Man im INSANELY close to my Flight Certificate (Pilots License). i have two flights left. two. count em. this will be the most stressing and painstaking part of all that ive worked too though. ive got a VERY thick book ive got to study from so that i pass my written which im planning on taking in about a week and a half. I'll be cramming a crapload of information into my mind in the next couple of weeks. after the written will be my checkride, which is a process that can take up to 5 hours. tests dont get much longer than that. that involves a one on one talk with the FE (Flight Examiner) where he'll ask me a lot of questions. after that is the flight in which ill demonstrate all the skills ive learned. theyre not easy skills either. before i started flight training i thought that having your pilots license was more a matter of being able to fly a plane more than anything. but ive come to realize its a LOT more than that. All the nitpicky stuff is so important and those that fly with you will probably never catch all those things that may seem so small to the onlooker. All the prep that goes into a flight involves so much knowledge and so much practice and deals with so many terms that an aviation deprived person gets lost in. The acronyms and weird sounding terms are probably the most famous such as: VORs, DMEs, Wind Correction Angles, VFR, IFR, TCHs, AROW, Yaw, Pitch, Roll, Upwind, Crosswind, Downwind, Base, Final, Soft Field, Short Field, ADs, Altimeters, Artificial Horizon, Attitude Indicator, Vertical Speed Indicator, Squawk, Transponders, ATIS, AWOS, Ailerons, Elevators, Horizontal Stabilizer, Vertical Stabilizer, Empanage, pito heat, Carb Heat, Stall indicators. I mean the list is endless, and those are just a few of the terms that come to mind. you have to know what each one means and how it applies to flying. Its no wonder why so many people get involved in flight training and then drop out of it. its not something to take lightly. makes you really respect the people that have done it before you. thats why flying is such an ongoing learning experience. even if you have your license or any type of rating, theres always something new to learn, and you had better listen to those that have been doing it longer than you. but enough seriousness. there is nothing more rewarding for all of that then to strap into a plane and be the PIC. all the controls at your fingertip. i dont think it really set in that i fly planes until my solo when i was the only one in there. there was no one else in the plane to help you. you made it fly, and ONLY you, and thatll give you a feeling that youll never forget. you get up to cruise altitude and all the worries you have are gone, partly because of how hard your concentrating haha, but to see what we get to see up there- its amazing and it never gets old. i mean anyone can get on an airliner and have that one direction view out that tiny little hole of a window, but the view that we have up there- a full 360 degrees- its amazing. thats another thing. i dont kno how some pilots are atheists. to see what Gods created from His point of view, i dont see how you cant agree with creation. everything is truely perfect. well thats the conclusion of my pilot spiel. these next few weeks should be pretty crazy. i expect to be done in about 3 weeks. but once thats over- its only begun...