Flightblog

The Checkride

Dear readers, forgive me for losing my fervor. I meant, when we began this adventure, to log EVERY flight. I wanted a detailed record of every lesson, every new experience, every moment of learning...I've more or less recorded everything, but must confess that I have missed a few flights. I've done my best, but am now realizing how valuable each one of those flights were and that I really should journal everything I do in the airplane...as I continue the adventure, I'll try to be more mindful of this realization.

Today, I am a Private Pilot (Airplane, Single Engine, Land).

I have been studying voraciously for the oral exam over the last week or two, desperately trying to commit every detail to memory or at least to develop enough of an understanding of all of the material that I wouldn't have to memorize. Every other day or so, I have been down at the hangar, either flying with Fletch to practice the maneuvers or being quizzed on oral exam material, revealing the areas that needed more study.

All of that preparation, all of the experience, time and money came to their conclusion today. Today was the practical test (or, checkride in aviation parlance).

Fletch called last night as I was changing a diaper and told me he'd spoken with the examiner, and that I was to plan a cross-country flight from Kahului, down the north shore and across the channel to Hilo.

After dinner, I got to work. This part, by now, is pretty easy. Choose checkpoints, plot the course and distance for each leg, figure groundspeed and wind correction, calculate time en route and fuel burn. I really like this part, it's fun and you're on the ground so there's no stress.

After I had a flight plan, I checked the weather. The forecast was NOT looking good. Lots of rain and clouds on the north shore, an AIRMET for turbulence on the south and west shores...not a pretty flying day. We've been having really strong tradewinds, so it's been especially windy, gusty and rainy for the last week or so. I knew that one of the things the examiner would want to see is a good 'go/no-go' decision based on current weather, and prayed that it would open up for our flight at 10am today.

Then I packed my flight bag and thought through everything I've learned so far. What an enormous body of knowledge to be responsible for. I've never encountered any learning experience quite like this one: the breadth and scope of knowledge is huge, the consequences for not mastering that knowledge are huge, the knowledge has to be successfully coupled with flying skill, which is itself, huge. All that, and you're trying to do it with as little instruction and experience as you can, since the $$ cost of that experience/instruction is so high. The private pilot training is FAR more demanding than I anticipated when I set out to become a pilot. I remember thinking I would breeze through it, now I know what flight training really is. Guess what folks, those guys that make $220K/year to fly the heavies transcontinental...they deserve every penny and all the respect you can muster. If I *ever* hear someone refer to those men and women as a 'glorified bus driver' again, that person will hear from me.

I slept great. My alarm didn't go off at 5:30 like I thought I set...but I the coffee maker and the baby both started gurgling at 5:30, which was enough to get me up. I did just what I needed to do: had a cup of coffee, checked the weather outlook, checked for any NOTAMs. Still not VFR recommended along our route, but looking off the back porch I could see that the ceiling was about 1500'. We may have a few showers to dodge on the way out, but it didn't look like it'd be socked in.

Left the house at 7:15 to meet Fletch and the examiner, Bob, at 7:45 at the hangar. It was an eery anticipation driving down to the airport. On the one hand, I have to believe I'm ready for this...Fletch and all keep telling me it's time, on the other hand, I know I could use more practice and could further polish and refine all of my budding skills. How stressful...if there's anything worse than being under the watchful eye of someone else, it's being under scrutiny from YOURSELF! As I sat in my truck at the airport, listening to Morning Edition and waiting for someone to show up and open the door, I just sort of relaxed. Too late to do anything but what I'm going to do now, might as well just go do it.

Shortly after, Bob got there.

Everyone swarmed him at first, asking questions and showing off the new plane. Once the crowd cleared, he was pretty much ready to get down to work. We started with him acknowledging that it was perfectly human to be nervous today, no sweat. Then he got to work on my paperwork: reviewed the application, reviewed my logbook. Once that was done, he asked for my PTS and we opened it to the test standards for the knowledge test. One by one, we went down the list of knowledge areas.

If you want to reference the list, you can find the PTS here. We just went down the list: PPL priveleges and limitations, medical certificate duration, logbooks and flight records, airworthiness of the airplane, operating limitations, placards, markings, POH, weight and balance, minimum equipment lists, 91.205 and required equipment, airworthiness directives...

No problem. All of this material I either knew or knew where to look for it. I found it very helpful to answer questions on the FARs like, 'Well, if I ever find myself in that situation, I know I will need to go through FAR 91 with a fine toothed comb to make sure I'm legal...but off the top of my head, I would say...'. There's a lot of stuff about flying an airplane that has to be memorized (V speeds, emergency procedures, traffic avoidance), whether I'm legal to fly my boss to a meeting in a distant city while on the clock is not one of them...if my boss (I don't have one) ever asks me to fly him somewhere, I can go look it up before I have to give an answer.

We got through the oral in about an hour and a half. Bob talked a little about his experience and his views on certain regulations and procedures and made the invaluable suggestion that if you want to live long in aviation, you'll make a habit of making the conservative decision, early. It's the guys who take risks and get behind a situation that wind up in the newspapers.

It was time to go fly.

We looked at N7332L's maintenance logs and determined that she was legal and airworthy. We reviewed my flight plan and he noted each of my legs and how I calculated time enroute and fuel. That all looked good. I pulled out a printout of my Excel sheet weight/balance hoping that would fly with him...he noted weights and arms and was OK with the spreadsheet. We talked a little about how I would determine how much fuel was in the plane, then much to my joy the guy who flew the plane before us came back and said he had filled it up before going out for 1.2. That's perfect, his 1.2 hours off full tanks left just about 19 gallons in the plane...my planning number. We were within CG and max gross.

As I preflighted the airplane, Bob watched...I noticed every little thing hoping it wouldn't be an issue. 30 year old planes have...blemishes that a real stickler could scrutinize. Thankfully, he was very understanding of the airplane's age. He's been around general aviation for a long time, I'm sure he's seen worse. Preflight complete I let Bob board the plane and then gave the required passenger brief. He corrected me on my seatbelt regulation mistake (what do you know, you *don't* have to keep your seatbelt on while sitting in a crew seat in a C-152) like it was no big deal. Then he reminded me that I was PIC for this flight, he offered to provide whatever assistance I desired in the event of an emergency...hey, thanks. If we have to ditch at sea I'll let you pile us in while I hug the liferaft :)

We were ready to go...this is where I started to get nervous. There's about a million little things you can do 'wrong' while operating an airplane. Pilots are perfectionists, it's easy to look bad in front of another pilot. It was hot. I started to sweat. Just as I was getting through my engine starting checklist, the fire trucks go screaming out of the station...oh great. We decided to sit (and bake) for a few minutes to see if there was a problem on the ramp/runway. Nothing about an emergency on the radio...so after a few minutes I continued my checklist and got the engine running. She started on the first revolution of the prop...that Chuck (our mechanic) is amazing, so glad he completed the 100 hour inspection/tuneup last night.

We taxied and I remembered that I know how to do this. Down to the runup area and through the runup checklist. One mag was more than 100rpm off but within the allowable 150rpms. All systems looked good so we called up clearance delivery for directions out of the Charlie. Wrote the clearance down (even though it's always the same) and got the tower controllers on the radio. We held short of 2 for a long, long time. It was hot. We both were sweating. Finally the United heavy landed and they let us position and hold. Hey, plenty of time to go through all of my checklists!

Our takeoff was into a good 20kt wind and we just blasted off at Vy. We quickly climbed to 1000' and I realized that at 1500' we'd be a little too close to the clouds so I announced that we'd maintain 1200'. I noted out time off and started my stopwatch and listened for traffic advisories. How about that, here I am flying with the examiner and it's just like it always is! Thank God for cool air moving through the cabin! My radio work and traffic monitoring was all spot on. I held altitude (more or less, he didn't complain when I got 50'-100' off my altitude) and just flew to Opana Point. I noticed Bob look at his watch when we got there...we were a little early. Not as much wind as planned. No problem, better groundspeed on the way out to Hana.

Each leg came in a little bit early and we flew easily as Bob enjoyed the view, he kept talking about how much the waterfalls were flowing. I was actually starting to relax. As we cleared Keanae Bob explained that we'd overfly Hana Airport and he would take the plane, then he wanted me to figure what our time enroute and fuel burn to Hilo would be. I thought it was kind of funny that he would take the plane while I did the math...not too demanding, is it? I came up with some time/fuel numbers and he was satisfied. He gave me the plane back in a descending turn and told me to enter on a 45° downwind for RWY 8 at Hana.

My first landing sucked. I was low all the way down final, thanks to overly concentrating on giving myself plenty of room for a nice, long final. I guess I should have just used the nice, tight patterns that I'm used to. When we got to the threshold the wind was switchy and a little turbulent, made it difficult to hold the centerline and I got to drifting as I chased the centerline around in ground effect, touched down with a little side loading, but the centerline underneath the airplane. We taxied off the active and turned around. Bob asked for a soft field takeoff, stay in the pattern. I back taxied and kept back pressure on the yoke, as we neared the numbers I dropped 10° of flaps and kept the plane moving, announcing my position on the radio. Rotate at 50, hold ground effect and accelerate and climb out at Vx-Vy, at Vy flaps come up and hey, there's a soft field takeoff!

On the downwind, he announced a soft field landing. Scary, I thought about how little I've practiced these and checked my checklist for the landing. Power at 1500rpm. flaps 10°, airspeed about 60 and keep the nose up. Again, long, low final...rats! I kept the nose off and the power on until touch down and he seemed satisfied with the landing...good. As we taxied though, he commented on my low finals...says that can be dangerous. Made it real clear to me that you can ALWAYS get a Cessna down, but keeping it up can be a challenge in certain air. He told me we'd do a short field landing back at Kahului and he wanted to see all of the final flown plenty high.

Back taxi to 8 for a short field takeoff and just as I'm about to position a Caravan announces he's at Harrison's at 1000' to land. Crap, that's about 1.5 minutes out! I better hurry! Here's a tip for all you student pilots: NEVER get in a hurry during your checkride! Make the Caravan in the pattern go around if you have to, but DON'T get in a hurry. I forgot to drop 10° of flaps before starting my takeoff roll and had to do it once we were rolling at about 30kts. Bad move, sloppy flying. I rotated and kept Vx and then cleaned up the plane...ears burning. I mentioned that I was bummed that I allowed myself to get distracted and he didn't respond...did I fail?

We climbed out and he directed us off shore for the maneuvers. Clouds were at 1500' up to 6000' and broken, but he thought we could get above them in a hole. We climbed and climbed and kept getting penned in by more and more clouds, definitely not something I've done before. Finally, at 5000', surrounded by towering cumulus (with no view of the horizon...just big puffy clouds in every direction) we leveled off to do the airwork.

This was completely different than ANY practice session I ever had and I sort of started freaking out. As I worried about the clouds, Bob asked for steep turns. My palms started to sweat. I got us trimmed on a heading at 5000' and started my first turn, to the left. Muttered about corrections I was making as our altitude wavered then rolled into my right turn. My bank angle was good, airspeed was good and altitude wavered maybe 75' throughout the turns: sloppy but passing.

Next was slow flight. I got too slow, started descending, got behind the power curve and couldn't correct. Over a few minutes, I frantically kept us out of a stall and just barely kept us within 100'of our altitude. I'm not sure how I let this happen, I guess I just didn't correct enough early enough once we started to go down. Fortunately for me, he called for cruise flight before I busted the altitude limit of 100'...for the whole maneuver, I mushed around losing 100'/minute.

We did the stalls, first power on and then a turning descent stall. I kept it coordinated and corrected fast once it started to buffet, the stalls were good.

He didn't have Foggles or a hood so we did the simulated IMC with Bob holding the checkmate list over my eyes. Turns to a heading, climb, descend...no problem.

As we began our descent he started talking about how close I came to busting the slow flight and I knew I was still passing! All I had to do now was fly back to Kahului and make a short field landing! On the way down, Bob demonstrated how the Cessnas can triple their descent rate. You trim for best glide with power off to get 500fpm, OK...done that before. Then he dropped 30° of flaps and our descent rate was an even 1000fpm, neat...500fpm increment! Next, he applied full cross controlled aileron/rudder deflections for a forward slip and held best glide airspeed...another 500fpm for a 1500fpm descent rate. After demonstrating this, he reminded me that you can always get the airplane down...don't be too low for fear of being too high.

We flew back to Kahului easily and even made small talk, whew! On the way home, I tried not to screw anything up: got ATIS before contacting approach, made position reports, carb heat and landing light way early. Coming over the mill, number 2 for RWY 2 I just tried to stay high. It was gusty and switchy on final and I chased the centerline all over the place, but I stayed high and watched my airspeed. 60kts all the way down...high! He said he wanted us 50' over the numbers and on the ground before the touchdown markers. With 20kts of headwind, no problem. I must have been 200' over the numbers and still touched down a few hundred feet short of the touchdown markers, not off the centerline but again...a little side loaded. Bob suggested I come practice low approaches, flying down the centerline at 65kts all the way down the runway...really learn how to control the drift in the wind.

Taxi was clean and he didn't even stay in the plane for securing the aircraft. Just shook my hand and said 'Congratulations, I'll go start typing it up'.

:)

Passed the checkride with 51 hours.

Today I am a private pilot.

Posted by johnpeace at May 5, 2004 06:51 PM