I started my lessons in March. 2007. I took the Cessna Pilot Center (CPC) training course at Whiteman Airport. As long as the weather and my schedule permitted, my flight training was about twice a week. I passed my PPL checkride in June 2008. Working the night shift has it's benefits, ad it opened up my schedule for late afternoon lessons on work days. (Unfortunately I learned, that can be the windiest time of the day.) My instructor was Robert, the hardest working and most requested CFI at Vista Air.
The Private Pilots Licence is known as the "License to learn", as a good pilot should always be learning.
The long cross-county solo was an adventure like nothing else in my life. I went from Whiteman (KWHP) to Mojave (KMHV) to Oxnard (KOXR) and back. Flying alone in an airplane is the most exciting feeling in the world. I never felt so alone, nothing would get me back except my hands, my feet, my airplane, and my training. I felt like I might as well be in a submarine, or a deep sea diver. It's probably the closest way one could experience how a mercury astronaut must have felt alone in outer space.
Here is the GPS tracklog of my PPL Practical Test.
