I have no idea where I am anymore...

Well sorry it's been so long since I posted, the days have seemed to go by very quickly. Sunday was our 4th simulator lesson, dubbed "hell day" cause they throw just about everything at you that they can. So you have one little thing that turns into many large things, all while you're trying to fly the aircraft. Jason and I had some fun with that, but afterwards, our instructor said that we handled ourselves very well, and even though we came close to dying on a couple of occasions, he said that we were definetly ready for our checkride the next day. This day was more to see how we react under very intense situations as opposed to if we lived or not. All the things that happened that day weren't very realistic in terms of them actually happening all at the same time in the actual aircraft. Sunday night was pretty chill, and went to bed early so I could be well rested for the checkride on Monday.

Monday morning we met our instructor at 5:30 and got right into it. We had a little "mock check" first so we could make sure all the wrinkles were ironed out. I went first and did pretty well, then Jason went and also did well. Our instructor said if we flew like that on the checkride, we'd have no problems. We had a two hour break while Hugh and Chris went in and did their checkride review. We waited in a little area with a tv and a vending machine and some nice couches. I ended up falling asleepo watching Fox News. (imagine that) When it came time for the checkride, Jason went first, and passed just fine. When it was my turn I was nervous, but was confident I knew what I was doing. The checkride was very straight forward and seemed easy compared to all the stuff we'd benn doing over the past 5 days. After I landed, he said, "Ok! You're done! Congratulations!" I was glad it was over but in my mind I was almost like, "That's it?" Not that it was easy, but it could have been worse!

After Chris and Hugh got done with their ride, we went upstairs to the bar and had a few during happy hour, and then met up with Stefanie and Cindy, and decided to go downtown. We went to a couple of bars, walked around. Nice downtown area. We didn't get near the docks where the Queen Mary was, we didn't have enough time, but we could see it from a distance all lit up. Looked pretty cool, I think I'll have to come back sometime. This morning, Chris, Hugh, Jason and I all got on shuttle to LA to catch our flights. Tonight we have our aircraft ride, which is where we go up in an actual airplane (empty) and practice all the stuff we've been doing. Not alot of airlines do this, but SkyWest wants our first time going actually going through all this stuff to not be when there are passengers aboard. Chris and Hugh have their flight tonight in Carlsbad, and Jason and I are in Santa Barbra. Very nice area, although we couldn't see the ocean from the sky cause it was covered in clouds. After tonight, Jason and I both get on a 6:20 am flight to Salt Lake City, then I catch a flight home and he catches a flight home to Tampa. Holy cow! I'll try to take some pictures tonight, but we'll see how busy it is. Meanwhile, here's a few pics from the last few days!

This is Flight Safety, where we did all our training.

This is one of the simulator bays in Flight Safety. The sims you see are about as wide as two 15 passenger vans and sit about 10 feet off the ground on hydraulic jacks which move like the aircraft would in flight.

This is the Santa Monica Airport terminal. Pretty nice place!

This is the view out our balcony in Santa Barbra. Jason looked it up and apparently we're staying in a $200 a night room! Pretty posh!