The Big Day, Part 2

The details of the maneuvers clearly aren't all that interesting. If you know the practical test standards, you already know what to expect and if you know that I passed (I did), then you know what I had to do. The sequence went something like this:

Climb on course on the first leg of our fictional cross-country
Look for landmarks and compare them with the chart
Navigate based on the VOR and based on GPS
Level off at desired altitude
Oops, you flew into a cloud. Put on the hood and get us out of here.
Pretend to call the tower and follow their directions to get us back to the field
You are in an unusual attitude, get us out
Okay, hood off, get us to the practice area for slow flight
"I want that stall horn screaming nice and loud."
Some slow turns, then a power-on stall, a power-off stall, a turning stall, and then another turning stall
Show me some steep turns (Yay!)
Oops, your engine failed, get us down
Okay, your engine's back; stay low and do a turn around a point
"What do these buttons do?" (While I'm focused on the turn in a 20-knot wind)
Let's head back in for some touch-and-go's
Show me a normal landing, followed by a soft-field takeoff
Show me a soft-field landing with a slip
Do short-field landing, with a stop on the runway, followed by a short-field takeoff
Land on that spot right there
No, that other spot....
Okay, let's go in. Good job.

That may seem like a short list, and it felt like it was only as long as you probably took to read it. When it was all done, there were a few tips that he had (not surprising for a 50-hour student), but nothing that was a deal-killer. So, I'm now qualified to lead others into the great beyond...no, wait, that's not what I meant. I mean I'm now certified to demonstrate hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Yeah, that's more like it.

See you up there.

The Big Day, Part 1

I arrived a bit early, so I sat in the car and called up WX-BRIEF to get a full weather briefing. Since we weren't actually going to make the flight, it was mostly academic, but you have to do it to be able to explain why we would or would not make the flight.

When the time came, I hopped over to the flight school, where the examiner was just finishing with the prior student. I took a few minutes to plug in the weight and balance calculations (after realizing that I didn't have the actual airplane weight on hand last night). But I didn't even have time to put in the wind corrections to my navigation log; it was time to get started.

The oral portion of the exam covered a wide range of information, but we spent (what seemed to me) to be a lot of time on chart interpretation, airspace, and cross-country scenarios. Luckily, this is an area that I am very comfortable with. We ran through general questions about carrying passengers, what it took to be legal from private pilot, airplane, weather, and physiological perspectives, and talked about various obscure regulations and their interpretations.

I didn't have 100% of the answers, but that's expected. I at least knew when I was on the ragged edge of my knowledge, but we only looked up one thing in the regulations. Most of the time, it was a small detail, and the examiner could tell that I had the general ideas.

Before I knew it, it was time to fly.

We went down to preflight, and the examiner said, "Pretend I'm a regular passenger wondering what it is you're doing. Explain it to me." So that's what I did. Every single item, as if I was giving a ride to a friend who knew nothing about airplanes. I felt like I was performing for someone who had seen this show hundreds of times and knew exactly how it would end. I even felt like I was talking too much. In fact, my effort to do so made me overlook an area of the checklist, but since it's all habit now, it didn't take long to catch it.

Then we got in the plane and I explained what we would do, the steps I would go through, cockpit radio traffic, emergency procedures, seat belts...the works. During the debrief, the examiner pointed out one thing I didn't mention: the ELT. Well, shoot...there's always something.

We started up and got going, with more questions about airport signs, lights, procedures, and other field-related topics. We got to the runup, and I again explained what we were going to do and why. Then, my heart sank.

The runup involves throttling up to 1700 RPM and checking the magnetos, engine instruments, and flight instruments (especially the vacuum powered ones). As I pushed the throttle in, the RPM was nowhere near steady. There are always some very minor fluctuations - maybe 10 or 20 RPM, but this was +/- 75 RPM without doing anything. It wasn't even clear that we were getting a good magneto check. I sat there flipping the key back and forth, cycling the fuel pump, and generally staring at the tachometer - willing it to just stop waving back and forth. What are we going to do? Cancel the flight? Get another plane? Ack.

The examiner obviously knew I was having a mental breakdown at this point, and figured it might be fouled plugs. He brought the mixture out, which didn't seem to fix it. Then we ran it all the way up to 2000 RPM, but that didn't seem to have any effect either. These planes run at full rich in some very high, hot conditions, so I would have been surprised if it really was too rich on this cold day. We sat there for another minute with the engine up to 1700, back to idle, up to 2000, back to idle. All the other gauges were in the green, and there weren't any funny noises, so, we jointly decided to press on and watch what happened on the runway.

Needless to say, there wasn't a fiery crash....

The Big Day (Before)

With everything in order, the checkride was confirmed, the plane was scheduled, and the examiner was given all my information.

I received my "homework" assignment last night at about 7 pm. I had to plan a cross-country flight about 250 miles, over some mountainous terrain. The examiner emailed me a couple of other helpful documents, along with the pertinent weight information for my calculations.

I was up until about 11 staring at the chart and deciding the best course (and, of course, planning how I would justify my decisions), doing all the planning, and writing up the flight plan and navigation log. I used AOPA's flight planner to get the general path and rough time calculations to see if I would need a fuel stop. It didn't look like I would, so I went ahead and made some manual adjustments to the course for terrain and weather considerations. Basically, I didn't want to be over desolate mountains in windy and potentially cloudy conditions.

With no more mental capacity to even crack a book open, I called it a night. I had to be at the airport by noon, so I spent this morning checking the weather and printing out airport diagrams for the departure, destination, and one alternate field.

Then it was off to meet my first "passenger".

Icing on the Cake

I flew again yesterday, but that's just part of the story. Let me invite you into the way-back machine...

Earlier in the week, we had tentatively scheduled my checkride for the 21st of the month. So, I had it all figured out: I would cram for a week, maybe take another flight, and generally polish up the rough edges. Forward to yesterday, which, on a totally unrelated note ended up being a "stay-home" day for me. Working away on the computer, I noticed a call from my flight instructor. A checkride cancellation came up, and did I want to do it on Saturday...Heck, yeah...wait, you mean tomorrow?!

With much drama, fanfare, bribery, and corruption, we managed to work out babysitting and other assorted scheduling nightmares, and I called the instructor back to confirm that it would work. "Okay, can you come down right now and we'll do some review and pattern work?" "Uh, yeah, I guess I can do that, too." So much for working from home. Now, I had literally about 24 hours to make one last flight and cram as much as I could before today's examination. Whew.

I won't bore you with yesterday's work, since there really wasn't much to it. We did about 45 minutes' worth of touch-and-go's, and then went over the application form. We spent more time on paperwork than anything else.

But then came the really fun part....

Tying Up Loose Ends

After taking the prior dual flight's recommendations, last time was a good practice, and it paid off today. As expected, task #1 was more steep turns. The first one was a bit wobbly, and I told the instructor that I probably just needed to warm up first. The next ones and a couple more turned out nearly perfect. He was satisfied, and said that I had come a long way since a few lessons ago.

We did some slow flight and yet more hood work (I'm up to 5.5 hours), which all went smoothly with no difficulties. Then we did some turning stalls, which I haven't done in a long time. These were a bit more of a challenge than I remember, and it was tricky to give just the right amount of rudder to stay coordinated. But we didn't get into a spin, so it was acceptable.

Then we came back into the pattern and did some touch-and-go's. I made extra effort to stay right on the centerline, and T.I. was impressed. I said I did 7 landings last time and paid special attention to it, so it paid off.

Everything went well, and we have tentatively scheduled the checkride for next week, but it still might not happen if work and weather don't cooperate; we'll have to see.

The Steep Turn Solution

Today, after a big hiatus due to lousy weather and an even lousier flu, I flew solo to whip these steep turns. It's been a long time since I flew, and I have been waiting to put to practice all of the mental turns I've had looping through my head for weeks.

I decided to just focus on the basics, and just kept going back and forth, with a few little coordination exercises just for good measure. I wanted to just go back to "first principles" and work through the turns step by step. The most significant adjustment was that I didn't use the trim at all this time. Most often, my instructor has me trim as I establish the bank, and then as I roll out, I need to trim back to straight and level. I made the choice to just muscle through the turns, which ended up working out much better today.

It may just be a matter of sheer practice, but I felt that the control pressures gave me better feedback about what the plane was about to do. In any event, while not every turn was a winner, I was significantly better than before, and more consistent. The other adjustment was to pick a spot on the windshield for a horizon reference, something that we've done before, but not emphasized. This time, I was narrowly focused on the horizon as I entered the turn, and things started out a lot more stable.

It meant that I gave up a few seconds of outside scanning, but in a steep turn, the world spins by pretty fast anyway. The end result was that I was more stable in the turn entry, and I could better anticipate the altitude fluctuations and arrest them before they busted minimums. After going around on the carousel for an hour or so, I decided to work on my landings.

I entered the pattern, and did a bunch of approaches, making extra sure to stay on the right side of the power curve. As is my habit, I still hold a bit too much speed sometimes (especially solo, when the throttle has to be way out for a normal descent), and I made sure to bleed off energy before final. On my first approach, I had to correct for a slight crosswind down to about 100 feet AGL, and I had to make a conscious effort to keep lined up. It's been a long time since I had a real crosswind touchdown, so even a bit of practice at altitude is good.

I focused on short- and soft- field landings again, and my touchdowns were very smooth. I switched directions and did a right-traffic approach, which had me going with the wind, so I had a bit of a lopsided final, but it worked out. Then I came around on the shorter, narrower, crosswind runway for a full-stop. This highlighted that you need to have a mental "abort" point, since I floated just a bit long and used up all the runway. I'll make the excuse that I was looking hard into the sun, so my height judgment may have been a bit off, but if I had gone any further, I would have been in trouble. I should have had a point in mind that if I had not touched down, I would have gone around. That's the problem with practicing on a 9,000 foot runway. You don't get in the habit of making that calculation, when it's very important. Another lesson for the future....