Meanwhile, there's the written exam

In addition to all of the flying, there is a theory and written component to flight training. I took ground school in the fall and finished it just before Christmas. I really enjoyed it. Being an academic, I'm pretty happy in a classroom, although this is very new and different content than I have ever encountered before. The general topic areas covered are air law, weather, navigation, and aeronautics.

There was no exam in the ground school itself. Student pilots do the Transport Canada written exam at some point during their training, according to their own timing and schedule. I attended every class of ground school but didn't do a lot of reading during that time so during January and February, while the weather was bad, I studied hard for my written exam.


I did a computerized practice exam and numerous written and online practice questions to prepare myself and assess my readiness. Today I wrote the actual exam. It's a 100 question, 3 hour, multiple choice, computer administered exam, which I wrote at my own flight school. It tests the four areas that are taught in ground school. It took me 2 hours and 15 minutes. I found it totally fair but pretty difficult. I was exhausted when I finished. I didn't have a good feeling about my performance. I went to get the chief flight instructor so he could get my score and I apologized to him in advance because I wasn't even sure I passed. Well, haha, I did pass and I did great! I was amazed! I truly couldn't believe it! What a relief!  

Finishing that exam is a big step in the right direction. I'm glad to have it behind me and I'm pleased, after all, with how I did. It's validating!

My big scary flight

Finally, finally, finally I was able to do the dreaded solo flight out to the practice area to work on the upper air exercises (stalls, steeps turns, slow flight). I've been waiting since mid-January and I was so nervous about this. Sick with worry. But today, the weather was beautiful and it was time to suck it up and fake it till I make it.


Naturally, it wasn't nearly as bad as I had imagined it would be. I just went out there and did my thing. Being a nice day, the practice area airspace was a little busy. That was actually good, though, because I had to talk on the radio to manage separation from two other planes out there, and hearing myself on the radio, sounding oh so confident, helped me believe I could do it. At first, I just flew around and enjoyed the view.


Then I took a deep breath, pulled the throttle to idle, pulled back on the controls, back some more, stalled the plane and recovered. Whew! OK, that was OK! Next I did a couple of steep turns, allowing myself to keep the plane banked at just over 30 degrees (instead of 45) to get a feel for it. Good. Good. Then I eased the plane into slow flight, where you fly the plane in a very nose-up attitude at about half the normal airspeed (near the stall speed), the point of which is to practice handling the plane at a slow speed, such as during landing. I did well with that! Amazingly, I spent an hour out there playing around and it was fine!

Figuring that was pretty good for today, I headed back to my airport. That's where I had a little trouble. I had to do three go-arounds, where you abandon an approach or landing that isn't going right, and go up to re-join the circuit and try again. Even the landing that finally got me down was a bit iffy but it worked. My instructor saw me do that one. Once I had shut down and we were talking it about it, I noticed he was rubbing his hand over the engine cowling, as if he was comforting the plane after the hard landing I had inflicted upon it.

I feel great about the flight and am so proud of myself for doing 1.5 hours on my own! The experience was slightly tainted by my landing difficulties but I ended up flying again this afternoon with another instructor to do some landing practice. He said my approaches were bang-on and he gave me some great tips to improve the landings.

This is hard stuff. I know I have work to do with the landings. But I am pleased with myself for the most part today.