Finally A private Pilot!

I passed my private Pilot checkride this past friday. I had Minimal notes from the examiner on the oral and the maneuvers part of the flight. (Landings not so much lol) My private time was extended in the private phase due to the solo cross country phase where weather grounded me for a total of 45 days. That being said I used that time to clean up my ground knowledge and keep trying to get ready for the checkride. I was blessed with an incredibly nice and reasonable examiner Which I think helps quite a bit.

I’m excited to Start instrument and will Continue to try and keep you updated!

For Future students:
Phases Completed thus far to get to the checkride since last posting

Solo Cross country- At least 2 flights to an airport at least 50 miles away, the first flight having 3 stops

Private checkride prep- a total of 4 flights going over maneuvers and Short and soft field TOLs + Mock checkride which includes a ground and flight.

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Congrats Alex!

You’re officially a pilot! Sorry to hear the delays you faced due to weather but it sounds like you utilized the time wisely. “Made lemonade out of lemons.” Hopefully you can catch up some of that time in the instrument phase. Now you can build up some actual IFR time if that weather continues to linger.

Thanks for updating us and sharing the picture. We love to see it!

Hannah

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Congrats Alex!

You’re a pilot!

Keep up the good work!

Adam

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Alex,

That is excellent news, congratulations!!!

Thank you for the update and the picture, please keep them coming!

Chris

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Alex,

Congratulations on passing your Private Pilot checkride! It seems that the delays you encountered was adversity, and you overcame that and got to hold a certificate in hand - you should be extremely proud!

Please keep us posted if you get the opportunity, we love hearing experience/stories.

Brady

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Congrats Alex!

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On the ATP website, it says every 2 months it will deduct 25k for the zero to MEI program for 7 months, but during delays will it continue to deduct or it starts deducting after you pass your private checkride?

Hopefully one of the pilots above can chime in to correct me, but the majority of the program is a fixed cost. The dollar amount they tell you when you start the program will be the range you should expect to pay.

Why do I say “range”? Each student has a different experience. I had to fly an extra 10 hours in currency flights due to weather during private pilot training. I was able to recover those hours slowly throughout the program, both through crew and forgoing checkride prep flights on both my instrument and commercial checkrides.

However, I was never able to recoup the 50 days lost due to weather. This means that the money allotted for my rent stopped coming in 7 months into the program, which happens to be this month.

Do with this information what you will, and don’t be afraid to ask any more questions!

Best, Alex

Hi Alex,

During delays, would atp charge extra, or I would have to only be worried about living expenses?

They try to take hours from different parts of the program to make up for lost time. For me, they shaved off some crew hours, and my instructor and I decided against the second or third checkride prep flights.

The reason is that you need 250 hours (50 logged in a simulator) for your Commercial Pilot checkride. Those hours for currency still count towards that total, but they cannot be logged as PIC time. You need 100 hours of PIC time (along with several unrelated hour requirements).

So, as long as you complete the program in the allotted hours and don’t need extra training flights (e.g., failed evaluations, checkrides, or struggles), you should be fine.

I understand now, thank you!

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