter Have (GIF) to do it, but I did it!  The weather was beautiful at OCF, but it was a 300’ ceiling at GIF. Fortunately, Alan was flying down with me, filed IFR and shot a GPS approach. Weeeeee.

My “Oral” consisted of 3 pages of questions that I filled out. Sweet. Wipe the sweat off the brow. I don’t do well with tests, but if given a choice, I’ll take a written any day of the week over an Oral.  Because the clouds were so bad that morning, Chuck (The Designated Flight Examiner, DPE) had to finish up with another pilot before we could go. So I sat on the dock with my stomach twisting, watching Sea Planes take off and land.

He finally came back and asked me to go pre-flight.  Afterwards, we climbed in and taxied to the runway where he wanted a normal take off and landing.  Here we go!  My landing was flat. Grrrr, but he didn’t touch the controls. So far, so good.  There was no one behind us, so he told me to set up for a soft field take off there on the runway. That threw me a bit as I knew to keep moving. So I’m rolling at ‘taxi speed’ when it dawns on me that I just need to go! I gun it and had a nice take off.  The Landing was PERFECT! I added a touch of power at the right time, greased the landing and the nose wheel never came down. “All your landings should be like that” was Chuck’s response.  We took off again (Normal) and went out for our maneuvers.

We started with turns around a point. Okay, I can do this. I entered downwind and started.  Not my best, but I didn’t botch it completely. After one rotation he had me climb to do some stalls. Right on! Here I’m confident.  “Let me do some clearing turns first”. I think Chuck liked that, too I think he liked that I was chatty and telling him what I was doing as I was doing it.

3 Power on stalls (one straight ahead, one turning left and one turning right) and on to slow flight. I was still slowing her down (going about 55 knots wanted her down to 40-45) when he said to give him a power off stall.  “Don’t you want slow flight?” I asked. “You’re doing it” Oooookay.  I was just thinking I could go slower, but I think I got a check mark in the maneuver so I wasn’t going to question it.  Once again, did 3.

I then put on the hood and did some Instrument work, he then asked me to put my head down and turn right, left etc.  As I did, I could feel the plane start to pull pretty badly. He then said recover, I looked up first at airspeed (which was falling - Add Power!) then at the AI (which was pitched up - drop the nose!) and the pulling? My flaps were down. I reached over and Chuck muttered “Dang, you’re catching on to my tricks”.  I think I got big fat green check mark for that one.

Engine out time. This sucks. I looked everywhere for the airport, of course where did I not look? The freakin’ GPS. I was too busy gabbing away “Well first I’m going to put her at her best glide speed of 65 knots. Now I’m going to look for a place to put her” WHERE’S THE FREAKIN’ AIRPORT? Finally I picked a field, very wide, very long and favorable for the winds. “Okay, I’m going to put her in that brown field over there. Now I’m going to troubleshoot the cockpit, fuel, power, radios, blah blah blah” Chuck just kept nodding. Finally I said “Well, we’re still high, so I’m going to do some banking turns to lose this altitude” at this point we just chatted like we didn’t have a care in the world. “You know skydivers do this, just hang out as long as they can banking back and forth” I muttered something back, don’t remember, but I’m sure in a real emergency we wouldn’t be so calm.  Finally we got to about 1000’ feet and he said “You’ve got the field made, let’s go back. Oh, and by the way, see that red water tower over there? That’s Wings of Flight, that’s where Sarah Palin is right now, oh and the Airport is behind us”.  Yup. I could have made it. Oh well, he did say ‘we were landing on grass and dirt long before asphalt’.

That’s it?!?!  No S-Turns? No steep turns? No VOR Tracking? No Short Fields? WHEW! I may actually do this thing!! “Give me a no flap landing” ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! DAMN.  Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap. Okay. I can do this. I can I can I can.  Well, I can do the slip to land, but I know Chuck doesn’t like slips. Mike said I can do it without slipping, but we didn’t cover it! He just TOLD me it can be done....crap crap crap.

I turned final and realized I was way too high. “Mind if I slip to land?” I squeeked out. “It’s your plane, do what you have to” was his reply.  I dipped the wing and stepped on the rudder.  I got her down fast without picking up airspeed, but I was still a tad fast and bounced the landing.  I stopped her and Chuck says “My controls” and starts our taxi back. Damn. That’s it. I failed. “You know, you could have extended your downwind and landed without doing that slipping crap”.  My mind is beating itself up ‘I told you he doesn’t like slips. Way to go Sarah, you screwed the pooch’. 

“Your slip was good though”.  One tiny sliver in my gloom.  He parked the plane, I shut down and he climbed out.  Alan was walking up and as I was securing the cockpit and the plane I saw them talking.  Chuck then walked off and Alan came up to me with a smile and his hand up for a high five. “I passed? Are you sure?”  I was afraid to celebrate.  Chuck hollered that he was gonna grab a quick lunch and meet us in his office for some paperwork.

I knew a bunch of people were waiting to hear how it went, but I was still afraid. Alan assured me that I was done, but I was afraid to hit the send button on a text that would tell everyone I did it.  “What if I send it, and he comes back in here and says ‘Oops, I made a mistake, you’re not a pilot yet’”  I seriously didn’t believe it until I had that giant Temporary Certificate in my hand. WHOO HOO! I’m official!

The flight back to OCF was just plain FUN.  No stomach twisties, no potential questions rolling through my brain, No ‘eek!’ factor. Just flying.  Too, Sarah Palin was due to speak at West Port High School which is just below the OCF pattern.  Well, a little to the right...so we made a wider pattern that day. Big deal.  (She left Wings of Flight and went straight to West Port. You could say she was following us! haha) Saw everyone in the field, the stage and the traffic! Oy!

Let’s just say, my landing at OCF was once again, not the best in my logbook, and as Alan looked at me with a pained expression, I said “Screw it, I’m a Private Pilot now!”, I laughingly made the call that I was clear of the runway and I think Alan made a noise which prompted someone to key the mic and say “You two sound like you’re having entirely too much fun”.  They had no idea.

Oh, and my first official passenger landing (Alan’s a CFI, so does he really count as first passenger? Hummmm) with Holly and my Dad was waaaaaaay better than the one right before.

NOW, would anyone like to donate money to the “Make Sarah an Instrument Pilot” Fund?????