6 MONTHS, 215 HOURS
Written: 12 JANUARY 2004

Yesterday it was exactly 6 months since I had my first flight here at NAIA, and by coincidence I was out flying the same plane as I was flying half a year ago (6374M). The time is running fast here and I'm closing in on the end of the school. Last week we started Instructor groundschool to prepare us for the CFI certificate (Certified Flight Instructor). This is done in a classroom with Mike Wetmore as our instructor. He's an excellent instructor with a unique way to make the students participate in the lessons. Alot of the school is done by the students up at the board trying to explain different things to the rest of the class (with a little help from Mike). It isn't exactly easy, but I have great confidence in that this school will help us enormously with our meeting with the life of the flight instructor.

At the moment I'm also flying CFI lessons in the air. This is basically done by me flying from the right seat explaining how things should be done. First I fly and explain, then the instructor is pretending to be a rookie pilot. Lately I've been flying alot with Morten who I know from Gardermoen. He's a former student at NAIA and is now working as an instruktor here.

I'm closing in on the goal of 250 hours for Commercial Checkride. As mentioned I'm flying CFI lessons now, and I'll also continue flying the C-172 RG this week. After that the Seminole is waiting. It will be conquored in the next couple weeks, which I'm really looking forward to.

Alot of my spare time here now is dedicated to reading to get myself up to an acceptible level for the Commercial and CFI Checkride. If everything goes as planned the Commercial Checkride is about a month away. Fairly scary thought, but I feel I'm getting the hang of most of the things involved in the Checkride.

The plan after NAIA is somewhat uncertain at the moment, as I don't really know where or how to get a job. The plan that tops my list of plans (as if I have one) is to drive to California and try to get a job there, but time will show. The problem is that it's difficult to get a job by sending out applications. You have to meet them personally to be considered, in which California can be a problem as it's so far away.