Ed Moricoli Scholarship Update: About G’dang Time!!
In 2018, I received the Ed Moricoli Flight Training Scholarship. I was pumped. I started doing ground school with Justin Cleland and flying with Josh at JB. We flew throughout the spring and summer and by the end of the summer I had almost 30 hours logged.
But as it turned out, 2018 was not my year. It took a really long time to get my medical and we decided to stop flying until I got it. In 2019 I took on a new position at work which ended up taking way more of my time than I thought it would. So let me get a mulligan for that whole year.
In January 2020, I started flying with Josh again. I flew my first solo on February 29, 2020, but in March that little COVID thing happened and we took a break from flying. By the time we could start flying again, work got crazy busy again. If you work in the semiconductor industry, you probably know what’s up. 2021 was more of the same.
Finally, this year I started flying with Beth Rehm. I left my job last year and decided to put much more of my time into flying. I spent so much time at the airport, Justin and Brian gave me a job at the maintenance shop. I finished my solo cross-country flights in March, retook my written exam in April, and completed my PPL requirements in May. In June, I took my checkride with Jim Bair. The oral portion went well, and the practical portion went impossibly well. Like I managed to somehow have the three best landings of my life during the checkride. And that’s about it. I’m finally a licensed private pilot. It only took:
4 years
99.9 flying hours
11.3 solo hours
39.9 cross country hours (including flying to Colorado with Arnie Quast) 3.9 hours of nausea-inducing hood time
204 landings
2 written exams (the first one expired, I didn’t fail it I swear. lol)
Big thank you to everyone who helped along the way. And thanks to everyone in EAA 932 for supporting me through the Ed Moricoli Scholarship. I couldn’t have done it without y’all.