Commercial on the way

My commercial license is one step closer now... I finished my first of 2 checkrides for commercial. This one involved a cross-country leg, including a diversion (i.e., the checkpilot points to a spot on the chart and says, "Take me here, now, please, thank you," causing you to plan a leg in midair. Fun. After passing that portion (in which I was required to prove I could estimate my times to within 3 minutes and stay within 2 miles of my course, 10 knots of my airspeed, and 100' of my altitude... not really too difficult), I had to demonstrate all of the commercial maneuvers: chandelles, lazy 8's, steep turns, steep spirals, 8's on pylons, and a 180-degree power-off accuracy landing.
My next checkride, happening sometime in the spring, will be in a complex airplane, probably a 182. It will also involve a 4 - 5 hour oral exam.

Over the past few weeks, I've essentially been "on-call" for flights. Our normal rotation of one week of flight, then one of maintenance has all but disappeared. This past week, I flew my commercial qualification cross-country (minimum 250 miles from point of origin) to Redmond, OR. I left at 8:00am, in hopes of giving weather the chance to lift at my destination, but it didn't. So I sat on the ground at The Dalles for 3 hours, waiting for the visibility and clouds to rise at Redmond. This is a rough representation of my route:























It was quite gorgeous leaving the Spokane area, as the ground fog was just beginning to burn off:























































































I returned to Spokane 10 minutes before sunset, so by the time I fueled and got back to the hangar, I caught the tail end of it... beautiful!

Thank you so much for you prayers and support, it's easy to lose sight of the goal at times when you're up to your nose in work and feeling stressed out, just like anyone else. I often wonder why God picks some of the people who need the most work to be missionaries... He really does have a sense of humor.

Be praying I'd be able to find a job for over my winter break, it's quite desperately needed, but not too easy to find possibilities from WA.

This is a great portion of a sermon from SM Lockridge, "That's My King!" One of the guys at school used it in his chapel talk... I love it.