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Saturday June 29, 2002 - Stage III Check
Today was my Stage III check. If I passed then I was good enough to
take my check ride - if not it meant finding a new instructor, having enough
sessions with them to convince them that I know how to fly well enough to try my
Stage III check again and go do it again. It would easily add another
month (and in all honestly $1000 or more) to my flight training.
I was going to do it with Pete - the guy who did my 1st Stage Check, but
scheduling didn't work out and I ended up with Ash. Ash was great - very
easy going but also very knowledgeable.
The orals went very well - he did a lot of drilling on topics that he knew
were very near and dear to the usual DE (designated examiner) that did flight
tests at Livermore. The more I heard about him the more I was convinced
that I didn't want to take my check ride from him but that's another story.
Then we went out and flew. My hood time and such went fine.
Topped out right on schedule by my flight plan (I'm getting pretty good with
those damn Piper charts). Then Ash has me do a diversion to Gnoss (DVO).
Ohhh - now I'm a little nervous. It is a windy day and Gnoss has the
reputation of being the most challenging wind airport in the Bay Area.
Gnoss is nestled in a valley right up against a set of hills. Both the
valley and the runway run Northwest to Southeast. There are high hills to
the Southwest of the airport and a low hill to the south that precludes a normal
final as it is _close_. North and east are flat and open but there is a
quad of 300' radio towers right on the turn from downwind to base. The
wind comes whipping down the valley as well as through a low spot on the hills
near the SE end of the runway. There are 4 (four) windsocks
along the runway.
And yup - today it was windy as hell. I set up for a 45 and enter
downwind and I'm getting pushed and bumped around. As I round the turn to
final the first windsock is straight to the right, the 2nd windsock is showing a
downwind to the left, the 3rd windsock is calm and the 4th windsock is straight
down the runway. Ash told make to make it a soft field landing. So I
setup and did a soft field landing - over halfway down the runway. The
crosswind at the threshold was too much to stay lined up safely on the narrow
runway to touch down sooner.
Next time around the pattern he pulled power even with the numbers and told
me to "paint the numbers". Okay - this is tricky now. Gnoss is a low
(800' AGL) pattern and I'm bucking a 20kt headwind on base and I'm trying to do
a short field. I (wisely) decide to cut-off base to final to make sure I
made the field - ended up pretty high on short final and did a full slip to get
down (which I was pretty much doing anyway with the crosswind). I missed
the numbers but got it down - a little hard but safe - well within the standards
distance.
Then Ash told me to depart downwind next time around and we'd do some ground
reference. He also gave me some sage bit of advice. He said nail my
first landing or two and my DE would then be a little more forgiving on the rest
- landings are the hardest part of flying and one of those things you have to
get right every time.
The second thing he said was for my short fields - hit the spot. Even
if it's ugly as long as it's safe - hit the spot. He also said that I had
an advantage with testing in a Piper as with the oleos I didn't have as much
bounce to worry about. With the straight legged Pipers down was down and
tended to stay down. The disadvantage was two hard on a Cessna with those
spring legs and you get a bad bounce. Too hard on a Piper and you blow the
oleos or worse yet stick the gear legs through the wing.
Then off to my ground refs. They were a little shaky but the wind was
tremendous and we were doing them low - about 600', much lower than I had done
them with Mike (always a 1000').
Finally some steep turns and some more hood time and back to Livermore.
At the end Ash said that he would have given me the white slip (the good one) if
he were DE but I needed to get a few things better with Larry - the real DE.
Oh well...I got my pass which meant that I could get all my endorsements from
Mike and schedule my check-ride.
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