Blog Post #5 - My first Cross Country at WMU

This week at WMU was a very important milestone in my training. Currently I am in the transition course at WMU, which is a corse designed to transition you from whatever aircraft you flew while getting your private license, to the Cirrus SR20 that Western operates in their fleet. The other part of the transition course is learning all about the procedures that Western requires you to know, and the procedures that are in place to interact with Air Traffic Control and ultimately keep all of the training flights safe and informative. This course is said to be one of the hardest courses that Western offers and I can definitely speak from experience that is it tough, and requires a lot of studying to complete the lessons in the course.

This week I completed my first cross country flight in the transition course which included a flight to Muskegon, MI (KMKG) and back to Battle Creek, MI (KBTL). This flight was informative as well as fun, because cross countries are really a glimpse into what you will be doing as a commercial pilot but on a smaller scale. While doing maneuvers are very important and informative, there is nothing like getting the aircraft trimmed out and then letting the auto-pilot, do the rest of the work to get to your destination. I really enjoyed this flight, and I also learned a lot while flying the aircraft to Muskegon. I am grateful for the experience of this flight, and I will remember it throughout my career of training at Western Michigan University.

This week I wrote an article on Globalair.com, check out this article here. This article was based on weather or not a student pilot should train at a collegiate flight program, or at a private flight school, and the pros and cons that are associated with each.