This is me in August 2018, holding a freshly printed CFI Multi Engine Instructor (MEI) certificate, obtained in this very same Cessna 310R. Oddly, the whole checkride went much better than the commercial checkride. Perhaps it was just that I had more multiengine time and felt more confident. Perhaps it was because I didn't have to do the dreaded single engine instrument approach. Anyway, I knew as I approached for the final landing that I'd nailed it with nothing even close to exceeding the PTS parameters.
A friend and student of mine "K" came along for the ride, and on the way back I let him fly from the left seat and I gave him a free multi-engine lesson. Now he wants to buy a Cessna 310. Don't blame me, I was just the "connection". It is a heck of a plane.
In other news, the Seattle-based company I was working for laid me off. It wasn't a surprise, the aviation-related project I'd been working on was cancelled by the customer, and I wasn't prepared to move from Dallas to Seattle as was really needed to make work what they wanted me to do. I almost instantly got contract work, although I think that's ending soon.
Around the same time, I flew the Bonanza up to Geneva NY to pick up Sally after she had driven from Dallas to NY with Thing 2. I stopped for one night in Cincinnati to visits "D" who now lives there, but we didn't have time to fly his 172. The next day I flew to Niagara Falls, and rented a car to drive up to Toronto to visit family. While there, my uncle showed me a model he'd made of my Bonanza - and here it is, with the real thing at Niagara:
Meanwhile I've been doing a lot more instruction, with "M", a high school senior planing a career in aviation, "T", the owner of fence company who wants to buy a Cessna 182, and "D", an exp-pat Brit living in Dallas. And "A2", another ex-pat Brit, and several others.
So I passed the ATP experience minimums in December 2018. What next?
