The Time Has Come..

So my dear friends, the time has come for my check ride. It is literally right around the corner! Rule of thumb for our school: If you pass your stage 3 test (the test with the main instructor at your school) then your check ride will be just as good, if not better. I am not very nervous at this point, just more looking to learn something from a pilot with thousands of hours in many aircraft.

I wanted to mention something for my future: I don't currently have the funding to continue my education at this point. I will do whatever it takes to finish my training, but at this point my check ride will be the last flight I take until I figure something out.
I will have to borrow money from my fiance in order to pay for my check ride, what a saint he is. 

When it comes to loans, I have them deferred until I get my bachelors degree as long as I am taking classes as a full time student. Once I stop flying, that is no longer the case and I will have to sort things out another way.
Because of my past (and we all know how divorces go) my credit is no longer the gleaming picture it once was to no fault of my own. I will be unable to get a loan without a co-signer (none available to me) until that is fixed and currently it is out of my hands legally. Trust me, if I could have done something about it by now, I would have. So that whole option is out of the question.

My next option is scholarships, grants, and federal aid. The past two years I have been unable to receive federal aid and do not qualify for any grants and I have no idea why. I can get small loans through my college which only help to pay my tuition each semester and is not enough for flight school.
After I receive my license my next goal will be to find and apply for any scholarship that I am eligible for.

The options after that are extremely limited. I've heard of people who have paid for their education (although this is somewhat about 25 years ago) strictly with cash, working two full time jobs to get the money needed for EACH flight. If that is what it takes, that's what I'll do.

Meanwhile, I plan on attempting to self-educate myself about the other certificates I want to get whenever possible, hopefully somewhat minimizing the amount of education I will have to pay for.

If anyone has any other ideas that could help students pay for education, I am begging you to let me know!
Thanks guys, I'll let you know how the check ride goes.

P.S. I plan on editing a video as soon as I have enough footage to edit :)

A helicopter in flight..

So this morning I went on one of my last solo cross-country flights. I ran into (well, not literally) one of my instructors who is getting his fixed wing license while I was transitioning from one town to the other. We had a short chat over the radio and I was on my way. 
Upon my return and landing on runway 35, I looked to my left and saw three blackhawk choppers flying in formation off the runway heading into the distance. It was perhaps the most beautiful sight I've encountered yet! I'm kicking myself for not being able to take a picture or having a camera attached to my head to film it from my perspective.

Which brings me to my point. I've seen many a Youtube video where people have used the GoPro camera. Although I enjoy the idea and I could potentially learn a lot, I don't relish the idea of spending so much money on a camera if it doesn't turn out as practical as I'd like. However, my sporty father who likes to sled has used cameras on his helmets before and they have worked out well.
I'm going to start figuring out how to work his spare camera and using it to film my lessons. Credit to my dad for letting me use his expensive equipment! The next step is trying to figure out how to edit the footage and shape it from a horror movie in slow motion to an action movie with exciting music.

If all goes well, you will be able to learn along with me to the tune of happy music.  Unfortunately, I don't get to listen to the music while I learn so consider yourself lucky :(
I have to find a cable that will attach without being too costly and finding a way to hold the bigger part of the system without being in the way of controls while I fly. It isn't a GoPro, but another competitor close to it, and it should work just as well, if not better! I'm hoping while in flight you will be able to read the gauges along with being able to see clearly outside.

In my head, I don't know if it would be very interesting to watch a lot of videos of someone sitting in a metal ball floating around the sky under a giant fan staring at the ground, but I have to remind myself that not everyone gets to sit in aircraft (helicopters especially) even during their lifetime while I get to sit in them more than a couple times a week.

So I will ask my readers this:

Would you like to see something like that?

 Would it be interesting for someone to watch? 

And what other things could I do to improve and make videos that are entertaining? 

“Why not go out on a limb? That's where the fruit is.” ― Will Rogers

This morning I woke up early like I usually do for work, 5:30 am. This time though, I wasn't going to work. I grabbed my headset bag, my flight plan, sectional, and sunglasses, and headed to the airport.
With the feeling of fall in the air, I tried to huddle up in my hoodie and do my preflight quickly! You can definitely tell that fall is on the way! I set my sunglasses on the empty seat next to me in the helicopter for when the sun came up. Flipping my nav lights on and rolling up the throttle, I lifted off the ground and took to the crisp morning air. The exhilarating feeling of looking to the person next to you and seeing the empty seat instead is a bit of a chilly feeling at first if you are nervous.

"Gggosh! Is that Pottsburg or is that Panstown?"

After a few minutes in the air my mind and body calmed itself and settled into its routine, practiced muscle movements, and training took over. Going into the pattern, calling anyone out there in the world who is listening, and letting them know my intentions was eerie without the sound of other traffic around me or the reply of the ATC tower.

A check ride shouldn't be an extremely hard or daunting task to complete. After all, if you fail, you aren't condemning yourself to never getting your license. You are only postponing it. One fact that I like about check rides is that if you botch something up, it doesn't mean you fail completely! It only means that he will come back at a later date and redo that part of the check ride with you. Unless, of course, there are a lot of things that need work and then you'll get the pink slip.

My home airport on a sectional

My first destination has a golf course right next to it. Usually you get people who stare at the aircraft, watching as we wave back to them while in a hover on the runway. Today, it was the usual golfers who are not phased by a bright orange helicopter flying only a short distance away from them. They were probably more cranky about the fact that the wind from the helicopter was messing up their shot than seeing something out of their ordinary everyday lives.
After that pattern and taking off again, away from that airfield I went. Heading northeast towards the foothills I changed my gps and radio, checked my carburetor heat and looked for my next checkpoint. Curving around the Delta airspace in which I feel at home in, I glanced at my surroundings and tried to block the rising sun from my view by using the windshield.
Winding around towers, watching for crop-dusters and my next airport, it started creeping into my mind the thought of doing a check ride. Although I'm not too worried to do my check ride, it's a little different to think about when you are on the ground, sitting in a warm office with your instructors whom you trust and allow your worries to spill out. It is a completely different matter to think about a check ride when you are alone in the aircraft with the sound of the engine roaring in your ears while you try to summon the courage to realize you are doing it by yourself. No tips from the instructor can echo through your headset now!

 One pointer that I have heard is that if you blow the DPE away on your ground work, then he'll be more likely to make excuses for you on the check ride. Perhaps a wind gust did it? People don't enjoy having their judgement tested. He will be thinking "I really had this one pegged. This one really knows what their talking about!" 


Finally, I came upon the second destination in my flight. Even though I've been to this one several times, I still always have a bit of a hard time spotting that airport. It always seems to pop up on me a couple miles away as I am arriving. Although it was a bit windier, and definitely over the 10 knot report from my home airport only 10 miles away, there is no reporting station there so I could get away with it.
For those who don't know, solo student pilots have a 10 knot limit on flying.
Why not get in the extra practice? I quickly did that pattern and was off onto my next leg of my flight plan, where I had decided to go around one airport which is usually busier and stop off on my last destination. I knew I would be a little late getting back to the airport, but my ground speed was showing 70 with indicated airspeed at 85. I had a headwind.

 If you go into your appointment with a point to learn something, you will come away better on every check ride than before. If you fail, you will know exactly why you failed and it'll be obvious what to do better next time. It also would help you calm your nerves before or during the check ride to try to learn something. After all, he really is just a CFI with another certificate.

In the same sequence if you have too high confidence or too low confidence, it might not look good to your DPE, so keeping that in mind will benefit you either way.

Historic building that my school is in.
Those are our helicopters.

On my way home and knowing another student was waiting for the heli I knew it was no reason to rush. He can sit and wait patiently for me! But one thing that I could do was attempt to efficiently use the wind to push my ground speed faster. I came in for landing on the runway, taxied to my school and set the heli down smoothly.
You never know whether it'll be a good day or bad, and on the other hand if it'll be just another flight in your logbook, or one of your most memorable yet.
Overall, the check ride is nothing to be scared of, just remember that even though it may be nerve-wracking to show them what you can do! You've already done all the hard work. It may be a bad flight in your opinion but if he gives you a handshake and hands you your temporary certificate (remember, it's good for 120 days!) that it'll also be your most memorable to date!