As of 6:00PM today, I am FINALLY an INSTRUMENT RATED PILOT!  WOHOO!!

Well, today started off exciting!  My checkride was scheduled for 3:30PM over in Pasco Washington.  I fly out of Ellensburg, so it’s a good hour flight just to get to Pasco.  Last Thursday I was supposed to take this test, but all the IFR planes were grounded!  Urgh!

So, I get to the airport, spend HOURS on my flight plan, and reviewing the approaches I would be doing for the test.  I called Flight Service and found out the ILS was out of service at Pasco!  Aaahh!  I am required to do a precision approach for the test, so decided we’d just go another 36 miles down to Walla Walla. 

Next setback… the chief flight instructor decides he won’t let me go as I wouldn’t be getting back until around 8, and doesn’t want me coming back at night since I am not night current.  (but, I’m not carrying any passengers)  Anyway, a half hour later, the examiner agrees to speed things up so I can get done before 7:00.

Well, I get there, we start filling out all the paper work and all that stuff.  The oral itself was maybe 45 minutes… at the very most.  All that time I spent on performance calculations, and the flight plan.  Just for two questions, not even related to it. lol pfft… He asked two questions about lost com, a couple about filing alternates, one about instruments, asked some questions about charts and symbology, and boom! We were done. 

But… then he said, well, do you have the other charts for Walla Walla?  I said sure, I hadn’t looked at them as I was just planning on doing the ILS into Walla Walla and doing the other approaches back into Pasco.  So, he said, well, let’s just do all of our approaches over there.  So, we decided to get vectors for the ILS, full procedure NDB (Yikes, I hadn’t done an NDB approach in at least 18 months!) then partial panel VOR.  Well, at this point I didn’t know to be excited, as this gives me an excuse in case I don’t do so hot, or the opposite… it’s a disaster!  I had never flown to Walla Walla before, and hadn’t even looked at the charts before that time in his office!  And that was extremely brief.

So, 45 minutes later we finally get out to Walla Walla and do the ILS.  BEAUTIFUL!  It went great, had those needles pegged the entire way down!  Did a missed approach, then did the NDB… that went great actually!  Thank you God for not having ANY wind that day!!  Then the partial panel actually went quite well also.  I was very pleased.  We went missed, he told me to take my hood off, and said congratulations, you did excellent! 

WOW!  I felt incredible!  He said that he was very impressed with my flying, especially the fact that I didn’t even have proper time to prepare for those approaches.  He said it would have been impressed if that was my home base!  How cool is that?! 

I’m proud of my successful comeback in such a limited time, considering the setbacks I had! Lol  This officially closes a significant chapter in my life!  I’m glad to move on now. 

I just want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who gave me advice and even read my rants about everything!
Commercial license, here I come!!

Congrats Boss!!
now make your first ILS approch, and see if tower respond in a blue box with letters (thinking of MSFS ATC)

Cheers Theis

Congrats Boss!  My CFI says I'm ready for my instrument.... I just need to get that whole PPL thing out of the way first

Thanks guys!  Yeah, I woke up this morning and the sun seemed a bit brighter this morning. lol Now I get to go home and see the BLUE ANGELS!  Wohoo!  Good timing I'd say, specially since they arrived yesterday!

You may think about taking some time off once you get your PPL.  At least take some time to fully enjoy and take advantage of your new privilege.  I didn't and completely regret it! lol

Anyway, thanks again!

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Well, that really doesn't fit into my strategy-for the nine months that I'm in school, my parents will pay for my flying no questions asked, it's only the summer that I need to help out. 

So, financially wise, it's best I fly as much as possible during the school year-I turn 17 in February, I'll get my PPL and continue straight on-my CFI is actually planning on starting me on instrument stuff before I even go on my PPL checkride