"This is your captain speaking..." (26)

Prompt 26 came just in time to let me tell you about the latest milestone in my life. As some of you know, I started flight training in January. And my checkride, the pilot's equivalent of a driving test, was scheduled for May 4 - yesterday. As we were heading into late California spring, the weather was sunshiny and clear until an unexpected storm blew in last week. The weather service predicted a chain of storms would blow across Northern California over the weekend and into the week. Each day the forecast worsened for checkride day. It looked like I would need to cancel.

May 4 dawned, gray and overcast. My instructor had insisted that I wait to reschedule until the actual day of the test. The day before I had carefully did my homework for the checkride and I tried to get enough rest. When I got up, the nearest aviation forecast for the area I would be testing in was calling for low ceilings and rain. But the current conditions were good.

My instructor said I might have a chance. The examiner said it was my call. (Thanks a lot.) I decided to give it a try. Rushing to the airport 45 minutes late, I was in the plane heading to Chico within the hour. I arrived, met the examiner and began the examination. The man was a very quiet fellow who looked like he could have been a WWII bomber pilot. He wasn't the kind of man to be easily impressed, but I had the impression that he was trying to teach me some valuable lessons.

The ground portion was completed by noon and the weather continued to hold. We went out to the plane. A brief preflight, with some rain to hurry things up, and we were off for the flight. I had never flown in such strong winds before! I performed the maneuvers and tasks he asked me to do, making a few mistakes. The airplane started to go into a spin when I did a power-on stall, and while I recovered, I didn't do it correctly. But I definitely learned a good lesson.

We were on the ground again after just an hour and fifteen minutes. I taxied back to the hangar and shut down the plane. The examiner asked to look at some piece of paper. I cringed inside as I listened to his silence and remembered how I messed up one of the maneuvers. He finished whatever he was doing, and without ceremony he turned to me and said quietly, "Well, I'd like to congratulate you. You passed."

After years of dreaming for years of this moment, I had finally made it. I had really become a pilot! Now I am truly The Flying Dutchman.