I got a call this morning from the FAA designated examiner that I was supposed to fly my checkride with on Monday. He hadn’t called by Friday afternoon to go through the pre-checkride information, so I had called and left a message yesterday afternoon. He was a bit confused because apparently his schedule had me for the 8th instead of the 1st (which is really strange because I confirmed the 1st with his secretary three times that we were talking about Monday, May 1). Anyway, he couldn’t reschedule for any time I was in B’ton before I left for the summer. He recommended another examiner that was located at Indy Metro, who unfortunately, was also unavailable for the two weeks I could fly. That pretty much eliminates the reasonable choices, so it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to do my check-ride before I head out to Los Alamos for the summer. There are worse things that could happen, but I’m a bit disappointed that I won’t be private pilot Brian when I head out to New Mexico.

From here, my focus for the remaining two weeks in B’ton will change slightly. Rather than trying to cram for the check ride, I’m going start transitioning into the Cessna 172, as it looks like there aren’t many Cessna 150s available out in NM. Once I get out there, I’ll start working on finding an instructor I like and trust to teach me about altitude differences and mountain flying. Then, I’ll find an examiner out there and do my checkride, hopefully early in June (May looks pretty shot and all that).