I am a pilot!

I took my flight test two days ago and I passed! I am a licensed private pilot!

This is the plane I flew for the test

That was stressful! Everything you know has to come together in one shot! You don't have to be perfect but you have one chance to demonstrate each skill so you have to get it pretty close the first time. The test begins with a circuit to demonstrate a specialty take-off and landing. I was asked to do a short field take-off and then he let me choose the landing so I opted for the soft field. That went well.

After that, we departed for the cross-country/navigation demonstration. The night before, I had to prepare a flight plan for a trip that we would start on during the test. I was happy with my departure procedure and I was bang on track at the first checkpoint, where I had to calculate my ground speed and ETA. Then we stopped that exercise and headed toward the practice area. The rest of the test included stalls, steeps turns, slow flight, slipping, instrument flying with the hood on so you can't see outside, emergency and precautionary landings, and diversions. My instrument time wasn't ideal because I didn't have the plane trimmed up nicely so I didn't hold my altitude as well as I could have. Everything else was good, I thought, but I didn't know what my marks were. The examiner was kind and fair but I was still pretty intimidated! On the 10 minute flight back to the airport, we chatted about this and that. I did a nice landing and taxied back to the flight school hangar. After I had shut down, he said, "Well, Sarah..." - eternal pause, my heart was pounding - "....Congratulations! That was a nice flight test." I threw my head back and let out a big sigh! What a relief! What a thrill! When I went inside to do the log books, everyone in the office congratulated me and I actually jumped up and down with excitement.

Today I went out to the airport again to get my temporary license signed and to see my instructor, who was not at the airport during my test (he was, in fact, flying up north that day, and heard me on the radio during my flight test). He was very pleased for me and proud of me. He is the most awesome instructor I ever could have had. This was a great day. I did it!