The decision to get a Pilot License was taken and I have been reading the manual and trained on the simulator. Now the next step to make it happen is to actually start the registration. Registering for flight instructions requires mainly two operations: getting a medical certificate from an approved doctor and register through TSA.

Getting the medical certificate

During the month of April and May, I had planned to be in Minneapolis, MN to continue my MBA. So I took the opportunity to go back to the local airport next to my house that I was talking about in a previous posting. There,I went to the FBO to ask for an accredited doctor. It appears that there is actually one doctor that has his office on the airport. So it was very simple to actually get an appointment. A few days later, I was in the office going through the checks required for flying. Everything went fine except for a little detail. It happens that I have asthma. And the doctor did not want to deliver the certificate unless I can prove that my asthma was under control with the use of an inhaler. Unfortunately, the only way for me to prove something like that would be to go see another doctor to get a paper stating exactly that. Based on my current employment and insurance coverage, it means that I had to wait to be back in France to get the certificate. The doctor put another condition: for him to be able to file and deliver the medical certificate, that need to be performed in the next 15 days. I promised him that he would get it within a week and I did! I had to dictate the French doctor the letter in English but I had the certificate on hand. A fax later I was medically approved to be a pilot! On to the more demanding part: dealing with the US government. I hoping for a better experience than the one dealing with TSA in the airports, where everything seems to be taking forever!

Registering with TSA

As a non US national, the registration with TSA is not the most straightforward, yet I have to admit that everything is done to keep it simple! But it includes at least getting fingerprinted. Oh well, this would be only the 3rd time in 2 years that my fingerprints are taken by a government agency! The first part of the registration is entirely made online and after scanning a few documents, waiting a few days, I finally got to the point where the last thing to do was just to get the fingerprints.

Fingerprinting

Since I was in France, I did not want to wait to come back to the US to get an appointment and then having to wait for the approval. Since I'm in the US for only short burst of time (5~7 weeks), I want to be able to maximize the time there flying.

Doing some research on the TSA site, I've realized that 3 centers in France were actually qualified by TSA to get the fingerprinting done! Looking at the addresses, I have found that one site was next to my home in Paris. The good news is that I was planning to get there soon for a business assignment. The bad news is that I had less than a week to organize everything and if it is going like most French administration, I doubt that I can get an appointment that fast!

But what a surprise, after a few phone call to the company: Flight Safety International, I finally got in touch by email with the person performing the fingerprinting. We decided on a meeting day and established the requirements in terms of paperwork that I need to bring to complete the process. It was very efficient and straightforward.

Today is the day!

I have been in Paris working for 2 days and secured my transportation to Flight Safety (that was: "Hi Dad! What are you doing tomorrow afternoon? Nothing ?... Good!". We are arriving at Le Bourget airport and we are trying to find Flight Safety. After a couple or running around, we finally found a parking spot and the entrance of the building. I'm getting in the building and after a few minutes, a woman comes asking for me and requesting that I follow her! She is the person that will do my fingerprinting. As we were walking through the building I didn't know just yet but I was for a big treat! As we open a door to get to a different part of the building, we ended in a warehouse type building that was filled by at least 10 full motion flight simulators! It was the first time that I was really confronted to this type of simulators and that did not escape to the fingerprinting agent! She asked me if I was interested and explained her a little my attraction for the aviation… The conclusion of the conversation was very surprising and unexpected. She asked me if I was interested in having a complete tour? I guess the grin on my face was probably enough of an answer but I manage to say yes. Once the fingerprinted process finished, she introduced me to someone else that gave me a tour of the entire building and was able to step in a couple of cockpit. At more than $1000 per hour, trying to seat in one was not a possibility but it was definitely a very interesting tour and I had the chance to see a few simulators actually running.

A few days later, I’ve received the notification from TSA that I was completely cleared for the flight instructions. I’m now officially a Student Pilot!