Well well well. It’s official! I passed my private pilot checkride! The long and arduous road to becoming a private pilot ended on another windy day in Wyoming. What a journey. I started this journey in May of 2021, not even five months after rupturing my right Achilles tendon playing basketball. When I first started flying, I had zero strength in my right leg and couldn’t even push in the right rudder pedal to the floor. As time went on I regained strength in my leg and pushed onward. I flew at Wings Flying Club at the South Bend airport with Larry Haines from May 2021 to October 2021. Once a Hoosier, always a Hoosier! I loved the flying I did in Indiana! I flew from all over northern Indiana, up to Michigan, and even crossed the Illinois border. Based out South Bend I completed about 30 hours of flight training. I love the memories I have flying out there. I have the memory of my first solo flight off 27L! (That’s its own separate blog post) I have the memory of my cross country flight up to Holland, Michigan, with Larry. Memories of my first solo cross country solo to Angola, Indiana, and my cross country solo to Lansing, Illinois. Plenty of memories of pattern work and flights south to fly over Koontz Lake in hopes that my momma would see me in the sky. I have the memory of my tri-cross country solo, flying first to Kokomo, Indiana, watching two A-10s drop live ordinance at Grissom, the runway I had planned at Kokomo being closed and having to circle to land on a different runway, getting way north of my course flying to Rensselaer and having to get directions to the airport from ATC, and flying back home right over North Judson and English Lake Church. I loved learning to fly in Indiana!
The reason there is such a pilot shortage is because there is such a high cost barrier to entry. I was quickly running out of finances to fly so it was time to use my college degree and get a new job. October 2021 I got the a stellar opportunity to advance my IT career and I pounced on it. I made the cross country move from South Bend, Indiana, to Cheyenne, Wyoming, to take my current position as a network engineer at Dish Networks. Moving out to Wyoming was one of the biggest risks I ever made in my life, however, this blessed me with the ability to continue my aviation training paying out of pocket.
I didn’t start flying at Wings of Wyoming with my new instructor Tim until April of 2023. As the same goes for most skills in life, over half a year off from flying really set my proficiency back. There was so much learning I still had to do. My passion for aviation was boiling over when I restarted flying in Wyoming. Exciting as it was to fly out here, one thing I couldn’t have known was just how windy it would be out here. The area I currently live is one of the windiest places in the entire CONUS. They say if you can learn to land in Cheyenne you can land anywhere in the world! Many more months of hard studying and flying later I was getting closer and closer to being ready to take my private pilot checkride. I was ready to take it as far back as December. Unfortunately the closest DPE was located all the way up in Casper, Wyoming. Due to my examiners busy schedule and multiple cancellations due to weather, it was March and I still hadn’t checked out. It was getting frustrating because it was all out of my control. I’ll admit, I was even getting a little burnt out studying the same material over and over again.
Brian made the drive down to Cheyenne that Thursday night and was able to start the oral portion of another student’s instrument checkride. Friday, March 10th, 2023, it was my turn! I was scheduled for 9 am that morning. The first student was delayed due to linger fog over the airport. I arrived to the airport at 8:00 am but they didn’t return from the first exam until around 10:30am! The waiting was one of the most stressful parts! Finally, I was able to start my checkride around 11am!!
The portion of the checkride I felt most nervous about was the oral. I had studied meticulously on all aspects of aviation over the past two years but being honest, I was slacking the month or two leading up to my exam. I was nervous that I had coasted to the finish line too soon and that I was going to have many gaps in my aviation knowledge. That wasn’t the case! I absolutely crushed the oral portion of the checkride! I felt as if I was answering questions like I had been flying for ten years! I was thrilled. We braked for lunch around noon before we began the flight portion of the exam. I had put so much preparation into taking this exam as a whole, but once again, I felt like I was slacking because I had only flown three hours in the past 60 days. I just met the recency requirements to take the checkride! Nothing was going to deny me at this point. I began my checkride flawlessly with Brian. Remember earlier I mentioned the wind? Well Friday was another windy day. It was far from ideal, but the wind outside was blowing variably at 19 knots and low level wind shear at 500 feet. Flying off runway 13, I had to take this exam with an 8 knot crosswind component. Less than ideal? This sound almost like we were going to have to discontinue due to wind. Any stronger wind and I would have. At the end of the day my checkride was far from perfect, however, because the circumstances were so poor, I demonstrated outstanding airmanship despite being a low-time pilot! I was slightly nervous on whether I had passed or not. It was a good sign that I had done nothing to that point to fail automatically. The wind made me unsure of my ‘score’ but at the end of the day it is either pass or fail. After the final landing I taxied back to Wings of Wyoming, completed the final engine shutdown checklist, and as I took off my headset Mr. Parke reached his hand over to shake my hand simply saying, “Congratulations”. I said, “So that means I passed?” and he chuckled saying yes. Writing this not even a day later is so surreal! The feeling I had as he was shaking my hand and offering congrats, knowing that I passed, is not a feeling that I will forget for a long time.
I’ve done it! Brian completed the paperwork and I was officially a license private pilot. I cannot say enough how grateful and blessed I am to be able to pursue this dream. When I started, I did not know the level of knowledge it takes to be a safe pilot. The respect I hold for aviation is now tenfold! I just want to say a BIG thank you to everyone who has supported me and this journey. It means so much to me! I hope I provide people with some level of inspiration that no matter what, they can do whatever they want in life with hard work and an unwavering conviction to accomplish what they set out to do. As many of you know, I am doing this to pursue my dream of flying fighter jets in the United States Air Force. I took the AFOQT and TBAS in January 2023 and absolutely smashed it out of the park. For those of you in the know, I got an AFOQT pilot score of 98 and a PCSM score of 98. I was in the process of putting an outstanding application together to apply to the March Rated board, however, due to having a poor recruiter (I’m now on my second) my medical paperwork wasn’t processed in time to apply this March. While it is still a huge bummer, achieving my private pilot certificate has given me the boost I need to keep going! I plan on continuing my pilot education by getting my instrument rating next. This should take me a decent chunk of time. I stand on the tough crossroad of continuing my career goal of military aviation or pursuing a lucrative career as a commercial airline pilot. My heart wants to be a military aviator, however, commercial aviation is paying generationally changing salaries. The plan is to continue my instrument training and finish sometime this fall. The next board for the Air Force is October 2023. If I get in on my first try this October, I am going to push forward with my career in the Air Force as an active duty pilot. If I come up short, I will likely become a commercial airline pilot and pursue trying to get a Guard fighter slot sometime down the road.
I would love to say I know where my future lies, but that is the most exciting part of life. If you work hard, surround yourself with outstanding and loving people, and most importantly, trust God, anything in life is possible!!
Until next time friends. Godspeed,
Pilot Nathan
