Andy Hawkins <andy@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In article <1212488510.969722@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
> Michael Ash<mike@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>> Painful! I was able to exercise all privileges of my certificate as
soon
>> as I passed the checkride (in the US). I got a tem****ary paper
>> certificate, handwritten. It would have been printed but the examiner
had
>> made a mistake and so had to write out a new one on the spot. The
>> tem****ary certificate was good for three or four months. The examiner
>> warned me that it could take nearly all of that time for the real one
to
>> arrive, and to call him if it was getting near the end of it, but I got
>> the plastic one in only about two weeks. (When I mentioned this to him,
he
>> blamed a decline in the number of new pilots making for less work at
the
>> certificate factory.) I took my wife up flying two days after I passed,
>> would have been the same day but she was busy that day and so wasn't at
>> the air****t.
>
> Indeed it is painful. I can still go flying, as long as I have an
instructor
> with me. Our club's instructors are all volunteers so it's no great
> financial burden to have one with me until the licence arrives.
It was much the same with me before I passed my checkride, as my club also
has free instruction. The only thing passing the checkride really lets me
do is get free from some instructional oversight and carry passengers. It
really feels like a much bigger event than it was. 95% of the flying I've
done since then would have been perfectly fine on a student certificate.
Indeed, there is at least one student in my club who has been flying on a
student certificate for years, flies perfectly well, could probably pass a
checkride with no problem, but just hasn't bothered because it's not worth
the hassle to him.
--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon
|
