One Flight From Going Home

I have some really good news and some not so good news. First the good: I have been put on the fast track the last few weeks and now I am only a checkride away from being done with this program. The bad news is that I am scheduled to do that on Tuesday morning and that coincides with a rare phenomenon around here called STORMS. Yes, once again the storms that are required to take place weekly by Arkansas law are supposed to take place Tuesday through Thursday.

I flew a few times this past week and even got proficiency advanced through a flight (didn't have to fly it, just got credit for it) to get me to take a tactical emergency procedures evaluation (EPE). EPEs could equate to a verbal checkride to ensure that you know your required knowledge. It is usually a big grilling by an instructor and not the most fun to see what penguins have fallen off your iceberg. They all say we have "knowledge icebergs" and that penguins represent bits of information. You can only fit so many penguins on the iceberg until some start to fall off...the idea is to have the penguins that the instructors are looking for on the iceberg when they are looking for them. Granted my iceberg floats in warmer water and is therefore smaller, but the instructors still do penguin inventory on my iceberg.

Anyway, I somehow got ahead of most of my class and I was supposed to have the EPE with one of the toughest instructors and by myself. To do an EPE is bad enough, but normally they will do them with another student which gives you some support and if you really don't know something or are way off, they will usually say something to help you out. I was worried about it, but my prayers were answered and the instructor cancelled and I had an extra day to study. On top of that, I got to do it with two other students...one being my roommate Peaches. The EPE went really well and wasn't nearly as bad as I had thought.

That leaves me with one checkride, which is comprised of two routes. If all goes well, you fly them back to back and it takes you a couple of hours to fly and then you are done and can start to out-process. The "plan" is to fly Tuesday morning (weather cooperating) and then start out-processing which will probably take me into Wednesday morning. After out-processing, I will pick up a U-Haul for Candi to load and then after I get back from golf, I will inspect the packing of the truck. If all is still on schedule, we will leave for the 1823 mile joy ride on Thursday morning. The biggest things will be 1) passing the checkride, 2) having good weather to fly, and 3) having no maintenance problems on the plane. Long story short, keep me in your thoughts and prayers this week and I just might get out of here.

Other than packing, we really haven't been doing a whole lot. Candi and I went on a walk along the river this weekend and we saw a swan. I had never seen one, outside the Cloverdale Cemetery grounds, and they are huge. The one we saw looked like an ostrich in the water with its long neck. Here is a picture and this beast was a long ways away.

Well, hopefully next post will be from the road or from Idaho. Monday is a down day for all training bases throughout the Air Force since we have had three fatal crashes in the last month with student pilots and instructors. We have to attend a briefing to talk about safety, but we can't fly...and of course it is supposed to be clear and nice weather! Remember me on Tuesday! C-YA!