As a birthday gift my then girlfriend had given me a “Gift of Flight” certificate from a nearby flight school. Flying has always been an interest of mine but work and family commitments had so far prevented me from getting “serious” about it. The intro flight was done by a young instructor who was building time towards his ATP certificate. The flight took place in blustery winds and I was hooked. The instructor “danced” on the pedals during the landing to keep the small Cessna 172 Skyhawk on the narrow runway. This was in July.

At the beginning of April of the following year, after 70 hours of instruction, I scheduled my Private Pilot Check ride with the FAA certified instructor, Peggy, a female retired airline pilot in her mid-sixties. She arrived at my small airport in the early morning in her own plane, a V-tail Bonanza. After introductions and a check of all paperwork we discussed the cross-country route that she had me plan when I call her initially to make the check ride appointment. This was a flight from Lincoln Park (N07) to Newport, VA. This route is relatively complex due to the presence of restricted and military use airspace. I got the feeling that she basically wanted me to know the basics of airspace, how and when to call flight following and not to fly over water such that a worst-time engine failure would land me in it. This part went well. Next came the check of the airplane’s paperwork. Peggy asked questions about FAA regulations pertaining to required airplane maintenance…the one thing I slipped up on was that the time between inspections is based on the Tach indicator, not the Hobbs. After about 1 hour of discussion we went to the practical part of the test.

 I made a point of using the check list for pretty much everything which I later found out had impressed her. She had me do a soft-field takeoff, then continue on through Morristown MMU airspace in direction of Solberg (N51). She asked me about the glide slope of the plane (9:1 ratio, glide 1.5 miles for every 1000 feet AGL, etc.) and then within sight of Solberg pulled the throttle to do a simulated engine-out emergency procedure. Turns out that another airplane was on a left downwind when I declared the engine-out (I had tuned my radio to Solberg as soon as we left Morristown airspace) and the pilot of that plane was not amused at our non-standard right-hand pattern entry. Peggy told me to break off the maneuver, fly out for about 3 miles, then return to about the same spot when the plane in the traffic pattern had cleared out. So we did, and when Peggy pulled the throttle again I had a slight advantage of knowing what was about to come. I made the dead-stick landing pretty well and was able to get the plane under control well before the runway ended. Keeping the airspeed under control, NOT to dive for the runway threshold but keeping the nose up and letting the plane sink is the key, as she pointed out after we landed. After taking off from Solberg Peggy had me do a steep turn, during which I lost almost 100 feet in height. Not great, but passable. The came some stalls. The power-off stalls went great, but I whimped out during the power-on stall; did not let the nose-high attitude develop into a real stall condition before breaking off. She criticized this and demonstrated how to do it “all the way”. I learned not to fear the airplane tumbling but by simply using the visual horizon and strong rudder input control the plane when it wants to dive off to the left. After I followed her example she was happy and she had me put on the foggles. We did a couple of unusual attitude recoveries, she quizzed me on emergency procedures and while still under the foggles she had me triangulate our current position using two VOR beacons. I had practiced these things before both in the plane and on Flight Simulator so this was not a problem. Trying to draw straight lines in a shaky plane is about the biggest potential showstopper during this part.

Next we proceeded back home and after a smooth landing Peggy filled out my Temporary Airman Certificate. I was a Private Pilot, now able to spend lots of money on renting small single-engine planes, occasionally using them for business travel at a multiple of the cost of what it would take to drive and generally having a good time doing so.