Alan\’s Blog

I just thought I would share this story. I have to take a break from reading the FAR/AIM.

Today I went to the Airport to take a final prog check with my instructor to get signed off for my Checkride. There was a 2000 ft cieling and 14kt winds so we didn’t go for that, but after talking about the Oral exam for a while, I decided to go do some touch and goes.

I made two great short field landings and went around for another. As I was abeam the numbers I pulled my throttle and went to pull my carb heat and the whole knob came off in my hand. It was like one of those movies where someone pulls the break and the handle breaks off. I was left with a knob with about 6 inches of cable hanging off of it . It was 80 degrees and I was at 1400 ft so I wasn’t too worried about carb ice, but it was amusing nonetheless. The worst part is now the plane is grounded until it gets fixed, and the other 172 has a cylinder out, so my makeup flight for tomorrow will have to be rescheduled. I work in retail now and its getting to the time of year when rescheduling is not easy.
Karma has not been my friend lately. I’ll have to go help an old lady cross the street or something.

I thought I would start one of these blogs since I spend so much time reading them.  Right now I am at 52 hours and I am waiting to take my Checkride for my Private Pilot Certificate.  Once this is done my plan is to get to 85hrs with 25 x-country PIC time to attend ATP at the beginning of January.  Right now I am a retail store manager and enjoy the work sometimes, but don’t nearly have the love for it that I do for flying.  To think that someone would pay you to fly is beyond me.  I hope to instruct at ATP or anywhere else that will get me extensive Multi time when I am done with the ACPP at ATP and work my way to the regionals. I think after looking at all my options this is the better way for me, because of the immersion training methods that allow me to focus soley on flying.  I have always been good at learning , but I am definately better when learning under pressure.  I will probably go back through my log book and post some about my Private Pilot experiences while I can still remember them all, but for now thats it.