I passed my “stage check” yesterday. I was a bit frustrated when we first started because the guy giving me the check got all upset at me over the fact that I didn’t have a syllabus with me. The problem is, no one bothered to mention that I was supposed to carry it. No where in the syllabus does it mention that I’m supposed to carry it.

He vaguely quizzed me over a few things during my preflight and during the flight. He had me take off, track the river, slow down to 50 knots, do some turns at 50 knots, resume cruise. He had me simulate an approach to landing stall. He didn’t like my stall entry, but no one ever told me that an approach to landing stall was supposed to be only just barely nose up. He demonstrated what he was looking for, and I did that instead. After that, a power-on stall. Then he pulled my engine, and had me prepare for an emergency landing.

I didn’t like any of the fields. They all had trees in them. “I don’t like any of these fields,” I said rather hopelessly. “Then pick the best of what you don’t like.”

So I did. It was crosswind, and not a very good field. It didn’t look like I was going to make it after awhile. I went through my engine-out checklist a couple of times, and pronounced that now I would give up and secure the plane for an emergency landing. I still wasn’t sure if I was going to make my field or not. I kept pitching for best glide speed and left the flaps up. Then as I got down to about 600ft it looked like I would make it. At a little less than 500 ft, he pronounced, “Very good, I think we’ll live… Go ahead and recover.”

My landings were pretty bad, and I misunderstood tower, thinking they told me to taxi on Charlie when in fact what they said was exit at charlie and contact ground. Since they’d never, ever, told me anything other than “taxi to park and monitor ground,” I was caught off guard. But it wasn’t a big deal. He told me that he was happy with my performance, and I was doing just fine for this stage.

D. called today to say he didn’t think flying would be much worth it since it was so windy. I deferred to his judgement, especially since bicycling in that much wind is miserable.