Flight Training For The Practical Private Exam

I finished all of my solo cross country flights required for the practical private flight exam on 11/30/90. I was well on my way to getting my private, but I still had some obstacles. Will I be able to finish in a timely manner by being able to fly every day? The flight school still had problems with providing aircraft as scheduled. There was also my problem with using the VOR. My flight instructor was becoming increasingly frustrated with me because of my slow comprehension. He was becoming a jerk in my eyes. I later learned that this could be taught in a short time by instructors that I met later.
After my last cross country we began working really hard at VOR tracking and VOR interception. We also polished up on stalls, slow flight, steep turns, and soft and short field take offs and landings. On 1/16 I flew my first dual night flight. I was only required three hours of dual and no solo time at night for my private. We flew a simulated cross country on my first night flight which meant that I plotted and planned out a flight but we didn't go all the way. I started out tracking the destination VOR and my instructor got us lost on the way, so I practiced diversion and lost procedures. That took 1.2 hours. The next night flight was the funnest. We had two hours to kill, so we flew to the practice area and practiced the normal maneuvers, only this time with an added bonus. My instructor asked me if I would like to practice spin recovery at night. I said sure, so we climbed to around 4000 feet AGL, stalled the plane and started spinning. He showed me step by step how to recover. We must have done five spins. What a ride. We finally did the required three hours of flight time and headed back to the airport. Next article: The private practical test.