Solo and Emergency!

So, it's been almost a week since my last update! I will attempt to sum most of the occurances up here without writing a novel in the process. Last Friday I had an OK flight, but for some reason I kept messing up my radio calls, so I got marked down on that and for not finding the VFR reference at Gunshy for a breakout (even though I'd never even seen a breakout before then...oh well).

Saturday I slept in and then went to the father-son activity Lighthouse had out at one of the member's 'camphouse' which was a full-blown house set up pretty much for weekend getaways with about 80+ acres of land there. So, everybody and there dog brought out a fourwheeler and spent most of the day buzzing around on those through the woods, fields, and clay pits on the land there. I had a good time chilling inside in the AC with some of the other men from the church and then we had a great lunch of pulled BBQ pork. I tell you what, some of these guys sure know how to cook! Then Pastor asked if I'd like to try their fourwheeler, and I gladly accepted! I've always wanted to try one out and finally got my chance! So his kid Joshua stayed on the back to give me directions and try to keep me from killing myself ("There's a huge hole coming up here." "No...I don't think you want to drive off of that cliff...just my opinion...") It was a good time of fellowship. Then, as an added bonus after I helped clean up I got to take home a good bit of leftovers since I was the single guy there.

Sunday went well with some good services, though I had to miss Sunday night. I literally spent most all of my time from Saturday on when I wasn't at the church or the activity studying for the instrument test we had on Monday, and I still only got barely 6 hours of sleep Sunday studying and putting a briefing together for the next morning as well. I guess it payed off because I did pass with a 94%, so I'll take. However, we're now already 2 days into weather academics and our teacher has said he expects about 3 out of the 12 of us to fail this one according to the recent trends!! Looks like that test will be early some time next week, which is awesome (please note the sarcasm) because that's about the same time I'll be doing my midphase checkride which just happens to be by far the most failed (hooked) checkride we'll take...

Monday I had another ride, and again was pretty week on the radio calls so I spent most of that night just studying those calls and chairflying for Tuesday's 2 rides including the solo. Tuesday's first ride went really well, and I finally got the radio calls back under control in time to get cleared to solo. I was pretty excited getting ready for that! Afterwards I added up my hours, and I had less than 16 hours in the plane before that solo...wow! So, here's a picture of me riding out to my jet (thanks to Keith BTW for the great photos)

***And I am running to church so will post this and then edit it later to add the rest....