Yesterday was a big day. I started the day as a student pilot. I ended the day as a certificated private pilot. Which means that I started today as an instrument student.

I flew myself to Goodland, Kansas, on Sunday afternoon. It was a beautiful day. In case you are not familiar with the geography of the central plains, Goodland is barely over the Colorado border and is about 150 NM from my home airport. I had a tailwind the whole way there and it felt like the universe was on my side.

I have been stalking the weather channel for the last several weeks. Yeah, yeah, I know, it’s not an official source of weather information. But the Kansas plains are notorious for vicious winds, especially this time of year. Lo and behold, yesterday was the one break in the weather. The winds were 11 knots, almost straight down the runway. Someone up there likes me!

My DPE was Chrissy Genova (kansasdpe.com). There is not enough space on the entire internet to sing the praises of this woman. Not only did she make me feel like she wanted me to pass as badly as I did, she pulled into the ramp in an RV 4. It was teal over white and let me tell you, everyone who has said these airplanes have “ramp appeal” is absolutely right. She could not have looked cooler! I cannot wait to be one of the club with people oohing and ahhing over my plane.

Like so many things in life, the test was so much less than I had built it up to be in my mind. There is really something to be said for overpreparing, because when you get to the actual event, it is so much easier than you expect. I am hoping the building process will be the same way. I just found a copy of Kit Airplane Construction. I believe it is out of print, but the wonders of Google allowed me to find a copy. It arrived the day I got home with my shiny new pilot’s certificate. I will be doing some reading over the holidays.

When is too early to start obsessing about color schemes?