FAA Private Written Exam

10 days was going by quickly.  I was on track with my studying, and was quite happy.  I walked by the Learning Center where our FAA proctor can usually be found tutoring other students or helping them out with mock oral exams for stage checks.  I wanted to confirm the test was tomorrow, Wednesday.  I'm glad I found her!  Even though 10 days would have put the test tomorrow, it was scheduled for Friday.  So I have an extra 2 days to study.  

I kept plugging away, and depending on the questions I randomly was assigned by the Gleim on CD ROM I got anywhere from 70% to 85%.  Not great... but passing.  As I heard someone say while passing them in the hallway "Anything over 70% is wasted effort."  I couldn't help but laugh.

Friday at 8:58 am I walked into the exam room, and handed over my passport and D.L.  I signed in and took a seat at the computer assigned to me for the next 3 hours.  It will only take me about 30 minutes, but its nice to know I can take my time.  As soon as everyone was seated we confirmed the information on the screen to be ours.  SSN number, spelling of name, mailing address, and which test I was to take.  All looks in order.  I click next, and watch the screen go bluish white, with the letters LOADING... while the dots increased in amount and would disappear after 3, just to start back up again.

And it loaded.

and loaded..

and loaded...

and loaded

and loaded.

and loaded..

and loaded...

This cant be normal.  I looked around the room and saw other students doing the same thing.  I questioned the proctor who then started checking things out.  A call was made to the I.T. department and we were all asked to leave the room until this could be resolved.  I headed for the computer lab to put in a few more practice tests under my belt until we were called back in.  An hour and a half later the story was the FAA computers were down, and therefore we could not take the exam until they got their end up and running.  UGH!  What next?!?  The rescheduled time given to us was Monday at 13:00.  

The weekend went by quickly and it was test time again.  All the same hurdles and hoops were jumped over and through.  For once there were no computer glitches and the exam went smoothly... The end result was a passing score.  WOOHOO!!  Hmmm... I wonder what wonderfully evil things I will do to my Gleim books.

Besides studying throughout the week I was also flying with my instructor.  Mostly practicing the different types of approaches to land at various airports in the area and practicing going around or as its called when flying Instrument going missed.  One clear night while flying over Lake Apopka, my instructor started teaching me steep turns and practice more stalls.  YES back to stalls.  I'm a bit more confident with the plane so stalls were only a touch less annoying to do.  What I did really appreciate is being able to see a gorgeously bright moon with Venus and Jupiter brightly lit below forming an upside down frowning face.  What a great way to see a planetary conjunction.  Unfortunately I did not have my camera to record the event.  Yeah I know... I'm still kicking myself for that one.

So now I will be flying my heart out and studying for the next stage checks coming up.  I'm still now quite sure when I will solo... but I'm pretty sure that will be after I master landing the plane.  In the mean time... I'm happy I passed my exams and am looking forward to a little bit of down time.