Instrument Rating Exam

Its the 19th May I'm tucked up in bed, fast asleep and enjoying the last hour and a bit before having to get up and get ready for the day ahead.

Today is the day of my final instrument flight exam, the flight is booked for 4pm, in preparation for the exam as usual there is some forms and paperwork to be completed. Unfortunately the paperwork is booked in for 10am which was the only free slot left so I'm going to need to get up at 9am at the latest, nerves have kept me awake for most of the night but I'm finally asleep and so was going to rest as much as possible to be ready for the exam.

7:45am RING RING! My cell phone goes off, rudely awakening me from my sleep. I look at my phone and see its the Air Center calling. Trying to snap myself awake so that I don't sound like I have just woken I answer the phone. A voice drones, "Good morning Mr Knight, we have you booked into do your exam at 4pm this afternoon would you mind coming in to do the paperwork before then?" Trying (but probably failing) to sound awake and as polite to the person who had just abruptly woken me to tell me I needed to do something that I already had booked to do, I informed them that it was already booked said goodbye and forced myself to get up. If I went back to sleep now I would probably sleep through my alarm.

The paperwork takes about an hour but is eventually signed off ready for this afternoon all I have to do now is wait. I decided not to go home but to stay at the Air Center as there were thunderstorms in the region and I wanted to keep an eye on the weather to see if I would actually get to do my test, it didn't look promising. The weather did slowly get better as my nerves rapidly got worse.

An hour before I'm due to fly the examiner pokes his head around the door and asks if I fancy going a bit early. The next hour was surprisingly relaxed, Steve (the examiner) would ask me to demonstrate something then would pretend to look back at his newspaper. The reason I say "pretend" is when I glanced over I noticed the page he was supposedly reading was a big advert with very little text on plus the fact that the paper was upside down was also a give away. Everything seemed to go well apart from the 2 instruments that failed on me while flying. After landing Steve informed me I had passed! I felt as if a great weight had been lifted and spent the rest of the day grinning inanely.