My 7 weeks in France are over and it is time again to head for the airport to return to Arkansas. Yesterday, I’ve received a phone call from Michael in France. I hadn’t given any news and Michael was wondering if I was in Arkansas already. I confirmed that I was not and that I was taking the plane tomorrow. The plan is still to finish the license by the end of the month of January but there is a little twist.

I’ve mentioned in one of the previous post that I wanted to take the exam during the first week of being back, unfortunately, I’m not ready.

Delayed Knowledge Exam

There have been some development in my job and I’m working out the details of a permanent relocation from Toulouse, France to … Bentonville, AR! This means several things. First, the time to prepare for the relocation has been carved out of my preparation time for the knowledge exam and I felt behind on the preparation.

Second, I can stretch the training a little more and I do not need to rush it anymore since I won’t have the huge gaps that I had before while in France.

So what’s the plan?

The plan is simple. I still want to get done by the end of January. But since I have plan some vacations and I still need to work on my knowledge exam and to prepare the oral interview, I do not want to rush it too much. Some of the topics that I have covered during my self study needs to be reviewed with an instructor. That includes weather briefing & services, some of the weather theory and the never ending subject of regulations…

I told Michael that I would set a session before the end of the week to make sure that we are developing a plan of attack for the month of January.

In the airport

As I’m anticipating that it might be among my last trip, I have started to pack my suitcases for a come back in the US. This means that I showed up at the airport with very heavy suitcases and I have to admit that I’m happy that they have not weighted my carry on! I think they would have received a heart attack. But one thing for sure, since my carry on (and my checked in luggage) are packed so tight and there is so much electronics, that the security check has not been fun. They actually stopped both of my bags and proceeded to go check in every single pocket. That has been to date the most complete checks I had to go through.

But while I’m stuck in the Amsterdam for 5 hours, waiting for my connection flight to Memphis, TN, I’m taking the time to initiate this post and to try to reflect on my preparation so far. That might not be the best moment to do that since I slept only 90 minutes.

Thoughts about the preparation

I’ve come to realize that the CPC, while great to introduce to flying is not enough in my sense to be really ready for the Knowledge test. I have been using the ASA TestPrep  book as mentioned in my previous post but even there, I’ve realized that there are still some element missing. Unfortunately, short of reading all the reference documents, almost everything is coming short of helping preparing.

One of my biggest grief is that they do not make any distinction in the knowledge exam between what you need to know when you are flying versus when you are on the ground. Example, why do I need to know all the symbols of the weather chart when there are no chance to get it while in the plane flying?! Memory should be better use in remembering elements that are crucial in flight. On the ground, I will surely get the symbols next to me as I’m deciphering the chart! It seems that a lot of exams these days are doing this type of “mistakes”, confusing what is important to know and that you should remember versus what you can lookup with the proper documentation.

Remaining of the flight

As usual, the remaining of the flight has been uneventful but as we were approaching Canada, we started to get some turbulence. Enough to get the stewards going to their seats and buckle up! Of course, we got an announcement from them that we were going through turbulences and that we need to stay seated. Did I say that not a single turbulence happen after the announcement? The next series of serious turbulence were as we started our descend towards Memphis. I guess it was “serious” enough that the next flight to Northwestern Arkansas (XNA) was done at a very low altitude. By low I mean that I could see the ground at all time and that flight could have been VFR! I wished I had kept my maps with me because then I would have been able to look at the ground and find my position…

Overall it was a very tiring flight that lasted closed to 23 hours from door to door and with only 90 minutes of sleep in the previous night! I’m glad I’m back and I’m looking forward being able to get in a plane (as pilot, of course!) again!

For the coming flights, I’m reserving a couple of surprises. I’ve acquired a few extra gadgets and if they revealed themselves working as planned, you we should have even more interesting postings… But I will not spoil the surprise! Hope to meet on a future post soon!