Check Once, Check Twice, Check Thrice

After waiting several weeks to get my paperwork for my Night Rating back, I got fed up and called the CAA. They had received my application, but they just hadn’t posted the stuff I need. They sent me a fax to prove that they had indeed processed my application, and I was Night Rated.

A few days later I get a phone call from them. “We can’t process your application because you don’t have the required hours.”... Well isn’t that just fantastic. So I hauled out my logbook, and hey look, I didn’t actually have the required number hours. My instructor and I somehow missed that I only had 4.9hrs actual instrument time (requirement is at least 5hrs).

Now what? It’s been over 30 days since my test, so will I have to retest? After calling the CAA for hours my instructor and I finally got through to someone in Licensing, and they said it would be okay if I just get the hours and submit a new logbook summary. Thank goodness!

So it just goes to show how easy it is to miss something. Needless to say we won’t be making that mistake again!

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On Monday I wrote Air Law. They always manage to ask the weirdest, most irrelevant questions. But I think I was better prepared for it this time (not that one can really be prepared; you can read the book until your eyes bleed, and they’ll still ask you a question on something you’ve never heard of or seen).

I wrote Navigation yesterday morning. It was infinitely better than the last time I wrote it. We got the correct papers, and started on time. I forgot my eraser at home, but luckily a friend allowed me to steal half of his.

I worked fast, seeing as the biggest problem with Nav is taking too long and having 5 questions left and no time. I don’t know if it’s a good thing that I finished within 1hr30 (2hr paper). So I went through my work and came to a question involving scale, where they kept changing the units (had to work with statute miles, nautical miles, kilometres, centimetres and inches). Let’s just say that I got different answers depending on if I used the conversions and a regular calculator, to when I used the CX2 Pathfinder.

And so I broke a very important multiple choice rule, and I changed my answer. Now I’m wondering if I made the right decision.

Hopefully I’ll know early next week. Of course I want to pass, but what happens, happens. I worked hard, and I did my best.