Medical Flight Test... Passed!!

Today was the big day for my medical flight test, and I can say with a smile on my face that I am now in possession of a new medical certificate with no restrictions and a SODA, statement of demonstrated ability. The actual test was a piece of cake, however after bringing an FAA inspector to my FBO, I may not be welcome there any longer.

The inspector was friendly and complimentary of my flying and complimentary of Rob, my instructor. He was very knowledgeable and told Rob and I about a couple areas we could work on, and some ideas of how to work on those things. He did find a couple of faults with the airplane, no... two airplanes, and gave the maintenance shop a fit. The folks at Bay Air were real good about getting me another airplane after 54666 was found to be questionable. Mind you, winter in Florida is the busy season for nearly everything and aviation is no exception. I think they found another plane so fast because maintenance wanted to get rid of the two of us. The didn't want this guy coming back another day.

The flight test lasted about a half hour. We flew out to the beach, spotted some inbound traffic and some birds, performed a simulated emergency landing and flew back to the airport. Piece of cake, well I did fly low enough on the simulated emergency that I thought he was actually going to have me land at the beach. Rob never had me get that low, about 100 feet. The sky was very clear and I could see the VASI from the beach, about 6 miles out. That and a nice landing sealed the deal. On landing we found that the nose wheel shimmy dampener on 9400L was in bad shape, so my friend paid another visit to the maintenance shop. He sat down with Rob and I after that went over what he liked about my training and where he thought I could improve, more right rudder.

I'm glad its over. I need one hour of instrument time and three hours of checkride prep. It won't be long and my wife will be riding with me. She can't wait.