From: peted@microsoft.com (Peter Duniho)
Subject: Yet another new private pilot...me!
Date: 28 Aug 92 00:24:49 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.

Well, since I'd been keeping everyone up to date (sort of)
on how things were going during my flight training, I thought
it only made sense to let the net know when I finally made it.
And, as of August 21st, 1992, I am an honest-to-goodness
Private Pilot, Airplane Single-Engine Land!  I finished up
my cross-countries when I got back from MacWorld (had a week
off from flying because I was in Boston the first week of
August for MacWorld Expo), did a checkride with my instructor,
did a checkride with my instructor's boss, and finally on
the 21st, did the real thing!

The long cross-country was just that; long.  But it sure was
fun!  I managed to remember to bring along a can of soda for the
ride, so after that touch-and-go at McMinnville (MMV) in Oregon,
I had something to quench that thirst that came along with a really
warm day.  Oddly enough, of all the various planning that was
involved in making the flight work, I decided that preventing
dehydration (or what could have felt like it, anyway) turned out
to be one of the smartest things to do!  Having something to drink
halfway through was really refreshing, and made the trip back seem
that much easier.  I don't really have much in the way of stories
to tell about the last two cross-countries, even the long one, because
they were both pretty uneventful.  Working with flight following
underscored a couple of points: it's not perfect, since (among other
things) you can fly behind a hill that blocks their radar where the
coverage is pretty far out (I only disappeared from his scope for
a minute or so), and with FF still requires as much attention paid to
traffic as without.  I knew the latter from previous flights with
other people (one with a friend piloting, another a dual flight);
on the long flight as well, I had the experience of seeing relevant
traffic without any notification from FF.

(Actually, that traffic brings me to another issue: I was following
a victor airway, magnetic course of about 170 degrees at 5500 feet,
and the traffic was the same altitude in what appeared to be exactly
the opposite heading (ie, on the same airway, opposite direction).
Does this happen a lot?  It's happened twice to me so far, and it's
pretty disturbing since the closure rate is so fast; I've always
had enough time to avoid a problem, but I still usually don't
see the traffic until it's within a couple of miles, tops (also,
is this distance typical?  should I be seeing traffic sooner than
this?).  Seems to me that spending a little more time talking about
VFR cruising altitudes would help this problem).

Anyway, aside from almost being too short on my emergency landing
(the headwind was stronger than I thought! but I made pavement,
if only the runway before the displaced threshold, so the examiner
said that was okay), everything else went great!  I even handled the
landing into Boeing (BFI) well; it was a busy day, and the controller
had me come in for a short final because of jet traffic on a straight-in,
and did all the right things getting off the big runway, waiting for
clearance across the little runway, and getting back to parking.
I only mention that, because it was probably the most unusual set
of circumstances I've had landing at BFI ever; I imagine that in the
long run, it's not all that uncommon but for me it was a new experience!
I wasn't really sure how it went, but was ecstatic when, after I
shut the plane down, the examiner said "well, I guess I better get
in and start typing up your temporary!"

I celebrated my new license to fly by flying up to Orcas island
with my girlfriend to meet a bunch of other Microsoft pilots for
a little fly-in at Rosario Resort for dinner.  Boy was I relieved
that we had already made plans to stay overnight and do some more
sightseeing the next day; all the other pilots were a bit on the
anxious side when a big thunderstorm came rolling in.  It hung around
for a few hours, but by midnight had cleared up enough for everyone
else to go home.  As for us, we were greeted by a beautiful sunny
day the next day, flew to Friday Harbor (on San Juan island) to spend
the afternoon there, do a little early evening aerial sightseeing
of the San Juans (one's San Juan, all of them are the San Juans)
before heading up to Bellingham (BLI) for dinner at the terminal
building's restaurant (very good food, by the way), and then a
very pleasant sunset/night flight back to BFI.  What a weekend!

So, before I finish up, here's the summary of my time:
        (all hours are rounded)
    63 hours total
    46 hours this time (I had a 17 hour false start about a
        year and a half ago)
    3 of the 46 hours were the checkrides before the real one

I started June 8th and finished up my last cross-country on
August 13th.  I had three weeks that I couldn't fly at all during
that period, two because of weather (honest, it really _is_ supposed
to not rain at all during the summer here in Seattle!) and one
because I was out of town.  Just think how fast I could've
finished it up if I had flown _twice_ a day!  :)

Later...

-- 
Pete Duniho         "Give me a fish, or a mountain, to scale..."
peted@microsoft.com              -- Toy Matinee