A lot happened lately but very little according to plans.. My wife broke her arm so I had to go back way ahead of schedule, so I had to leave Sheble and go back. I did arrange for the kit and its transportation so I loaded it into a container. Took two days since I had to do it on my own. Transporting a kit brought a few complications I did not expect that a majority of trucking companies would refuse to unload a container at residential adresses because of liability. The one I found at the end almost got stuck in the mud too..

Kent and his wife. He was the gentlemen working on the kit until a knee surgery ended his buildning plans.

I got hired by Sheble. Or maybe I did not get hired, I just hang around long enough…
I was promised a ride back to San Diego by Gabe a nice guy also doing his CFI (a five year project for him but that is another story). He failed his checkride and had to stay a day or two longer so I started to help Sheble with stuff here just to keep boredom away.
Signed of my first student: Andrew who did his instrument. He passed. Since then I mainly worked with CFI students.

I was supposed to go to Anglo but given the choice Sheble was a easy one. First of all it is only temporary for a couple of weeks so I will most likely end up at Anglo anyhow (since I have freinds getting their JAA PPL at anglo starting next month and I promised to be their instructor) but Sheble are better at keeping promises to students and include logging.

I passed the CFII. Not much more then a IR checkride from the right seat..
I am beat, tired, boring to be around. Need to go to ct and pack up the glasair in the container. But I do not know how to get there..
Also took the high performance today. Sure feels strange to have to take a separate checkride since I already have flown multi aircrafts with 380HP total. But since the rules specify 200HP+ per engine that doesnt matter. Easy one anyhow, just a few flights around the pattern and a little groundschool.

I am beat. My flying has taken a turn for the worse. I actually had an agreement to continue with the CFII and MEI plus the 15h multi PIC with Sheble but my (multi) flying sucks right now. I think I need a break. IR/CPL SE+ME/CFI in two weeks has been fun but extremely demanding. On top of that I had to write pappers to my university since I am still enrolled there so it has been 20h/day sessions during the last days.
I think I am going to rethink and just get the CFII and halt there for a while. I really need a vaccation but cannot afford one. So I just have to start working as a CFI and consider that as my vaccation.

Passed the retest. By my standards the flying was worse the second time but as long as the examiner is happy….

Flunked the CFI checkride. The 6.5 houroral went ok but the chandell during the actual flight ended ten knots fast at the end. So I got my first pink slip or whatever the notice of disapproval of application is usually called.
Got half an hour of training this afternoon and will redo the test tomorrow.

Really strange test by the way, I was not allowed to use instruments during the test of lazy eights and chandelles so for the first time ever during the checkride I had to do the manouvers strictly by visual references. I pointed this out to the examiner after the test and at least I will be allowed to do the chandell according to the book with the aid of the instruments next time. Personally I can do without instruments except the airspeed indicator. Without it I have a hard time keeping the chandelle smooth or end up at stall speed at the end of the turn.

My examiner (and since it is a CFI checkride he is not employed by sheble) got some sort of family problem so he needed to take next week and some of. So either I go to the Las Vegas FSDO and take a checkride up there or I speed up and get ready by end of saturday. That is two more days (a total of four days!) to get ready for the CFI. Well, I am always up to a challenge so I said lets settle on a Sunday checkride..
So right now I am wiriting lesson plans like I had a afterburner

Passed the commercial multi checkride today. Had another examiner, he did not say one word during the checkride except when requesting me to do something so I had no clue if I passed or not. At the end he was very happy with my flying, only thing being me not keeping enough rudder during the engine out landing on base.

Got a shot of my multi instructor Jeff, or BH as he is called around here. BH as in Back Home that is, after his favourite subject.

I said it before and I will say it again: They are efficient here at Sheble. Passed my commercial checkride and oral today. So the commercial took just two days and that included the 2+2 hours of dual vfr night/day I was lacking.
Not much to say about they checkout, lasted slightly over four hours total and there were no major problems even if I was not up to my usual standard today. Dont know why, but everything was much harder today. Mushy brain…

At 20 hours sim plus 20.3 real hours I took my checkride today passing with flying colours!
That is the rating within a week of me arriving here. Upon arrival i had 7 hours so I sure spent alot of time lately in both the sim and in a a/c since I got here!