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Thursday July 11, 2002 - Check ride and White Slip!
This was it - the moment that I had been waiting for - that six months,
several hundred hours and several thousand hours of my time had brought me to -
my check ride.
One thing I have learned in my life is that every major endeavor has at least
one glitch. Be it a play, an attack, a trip, whatever, there is always at
least one glitch. If you know that, tolerate it, even embrace it you will
do much better by just writing that first big f&*kup as "the glitch" and moving
on without stress, fear or worry. In fact I think you decrease the chance
of more glitches by doing that - if you get all bent up that 2nd and 3rd glitch
is more likely. One because we just don't perform as well when we are
distracted by stress and worry, and two, I believe that fate and karma has a
sense of humor - Murphy definitely likes to come in batches. So smile and
go on and maybe the fates will leave you alone and move on to the next and
hopefully more entertaining victim.
I definitely had a glitch or two the day of the check ride. First - the check
ride was at 8am and Ahart (my FBO) opened at 8am so I had scheduled the plane
early at 7am - they have an outside box they leave things in. Well - got there
at a little after 7am and no keys or book. Sigh. Luckily I had at least gotten
the maintenance logs the day before. I finally got to the plane about 7:40a and
started my preflight - and the aircraft was missing it's airworthiness and
registration. Frantic call to the FBO while they looked and I pre-flighted.
All this was exacerbated by the fact that the DE had tried to reschedule for
the day before so he could leave early on a weekend trip and I had promised to
be on time at 8a so he could get done.
Well - called him - he hemmed and hawed and then said go ahead as long as I
would be right up there. But I said to myself - that's the glitch and got up
there. The practical was almost anti-climatic. He was in a _big_ hurry to leave
- not so much that I was rushed but enough so that he was definitely moving
along. He was also happy that I had all of my paperwork 100% in order including
a very pretty 8810 that I had printed. He has a reputation for being real hard
on the oral and easy on the flight ride. I think I got off easy on the oral
because he wanted to move along. But some of it may be just that I obviously
knew my stuff - he handed me a METAR to read and I read it like it was prose
without any hesitation. Granted it was an _easy_ METAR - no layers,
precipitation or remarks but still METARs are their own language and to read any
one at full speed means you know it. He gave me the 4-pane SigWX panels and had
me point out a few things.
The flight check was easy. He had me do a soft field takeoff. It was a little
tricky. We were taking off into about 15kts and the low wings are very hard to
hold down in ground effect. It takes a lot of forward stick pressure. It is kind
of fun though - especially when you do a non-obstacle soft where you hold it in
GE until Vy - the damn thing is like an elevator once you let it climb.
We bailed early out on the flight plan - didn't even finish the climb-out
leg. I guessed at a trick - set my cruise at 7500 to "avoid the heat" figured no
DE would ever have the patience to wait out the 25 minute climb-out leg - good
guess - then nobody knows how good you are. And for the diversion he didn't even
say "divert to X" he just said "take me to X". X was Rio Vista (O88) and only
about 7 miles way in visible from where we were. No calculate heading, distance
or time, just show me where we were on the sectional and where we were going.
He had me do a power off on the first pass in the pattern. He said "You've
lost your power - you need to make a safe landing and stop by the end of the
runway - those are your requirements". Very nice because the other DE that does
the East Bay "Scary Larry" has a tendency to be a dick - makes your power off a
"short field" and gives you crap about if it's a real power off you never know
where you need to put it down. I was 20' high passing over the numbers - a
little fast but we had a 4200' runway. I was lined up perfectly and he said "now
do a go around". I was happy - it was obvious from his voice that he was happy
with the approach and wanted to see a go around - not pretending like I f*%ked
it up and had to go around like the DE that normally did Livermore.
Next time around was a short field. He said "Short field landing - hit the
numbers or within 200'". One bit of advice I got was when doing your shorts on
your check ride was hit your mark, a little hard is okay - just be centered and
make your spot. If its a little hard (or even a lot hard but still safe) fine -
the PTS says nothing about smooth - as long as it's safe and at or below
approach speed. You can demonstrate how soft you can float it down on your soft
field landing.
Then some ground ref. He rushed me through that - picked all my points. Just
a point and two S-turns - no rectangle. Then a climb out with the hood, and some
VOR work. I could tell he was going to pass me at this point. He said really
nice work on my hood time and asked if I was going to start on my instrument
time right away since I would make a good instrument pilot (at least all the
simulator time is good for something - it definitely ruins us as visual pilots).
He said to head back for Concord, do a couple of steep turns on the way and
then show him an emergency descent to pattern altitude once we were clear of the
last line of hills.
I have been given many bits of advice about check rides - and, unlike many
things in my life, most of it was pretty good. A few came into play here.
One - you usually get to a point that you know you have passed and all you need
to do is just not fuck up soo badly that the examiner has to fail you. Two
- most (good) examiners are mostly interested in seeing you fly safely.
Most won't fail you on a minor miss from the "PTS" (pilot training standards) as
long as you fly safe. Three - appear confident. The examiner knows
that he is signing you off to be in charge of a plane and other non-pilot lives
for the rest of your life and with very little required in further training (1
hour a year actually). So look and act like you deserve to know.
It's okay to ask clarification about request ("sorry, did you say short or
soft?") but don't be Joe lost student ("Is that the airport over there?").
Four - don't let them rush you. The PTS say that they can and should test
your ability to manage distractions - so they will often try to get you to hurry
along and see if you stick to your checklists and procedures.
All this came into play on the final few minutes of the flight. Over
the Sacramento River coming into Concord he told me to do "steep turns, one to
the left and one immediately to the right afterwards". I started to get
set up and he said something like "we're almost done and you can just do them".
But I was probably over maneuvering speed (Va) and I had just taken off my hood
after the hood work. So I needed to get slowed down and stable and I
needed to do clearing turns. So I just said "We're a little over Va and I
haven't done clearing turns so I'm going to do my clearing turns and get slowed
below Va during those. He just said "Okay" but made a note on his piece of
paper.
So I did the turns. I got a little low on one and he was telling me
that but I also knew I was within standards (+/- 100ft and I got off about 80)
and I was recovering gradually and in control and was dead on the 2nd 1/2 of the
turn. The right one was a little better and then off to land at Concord.
I had some advance intelligence that emergency descents were one of his hot
buttons. Luckily Pete - my Stage I examiner - had shown me how to really make a
Warrior do _down_. So as we were just over the hills at 3500 he wanted me to
make the pattern altitude (1000) by the old air field that was already well
under my nose. So I put it at about a 40' bank and a lot of down elevator and
enough opposite rudder to keep heading. I pegged the needle at -2000 fpm - we
were probably making -2500. He asked if I new we were safe - I said yes - I was
holding about 123 kts - we were still a good 3 kts below Vno and if there was
real turbulence or I was having to maneuver I would just ease off the bank to
keep it under Va. I make pattern altitude and leveled off nicely without too
much speed - he told me to make it a soft field - which I did a decent job of
(contrary to what several people told me I've found it easy to keep the Warriors
nose off).
He then said I had done very nicely and that I just needed to watch my ball a
little more when I was busy and I'd do fine.
So that was my check ride. It was very nice sitting there knowing you're
finishing the paperwork for the white slip and not the pink one. He looked
at my notes and told me nice use of checklists and staying organized and ahead
of the plane and then we chatted while he finished the paperwork.
You can't imagine what a relief it is to have passed the check ride on the
first attempt. Luckily for PPSEL I think the first time pass rate is over 50% -
more like about 70% I think. I can't imagine what I would have been like to have
to go back, start with a new CFI (since my original one is gone) and re-do it
all. It probably would have cost me a month or more because in all honesty I
think I would have had to take some time off. I was kind of to that negative
studying point where I was overloaded and sort of sick of the studying (but not
the subject matter).
I am a pilot. WOO HOO!
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