Getting checked out at PHF

With my flight school having recently closed it was time to get checked out to fly with another company's airplanes.

I live about 30 minutes from PHF (Newport News) and I really like that airport so I went over to Rick Aviation to get checked out. It took almost 4 hours to get everything done, which included a 1 hour checkride and a 1 hour open-book written test.

The checkride went fine, though we had some serious winds at altitude. They made the trip back from the practice area a long one. We did a landing at a small airport called Hummel and then did an "interesting" soft field takeoff when leaving. It was interesting b/c of gusty the winds.

I learned a lot of new techniques from Tom, my checkout instructor, and plan to go back to PHF to fly some more, on my own. I doubt I'll fly out of there too often though since it is a little out of the way.

I also noticed that they are building a new tower at PHF, which I was surprised by. I guess they are growing, which is a good thing.

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