A lot of people asked me the same question: “What will happen now that you have your pilot license? You are not a pilot to be anymore!”. True. But also true that I do not intend to stop there.

What’s next after the Private Pilot License?

But the most important thing I ‘m retaining from getting my pilot license is how little I know about flying or more precisely how much more there is to learn.

This is why I will continue my training starting by getting my Instrument Rating.  Yesterday, I swing’ed by the airport and purchased the kit. Like for the Private Pilot, I’m opting for the CPC (Cessna Pilot Centers) kits.Another set of DVDs with Martha and John King!  Summit Aviation is one of these certified flight school. I will retain also the same instructor: Michael.

And of course, I will continue to document my training with video, gps tracking… In a way I’m closing the [Private] Pilot2B.com and opening a new, and I hope improved, [Instrument] Pilot2B.com.

What’s next for Pilot2B.com?

In the short term, not much is going to change but there is actually a few improvement I would like to bring to this blog. First I realize that many people do not take the time to read some of my rather long posts. So, I will try to actually change the format of the blog and turn it into a video podcast. This means very little text to read and lots to watch…

I’m also planning a few surprises but I will need more time before I can unveil them…

Today’s plan is to go do one of my solo cross country flight. I have planned to go land at Branson (KBBG). As the day was starting, I got a little worried about the weather: the forecast and the nose out of the window check did not line up. I’m hoping that the weather is not going to give me to much concerns…

I had plan for a quiet flight with one of my co-worker, doing some light tourism and to show Bentonville from a different angle. Let’s say that the flight did not ended up as planned…

But at the end of the day, I enjoyed every minute of it. It was fun and my passenger seemed to have enjoyed it too!

I’m about to head back for Toulouse one last time and as usual, I would like to get a flight or two before going away. I have been looking at the weather and with the recent snow storm, it was hard to plan anything. At the beginning of last week, I could see two opportunities for a flight: one on Friday evening and one on Saturday morning.

Friday evening flight

For the entire day, I have been keeping an eye on the weather. I know that as a student pilot, Summit Aviation has some minimums weather parameters before letting a student solo. These minimums are 2,500’ AGL ceiling for pattern work and 3,500’ AGL ceiling for the practice area. Anything below that and the insurance would not work. But today was not the case, over the entire week, we had fairly low ceiling. Today, the ceiling has started at 3,100 and was slowly decreasing. By the time I reached the airport, it was down to 2,700’. This is enough to stay in the pattern, which I was intending to do anyhow. I prepared the plane for a departure and finally got in touch with my instructor to ask for permissions. He checked the weather and call me back giving me a no go! Reason: I can solo, only during day VFR and with a cross wind less than 7 knots. And of course, I checked the weather and it was 7 knots but when he checked, the weather had picked up some speed and was now clocking at 8 knots! One extra knots over my minimum and that is a no go. It is reluctantly, but with understanding, that I put the airplane back in the T-hangar!
I thought about waiting a little more but I can do only day VFR conditions and the official sunset was 5:54pm and it was already 5:25pm. Trying to wait would have been useless. Also, since Michael was busy, I couldn’t ask him to get in the plane for a short session.

Oh well, the news is that it should clear up tomorrow morning. It’s just delayed a little.

Saturday Morning

After an agitated night, I was finally ready to go fly but of course, first thing, need to check the weather! And the result was … not exactly what I was expected!

Michael had told me to check the weather and if the weather was not good enough for flying solo, I can give him a call and we would do a regular session.

But what the weather station from Bentonville was announcing was simply not what I wanted to see. Wind was fairly calm so the 7 knots limitations would have been ok. But the ceiling was at 200 feet! And the visibility was under 1/2 statute mile! There is no way to fly even IFR at that point. We would have no way of landing with the minimums. So it was back to bed instead of gone flying! Bummer!

Of course, it did clear up and now that I’m ready to take the plane to go back to Toulouse, we have a 10,000 feet ceiling and some winds (9 knots gusting 16).

I guess my next flight is going to have to wait 2 weeks until I’m coming back from France!

It has been close to two weeks now and I still have not been able to go flying again! Main reasons? Bad weather. We have been running a string of bad weather and today is no better than before. Michael and I had planned a plan a cross country flight for today and it all came to a stop because of a low ceiling and some ice in the clouds.

I think I’m going to give up some flying for the moment and focus on the knowledge test. My original plan was to have it finished a long time ago but the move back to the US took a toll on my preparation so time to get some focus and try to get it done soon.

Finally getting a break from the weather, I'm able to go fly a little and on top of that I have one of my colleague that I will bring along. I had planned to go to lakes on the East but it will turn out differently. With a cross wind over Bentonville, we couldn’t missed it!

Since I came back from vacation, I have been looking for opportunities to go fly! Unfortunately, the weather has not been very cooperative. Today, I had planned a two hour flight and ended up cancelling everything because of a ceiling at 300 feet! Minimum for VFR flight: 1000 feet! There was just no way to take off and fly comfortably.

On the up side, I have been able to make some good progress on a my knowledge test preparation and while I see the opportunity to get the license by end of January, I’m now pretty sure that I can complete the knowledge test with a fairly good grade.

Wish me luck!

Huntsville is done and we just have enough time to head for XNA. I’m feeling the excitement and tension of approaching a serious airport. I mean one with planes much bigger and much faster than mine! I was not exactly prepared for what was coming…

Today is the second time that I’m getting back to flying after a long break. We have some passengers on board so flight would restricted to navigation. As I knew we would do some landings, I asked Michael to go try to land in XNA and we did but it was with a little bit of pressure that we did it… but before we have another plan: go land in Huntsville.

It’s Christmas season and I couldn’t resist but to put a few extra toys on the list for Santa…