Stage 2 Check Flight

Yesterday, Thursday Nov 20th was my Stage 2 check flight with Paul Jacob at Horizon Aviation. I learned, once again, that I do not give myself nearly enough credit.....I know more than I think. I was actually pretty nervous heading into this for some reason, but the 45 mins of discussion/questioning by Paul prior to the check flight went very well. No issues there. I showed him my flight plan that I had done up the night before using dead reckoning and everything checked out there and explained all of my decisions with the planned route, altitudes, and step by step the process I would take. I then went out and did the preflight check as usual and we headed up and out. Except this time, we had the Chief Flight Instructor, Radek Wyrzykowski along for the ride as a back-seater, just to observe. We went started with simulated radio calls for requesting flight following and activating my flight plan while taking to the skies. It was a little rocky taking off because I forgot to account for the extra weight of an additional passenger, but I made it off ok and recovered fine. We started navigating my flight plan and made it to the first check point over Framingham/Mass Pike when he pulled partial power out on me to simulate a partial power loss. From there I just needed to make it to the closest airport I could find using all the resources available to me, GPS, VORs, my charts, and looking outside the plane for visual reference. I was intending to line myself up with Marlborough since I was pretty much right over it from what I could tell, but couldn't see it outside the plane. In my efforts I located another runway and lined myself up for a straight in approach. Mind you this wasn't Marlborough like I was thinking, it was Minute Man Airport just North of Marlborough....oops! It helps to pay attention to the direction you're flying. Then we headed back to Norwood. Did a couple stalls on the way, flew the pattern and did a couple take offs and landings simulating short-fields and soft-fields. My landings are coming along very nicely and landings are getting smooth and soft down the center line like they are supposed to. All in all, I passed. If all goes well, I could have my license within the next few weeks.