Especially those last two are a surprise to me as I was quite confident that I can do them. Oh well. I’ll have to study them a little more before my checkride.

Planning. Before we could go Terry had me come to the airport few days earlier, sit with him and train planning. I plotted courses on the chart, filled out flight planner logs, decided on check points and talked to the FSS about the weather. As it was to early for true weather, for training purposes I got the briefing for that particular day just to simulate. Later I came back home, nicely filled out three flight logs and flight plans (one for each leg) with all the information I had ahead of time.

Preflight briefing. When I came to the airport in the morning, I checked the weather again (btw. it turned out to be exactly the same, we have quite stable masses around here for last week or so with center of big High pressure mass just around the corner), filled out remaining positions on the flight logs (wind deviation, time enroute and fuel consumption), and we headed for the flight.

The flight. Tons of small things that made me understand why long cross country flights are planned at the end of the training. Basically at this moment flying should be your second nature. Between radio communication, navigation (bots radio and dead reckoning) and all the calculation work I was made to do (for training purposes I had checkpoints selected every 10 minutes or so) there was little to no time to actually concentrate on the flying itself. And yet, I was supposed to keep the plane straight and level and of course on the course. I have to admit that although I didn’t screw up on any big thing. there is bunch of things I’m not proud of myself and I have to work on more. I didn’t get lost (not even once), I always new more or less where I’m on the map, the checkpoints were showing up as they were supposed to and time corrections I calculated on one of the legs where we had 10 knots tail wind turned out to be pretty accurate considering I did them in my head. I landed 2 times at unknown to me before airports, I didn’t confuse runways and taxiways, I didn’t run over any other taxiing plane. I even managed the communication just fine. What bothers me are just details. Like flying half of the leg with fuel pump on, agreeing to fly at 2500 ft while the sectional clearly stated that minimum safe altitude in this area is 2600 (even though the tower wasn’t even close to my course I should have point that out to Terry and decide to fly higher) or not exactly going through all the checklist positions at one takeoff. Here I have plenty of small things I have to work on before I feel confident I can pass the exam. Oh well, now it’s time for 5h total of solo cross country flights, we’ll get there.

P.S. Here is why I do this. If I wanted to do this triangle in a car I’d have to drive 5 hours non stop. Flying – I was back at home 4 h 30 minutes after I left and during this time I spent more than 1h preparing for the flight on the ground and another 15 minutes at each airport just to stretch legs. If I was in the hurry I could do it in less than two and half hours (which is half the time). And this is route that has good road connections (two lane highways and at least 65 limit). If I was to get to some small town in the middle of nowhere savings would be much, much bigger.

GPS track

2.7h/0.0h inst : 3 to/ldg logged
47.1h/2.0h inst : 267 to/ldg total

Here you have video footage from the lesson.

1.0h/0.0h inst : 9 to/ldg logged
36.1h/0.8h inst : 223 to/ldg total

Can’t say it was too hard to do, but still gives me quite a lot of satisfaction. Now there is only one thing between me and solo – landings.

We’ll get there…

After 9/11 the administration decided that every single person with other than American citizenship has to be deeply screened and get the approval before she or he can start flight training. Fortunately for us, legal foreigners, the whole process is quite simply, just takes time.

First, you have to go to the TSA website www.flightschoolcandidates.gov. This site is specially created for foreigners who want to start flight training in the US. I want describe in details how the whole process of registration goes – it’s clearly stated there in the FAQ. Just couple hints that will allow you to make it fast and without errors:

• have your passport handy as you will be ask for it’s (and visa) numbers
• have scans (or digital photos) of all documents you are entering ready to upload – you will be able to send it electronically to them and it will definitely speed up the process
• you have to get your provider (the flight school you have chosen) contact information as you have to point your trainer on this form – the permissions is for certain school so be prepared as change of provider will need another permission!

Next step is document acceptance and provider approval – if you’re future school is aware of your plans to use them for your training this step shouldn’t take more than couple of hours.

After your being approved you have to pay processing fee. another quick and easy step – use your credit/debit card and you’re set.

Now here is a tricky step – you have to be fingerprinted. Detailed instructions will be sent to you, just some hints again:

• you will need blank fingerprint cards. The only place you can get right ones is your future training provider so ask for them in advance to speed up the process
• you can make things even faster if you will find the place where your fingerprints can be transmitted (not taken, transmitted! most of places nowadays scan prints electronically but then they just print them out like they were taken in ink) electronically – it’s usually much more expensive, but the TSA has your fingerprints instantly.

Now all you have to do is wait for an email saying that you are approve and that you can start learning how to fly.

Good luck!