Today I’d be flying in 2148Y on a solo flight to practice ground reference maneuvers as well as practicing some short and soft field landings. In fact, according to my part 141 training curriculum, this would just be my second to last solo flight before my check ride. We will see what actually happens, but I knew that my primary training was coming to an end. In fact, this was passed the middle of July and I was trying to pass my oral and my check ride before I would go to Oshkosh for Airventure 2008; my first trip there. And I would be going as one of the handful of aviation podcasters at the time. I would be leaving on a commercial flight Monday, July 28th in the evening, and this solo flight was 10 days prior to that…so I would need to finish up my training pretty quick, make sure I was ready, and pass my checkride to make it by the time I left. So these flights were important to me because I needed the practice to get where I wanted to be to make my check ride date, which was scheduled for 6 days away, on the 24th. After this flight my curriculum had me taking 5 more flights over those six days, so it would be a whirlwind. In fact, I would be taking the next Tuesday off of work to do a dual flight, a solo flight, and a stage check all in one day to make sure I would make it, but we’ll get to that in future episodes.