Whaahoo!

Ryan passed his check ride today! He is now officially an instrument rated pilot. Thanks for your prayers!

Next he will be working on his commercial pilot rating in a Cessna 182RG (retractable landing gear). This plane flies a bit faster than the 172 he's been flying in for the past two years and is a little bit more like the aircraft he would fly on the mission field. The airplane in Togo is a 206 which is a little bit bigger and faster than the 182. With a commercial rating he will be allowed to fly passengers and charge them for the ride. Right now he can only charge his passengers an equal portion of the cost with himself (i.e. if there is one other passenger he can only charge them 50%, if there are two other passengers he can charge them each 33%, and so on). He'll also be working on sharpening his maneuvers.

"Maneuver" can be a scary word to a wife, especially the word "spins". However, I used to be afraid of the word "stalls", but now that I've been in a few they're not so scary. Maybe spins aren't so bad either? I'll have to decide that later.