Every two years a pilot must complete a flight review with a certified flight instructor. Now, there are many different kinds of these reviews or proficiency checks but for an old private pilot like me, I just get my 2 year review and call it good. I called the instructor who did it 2 years ago and he told me he is still doing them and would be happy to go fly with me. I won’t name him but the nice thing about him is that he knows I don’t want to be a professional pilot when I grow up. I’m just trying to fly to Los Banos and back for breakfast so that’s how he conducts his training for me. We don’t do flying on instruments or unusual attitude recovery. The Champ I fly doesn’t have instruments and it would be VERY hard to get it into an unusual attitude so no point.

He showed up at Oakdale at 8am and I had the airplane pre-flighted and ready to go at 8:30. Pilot and instructor were all loaded up so off we went. My friend Tommy was gracious enough to give me a prop so we could just go. That means he swung the prop until the engine started, by the way. My CFI guided me southward towards Turlock until we found a road that was straight, long, and the (fairly stiff) wind was blowing across it. He had me do some S turns across that road while we chatted about flying, fly-ins, and which one of those we would and would not go to. Finally he have me a heading to fly (straight toward the Purina Feed Mill, and keep going) so I rolled out on-course.

He guided me toward his family’s ranch airstrip and talked me through the approach and what to expect on landing. We shot two landings. Even in the wind both of them were greasers. He must have been pleased with both my airmanship and my landmanship because he invited me to their yearly fly-in. Even sent my a web link via text while I was climbing out after the second landing.

I was too busy to take pictures but here is a Google earth image of the strip. It is a beauty. Grass strips make even bad tailwheel pilots look good.

He then had me fly over to the east side of Turlock near Denair. He told me that next we were going to practice some cross-wind landings at his home strip. Told me about all the rotors I could expect coming off the almond trees upwind of the runway, and the redwood trees on the downwind side of the runway. I asked if the redwood trees were in the runway, he said no. So I said, “What redwood trees?” It was a pretty sporty approach and I would lie and tell you I wasn’t worried because I’m a steely-eyed flyin’ man. The rotors were right where he said they would be so I landed a little long so I would be just above the runway when I encountered them. I still set down in the first 1/3 of the runway and was stopped well before the last 2/3. I taxied back and took off again and expected him to tell me to go around the pattern and do it again. To my relief he told me, “Alright, let’s head back to Oakdale.” He either didn’t want me balling up James’ airplane at his home runway or he thought I had a pretty good handle on this flying stuff. Turned out to be the latter.

That building with the blue roof is his home. The white roofed building is his hangar. That dirt road right about where the Google marker is, is his crosswind runway. Must be nice. Oakdale doesn’t even have a crosswind runway. I suspect we landed at his runway so he can just tell me to come pick him up next time I need a BFR.

We headed back to Oakdale, landed and filled out our paperwork. His paperwork largely involved writing in my logbook. My paperwork involved writing a check. All in all it was really a great BFR. It stretched me just enough to show me that I can still land at unfamiliar runways, that are not paved, in sporty conditions. Good to go for another two years!