Guy trying to fly is right!  I booked two flight lessons for this week, Monday 10-12 and Tuesday (today) from 9-12.  I’ve been fogged out both days.  The last time I flew on New Years Eve, the plane was late, my instructor had car trouble and she was late (which is fine because we didn’t have a plane to fly anyway), when the plane finally did get there, it was almost empty of fuel, and two of the three tires were low on air.  So I had to wait for the plane to get towed to the fuel pumps to fill it up, then towed to the maintenance hangar to get air in the tires.  So by the time we actually got to fly, our noon reservation turned into 1:30.  Someone else had the plane right after me, so I couldn’t just extend my flight by 1.5 hours.  Instead of getting to fly to Boeing field for the first time, we were stuck doing laps in the pattern. For an hour.  Oh! And when we started our taxi, we realized that the guy before me broke the push to talk switch on the yoke.  So talking on the radio was no easy task either.  The joys of rental aircraft!

I feel like the universe is conspiring against my finishing my privat pilot’s license.  Even booking those two appointments this week, it was the only place I could fit in on the schedule.  At our little flight school, we just had one instructor leave and two of his students ended up on my instructors schedule.  Even if they hadn’t, right now there are two planes I can fly, both are Cessna 172’s.  And one of them has been out of commission for a couple of weeks while it gets a new engine.  Super cool that it’s getting a new engine, but it means a whole lot of students are trying to cram into one plane.  Which means it gets to its 100 hour inspection sooner and also goes down for maintenance.

We used to have a third 172 with retractable gear at the school, but last year the nose wheel collapsed on the runway and it totaled that plane.  So we’ve been down one plane for months, and now down two.  It’s gotta be tough running a flight school!  I’m pleased that the owner of ours is investing in upgrading the planes we have and buying new ones.  We have a twin engine Piper Seminole entering the fleet in the next couple of weeks.  We also have a Piper Arrow coming in a couple of weeks as well, to replace the retractable gear 172 that we lost.  So we should be back to full strength soon. 

All of that should help me as I go on to start my Instrument Rating training.  BUT it’s not helping me now as I’m desperately trying to finish up my private license.  I’m studying for the oral portion of the practical exam, planning the cross country route she’ll want to see, the only thing I’m not doing is flying.  Which I’m pretty sure the most important part of a private pilots practical exam is the FLYING!!  I’m like a caged animal right now.  I need to get up in the air and practice.  I REALLY want to be done with my PPL by end of January.  That way as the weather improves, I can start flying my cross country’s to build time towards my Instrument rating. 

I’ll also see if I can get checked out in the Arrow to expand my personal fleet to three airplanes and get my complex endorsement at the same time.