14 April 2003 22:54
i took my oral and practical tests over the weekend (aka o's & p's). they're for my aviation mechanic's certificate (aka airframe and powerplant aka A&P). despite a high level of initial worry (due to a high level of procrastination), things went pretty smoothly. not that i deserve any credit.. it has come to my attention frequently of late that God has blessed me a lot. this leaves me somewhat aprehensive of the day he starts to cash in on his investments. (due to my insistence on goofing off a lot, i have a fair amount of certainty that i don't have a "well done, good and faithful servant" coming my way).the practical portion of the test was actually pretty fun. the practicals were on three levels (from explain to do). so they ranged from easy (point out the comm antenna(s) on the 310) to hardish (now that i think about it, there really wasn't anything "hard" to do). the longest project was riviting some aluminum pieces together (fun, but hardly challenging). others (like tape out a registration number for painting) are so much fun i've done them in my free time anyway. had mo flare some aluminum tubing (done it dozens of time at work). even if i didn't know the answer right off, for the practicals you could look it up. for instance, i was unsure on rivet spacing for the structures project, but i was able ot have the textbook there and breeze right through the numbers, just like you would be able to do in a maintenance shop (although not without a good bit of ribbing for being forgetful. since i was alone in the structures lab i didn't have to worry about that, i just had me a merry time banging around making something with my hands that i was confident doing. a good feeling. oh yeah, and i turned some country music on the radio. ha, i got ribbed for that though. one of the instructors came into the other building and told my instructor that he had "fixed" the radio, because it was "broken." country music likers are in short supply at this school, despite the texas locale.)
the orals were a nice 45-60minute long sit down session with your examiner. 80% of the questions were straight out of the test guides. i could have studied more from them, it would have helped, but i'm at least grateful for the amount i did study. i did get stumped on a few, but not enough to fall below a 70%. on the whole, Os and Ps weren't quite the terror i'd thought they'd be. it was a fun challenge... and it was true what one instructor there is fond of saying, "what matters most is the three and a half years you spend in lab, not the three and a half weeks you spend studying before the tests.
so i passed the o's and p's yes, (in pretty good time too, only nine hours). but i'm not an A&P yet.. i still have to take the FAA's knowledge tests, which are going ot require a fair bit of rote memorization. i can't take them til after graduation though (since i'm still in an aviation class), so what that really means is that i don't have to start studying til after graduation :).
but in case you think i'm getting cocky, i failed the landing portion of my stage check for the third time in a row.. i can take off and fly fine, it's that landing portion that's so tricky, can't seem to get the hang of it. according to my logbook i've got over 560 landings in the past three years... you'd think i'd have the hang of it by now :). take four comes tomorrow.
22:54 email me permalink / commentary (0)
