introducing Postman, the pilot

I ain't a baby bird anymore, people.

I've passed my test.

I'm a pilot.

I'm really not coming off as all that excited, but I assure you, I am.

In fact, in between every one of these sentences (all of which begin with an "I") I'm leaping out of my chair, smashing into the ceiling, and slamming back down into my chair again.

I'm still this pumped, even the day after.

Okay, I'll stop starting sentences with "I." I can't think of any more anyways.

It happened like this:

I woke up at about 8:00 on Monday, the day of my long-awaited checkride. This would be just like a driver's test, only I'd be, you know, flying. Plus there was an oral quiz. I was feeling pretty sanguine, considering. I don't get test anxiety, but the "I-have-to-pass-this-thing-or-my-life-will-be-ruined-and-I'll-be-out-on-$500-and-I'll-be-living-in-my-parents'-house-in-this-godawful-desert-until-I'm-80-years-old" anxiety was nipping at my heels. I crammed for an hour or so (after a brain-building egg sandwich), got my pilot bag, my headset, my logbook, my flight computer, my plotter, my textbooks, my Federal Aviation Regulations guide, and my oral exam preparation booklet, as well as the usual wallet, cell phone, keys and handkerchief, and went off to meet my destiny.

I got to the airport about 10:30. My exam was at noon. My coworker and current instructor, JM-1, met me in the planning room. (This is the room with the big desk and the computer and the charts on the walls where pilots plan their flights.)

J and I immediately discovered four things:

(A) I'd forgotten the certificate of completion for my written test, taken months earlier; (B) I needed $400 cash to pay the examiner's fee, and I didn't have it on me; (C) my Federal Aviation Regulations guide was three years out of date; and (D) I needed to have weight and balance computed for the airplane we'd be flying, a cross-country flight planned, and my total logbook hours added up and written out.

Scrambling around trying to do/fetch/prepare all this pretty much put a bung in our cram session. But in the end, we got it sorted out. I called Mom and she kindly read me the exam ID number off my form (and promised to bring the form to me in person that afternoon); I ran down to the bank and made a withdrawal; I borrowed a Federal Aviation Regulations guide and Aeronautical Information Manual (FAR/AIM) from Louise over at the flight school; and J and I filled out the weight and balance chart and planned a cross-country flight from Apple Valley to Pasa Robles. 

Whew.

It was just as well that, due to a prior commitment in Temecula, the examiner didn't land until about 1:00. That was A-OK by me. Gave me time to ask J some pertinent things, like how much flaps to use during a short-field takeoff, and what exactly a mountain wave was (and believe me, they're nasty).

Then the examiner (G) arrived, and after he took a look at my IACRA (the official form you need to fill out to become a pilot) and I coincidentally discovered that my driver's license expired in five days, we sat down in the conference room and had us a little oral examination.

I didn't do too badly. I was a bit nervous and shaky, and stumbled a bit on some answers, but I owned up to not knowing the ones I didn't know, and looked 'em up in the legends and glossaries. G wasn't confrontational or derogatory. He was an excellent examiner. He wasn't too hard and he wasn't too easy. He was fair: he didn't sit me under bright lights and grill me until I was brown and well-seasoned. He asked me questions, asked for clarification when needed, and nodded when I got an answer right, moving on to the next.

It was over far sooner than I would've believed. G told me to get my stuff together and go preflight our airplane; he'd be out in a minute. So I (with shaking hands) gathered up the requisite materials and walked out into the warm sun. N42126 was sitting there, its red-and-black stripes still grinning at me amiably from across the apron. There wasn't a thing wrong with it that I could detect. We had full fuel, seven quarts of oil, inflated tires, an un-scuffed propeller, and all the requisite nuts and bolts. It was time [gulp] to fly.

I won't tell you too much about the examination, mainly because (a) it's sort of fused itself into a single chunk of sensation in my memory, in which the component parts are virtually indistinguishable from one another; and (b) I'd like to make it warm for you if you ever decide to become a pilot.

Oh, all right, I'll tell you a little.

We did some touch-and-goes first: soft-field landings and takeoffs, as well as slips. I did pretty well. The slip was kind of a curve ball. I wasn't expecting to be tested on it, but I improvised, and despite making a rather high approach, made the runway.

[A slip, just so you know, is the maneuver you pull when you're landing in a crosswind. It involves putting in full left or right rudder (depending on the direction the wind's coming from) and applying full opposite aileron. You're cross-controlling, in other words. This tilts the ship at a crazy angle, and will freak your passengers out something righteous, but as long as you keep the nose down, your rate of descent will be fantastic and you'll stay right on the runway heading. Slips basically turn the entire airplane into a giant air-brake. They're the easiest way to lose a lot of altitude on approach and stay aligned with the runway in the process.]

Then we flew out east over the dry lakebed and did our maneuvers: turns, stalls, emergency procedures, the lot.

The only questionable thing I could tell I did was that, on a go-around (where you abort a landing, fire up the plane, climb, and go around for another try), I was putting the flaps up before I shoved in full throttle. That's a no-no. You want full power right away, before you do anything to change the aerodynamic characteristics of the airplane. Otherwise you could fall right out of the sky.

Hey, the instructor only said I was going to kill myself twice. Twice, okay? That ain't nothin'.

We returned, did another go-around at Apple Valley Airport (this time I did it properly) and then landed. It was a short-field landing (remember those?). I had to land on a precise spot on the runway (between the thousand-foot markers, big white stripes painted on the runway surface) and stop as soon as possible.

I missed. I landed just a hair beyond them.

My heart shriveled. My brain melted. My bones turned to rubber. My eyes, nose, ears, and chin threatened to sag and fall right off my face.

I was doomed. There was no way I'd pass now.

"Taxi off the runway at the terminal," G instructed.

My flaccid soul seemed to droop even lower. The checkride was done. There was no chance for redemption. It was all over.

We crept down the runway, the engine running at 1,000 revolutions per minute.

I was feeling mighty glum. I figured that the throttle-and-flap mix-up and the almost short-field landing, combined with a few other tiny imperfections I'd noticed in my performance, had doomed me to failure. With a heavy heart (still running at 150 beats per minute) I taxied off the runway, back to the terminal, parked and shut down. G was already on the phone with his next client, and couldn't tell me the bad news. I got out of the plane and set about securing it. G climbed out, met J (with whom he was very good friends) and the two of them walked over to G's airplane and stood there talking. From afar I thought I heard G say "He did okay..."

My heart leaped, and then crashed to earth again. "Okay" wasn't necessarily "passing." Armoring myself against the worst again, I finished tying down N42126 and sloped into the terminal building to pay Louise for the rental.

I was kicking myself. Five hundred dollars, shot. Three years of training, and I'd choked like a dog. Oh, I could take the test again, but I shouldn't have to. I knew this stuff. I'd passed the written exam with flying colors, and the oral as well. Two out of three. And I'd failed the practical just because I couldn't get my act together and remember which levers I was supposed to push, dammit. I clenched my teeth. Mom, Dad, Dawg, Spud, Mr. Mooney, JMs One and Two, all my friends...and especially Grandpa and Grandma, because Grandma had worked for the longest time at the little airport up in Grass Valley, and knew the names of a lot of the small airplanes I'd been flying, and was especially supportive of me in my quest to become a certified pilot. I'd let 'em all down. That was just swell. The humongous cocktail party I was planning for the weekend seemed pointless now. What was there to celebrate?

I finished paying and packing up my things. Louise and Donna, the owners of the flight school, were both there, and anxiously awaiting to hear how I'd done. I told them (with a face like thunder) that I didn't know yet, but didn't have a very good feeling. As Louise was handing my debit card back to me, J came in. I looked up and met his eyes.

And he winked.

I didn't know what to make of it. I knew he was on very good terms with the examiner, and that he'd gone to talk to G right after G got out of the plane. Presumably J had asked how I'd done. Did this mean that I...could it possibly mean that I had...

...passed?

I shoved the thought aside. I couldn't do this to myself. I couldn't get my hopes up and have them crash to the ground once more. I couldn't have passed, I just couldn't have. The first go-around was less than ideal. The carburetor heat lever and I weren't the best of friends. That slip had really thrown me off my game. There was no way I'd passed.

I remembered that I'd left the certificate of completion for my written exam (which Mom had faithfully delivered at 2:30, since she was in town anyway) in the airplane, so I slouched back outside to get it. G was on the phone again. I got the form, put the sunshade up in the windscreen, put the gust lock and pitot tube cover on, and went back inside.

As soon as I walked in the door, J handed me my T-shirt, a wide grin on his face.

There's a tradition at the Apple Valley flight school which holds that, when you do your first solo, you take off the shirt you're wearing, sign it with your name, the date, the name of your instructor, and the runway you were using, and then hang it up on the classroom wall. I'd done this. That shirt had been hanging up there for months. All the while, as I patiently hacked away at the requirements for a private pilot's license.

There's another tradition at the flight school which holds that when you pass your checkride—

"—you get your T-shirt back," Donna was saying.

I looked down. The T-shirt was in J's hands. He was holding it out to me.

What the—

I'd passed.

It was true.

I'd done it.

I'd passed.

I couldn't believe it. They were giving me my T-shirt. There it was, worn white cotton, with my name and a crude drawing of a Cessna 172 on it, drawn in black marker.

I'd passed the test. I was a pilot.

"You mean I PASSED it?" I asked, incredulously.

"Yes, you passed!" Donna said, laughing.

"Why?" asked G, sitting at the computer and printing out some forms for me to sign. "Did you feel you were unsafe or unqualified?"

"W-well..." I fumbled. My mind was like a fortress of building blocks which some two-year-old had just knocked the supports out from under. Everything was tumbling and collapsing in on itself. Shock waves were coming out of my ears, no doubt. I remembered that J had told me what FAA examiners look for during a private pilot's checkride:

"Remember, he won't be looking for precision, he'll be looking for safety. If you're a safe pilot..."

"No," I answered. "I just didn't like that last soft-field landing, is all. Or short-field, or whatever it was."

(As I mentioned before, my mind was busy collapsing.)

"Hey," G said, his eyes still on his computer screen. "You're a safe pilot. Tell me, when was the last time you had a perfect day?"

"We all have landings we don't like," added J—a pilot with thousands of hours under his belt. "I had one the other day..."

Only now did it start to sink in. G was printing out my provisional pilot's license (a paper copy I'd use until I got my license card in the mail). J was holding out his hand to congratulate me.

I'd passed the test. I WAS A PILOT.

"Congratulations," J said, smiling.

I took his hand, and shook it.

Somehow I mustered the coherency to shake the hands of Louise and Donna as well.

G had me sign my provisional license, and told me, "That's a license to learn. You've only just begun. Don't get rusty, keep flying."

"Well...thank you," I stammered, not knowing what else to say. I was almost afraid to say anything else. Irrational fears welled up in my heart. One wrong word and G would snatch the license away and rip it to shreds.

Then G walked out of the door and was gone.

"How do you feel?" Donna asked me.

By way of reply, I collapsed full-length upon the carpet.

Louise and Donna burst out laughing. G and J (who were standing over by the restaurant entrance, talking), called over and asked if I was okay.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said, getting back up. "Just got a little light-headed."

"Could I have some water?" I asked Donna.

Burdened considerably by the textbooks and materials I'd brought (as well as the extra pieces of paper and the T-shirt I had suddenly received), I awkwardly gathered up my stuff and prepared to leave.

Louise held out a hand.

"Can I have my FAR/AIM back now?"

J caught me just outside the airport doors.

"Congratulations, young master," he said, in the manner of Master Po from Kung Fu.

We talked for a few minutes. He reiterated what G had said about my pilot's certificate being a "license to learn." But he also said something else.

"Remember," he said, "the biggest critic of your flying is going to be you. Don't be too hard on yourself. Be proud of what you did. Keep flying, don't get rusty, and learn."

My cell phone started leaping and buzzing as soon as I got to my car. Text messages came winging in from interested friends, wanting to know if I'd passed. I texted my folks and told them I made it, and not even five minutes later my grandparents were calling to congratulate me. JM-2, my other coworker, also rang. Mr. Mooney phoned in when I was on my way home, and the text messages just kept coming.

I was, as you may imagine, over the moon. The work of three years had come to successful completion. All the long hours (and short dollars) I'd spent, all the sweating and bouncing and thundering in airplanes, scrimping and saving for lessons, thinking and hoping and dreaming and studying...all of it had paid off.

I'd passed the test.

I WAS A PILOT.

Dad brought home champagne and steaks for dinner that night, and we had a fine little celebration. I don't think I've slept that well in a long time, either.

I'm all uphill from here, people. Instrument rating, commercial license, seaplane and multi-engine and high-performance ratings will follow. (I've already got enough time to get a complex endorsement, J says...yippee!) I am now eagerly awaiting the arrival of that little green card in the mail (in 60-90 days) and have already begun to think and hope and dream about what lies ahead of me. Or rather, what lies above me, in the limitless, sun-washed sky.

Only now it isn't so far away anymore.