LoLPilot
Line Up and Wait
This may get lengthy. I apologize in advance.
I passed my checkride today. This was the culmination of three years of work, but the journey that brought me here began long before that. My grandpa was a WWII naval aviator. An Avenger tail gunner, to be precise. After he got out of the Navy he took lessons in a Piper J3 Cub. Then my dad was born, and that was that. When I was little my grandparents watched me while my parents were at work. My great grandma lived in Cahokia, Illinois, and my grandparents went to visit her. They brought me along. She just so happened to live near Parks Air College. Grandpa would take me to Parks to watch the pilots train there. This was in the early 90's, before Saint Louis University closed the old Parks campus. I loved airplanes. Then one day I got home from school and saw a burning fuel slick on the news. A TWA 747, Flight 800, had exploded over the Atlantic Ocean. That image, and the reporter saying that some of the passengers may have survived the explosion to plummet 13,000 feet to the water below, stuck with me and made me terrified of aviation. I had my first airplane flight a year later and was convinced that I was going to die the entire time.
Fast forward twenty years. A long term relationship was ending and my ex had a number of things that I could do a lot better on. I examined them closely and realized she was right about one thing - I had a real problem facing my fears. I was also entering my PhD program, which would require a lot of travel. A lot of air travel. My brother in law told me that maybe I should call a flight school and schedule a discovery flight, so that I could learn how the machines operated. He thought that might ease my fear of flying a bit. I did that, and I took my first ever general aviation ride in a Piper Tomahawk, that was probably a bit overloaded, in summer of 2014. After we got about 1000 AGL and the shaking from the thermals stopped I looked out of the canopy and the instructor said, "you take the controls and fly a bit. I'll help you where you need it." And I was hooked. In April, 2015 I took my introductory flight at what would become my flight school. I once again repeated to myself, "the machine wants to fly, the machine wants to fly, the machine wants to fly," as 737WQ lurched and bucked in thermals. Three and a half years and two CFI's later I flew that same plane on my checkride.
I wore a baseball cap that my grandpa gave me today. I pulled up to my school and had to dry my eyes a bit before I went in. I got an abbreviated weather briefing and did the wind correction for my nav plan. I double checked the airplane logs and my log books. By then WQ had returned from her lesson flight she was on and was refueled. I went out and went over the plane with a fine toothed comb. I checked the avionics on the ground and asked our mechanics about a few missing screws on the engine cowl. Before I went inside I asked her to be as good to me today as she was to me on my first day three years ago.
I triple checked my nav, reviewed my airspace requirements, ate a couple of energy bars and sat down to wait. My examiner got caught in a traffic jam and was a few minutes behind. We sat down and we first went over my paperwork and my logbook. Then we sat down with the airplane logbooks and made sure she was truly legal to fly. These were the first freebies he gave me. The mechanics try to keep a sheet in the logbooks that has all of the current inspection times on it. They didn't all sync up and so we had to dig through the logs. Lesson: Do long-hand checks of aircraft logs. Times I felt stupid count: 1.
Next up we talked about the weather. I had found through my briefings that the President was in Kansas City today, and there was a TFR at our destination. However, it was due to end before our scheduled arrival. There was also one over us on Thursday. Very good. We went over METAR's and TAF's. Then we dug into the chart and my nav plan. He asked me about my wind correction, how I arrived at my fuel burn numbers, and why I chose my route. He liked that I gave myself a higher fuel burn than the chart said. I told him I know I don't lean the engine out as well as Cessna's test pilots could, and I figure at worst it makes me stop for fuel sooner. We went over our fuel minimums and he liked that I didn't want to fly with less than an hour of reserve time in the tanks. He drilled into the chart some more until he got me hung up on a question, and it's one we went over in ground prep with my CFI! Times I felt stupid count: 2. Then we talked about the mechanics of the airplane, and I think he quickly figured out that I was a total gearhead. He switched topics pretty quickly. Aeromedical factors. Once again I did well. He said he was satisfied. Let's go fly.
He was fairly quiet on my preflight. He just watched everything I did. We did my pattern work first. First up was the short field takeoff and landing. I did well on hitting Vx and Vy, but we were heavy and so I rode the mains on the runway a bit longer than I would have liked after rotation. I aimed at the numbers and for the first time in my life I touched down just before my target. I remained silent and he said, "carb heat off, flaps 10, give me a soft field takeoff." My soft field takeoff was good. On approach I called out a stable approach and he said, "I'm old. Make this one nice and soft for me." Got a nice chirp and held the nose off. He said, "flaps up, carb heat cold, let's go on our cross country." Pattern work complete.
Did my climb and cruise checklists and started the clock. He didn't want me to use my stopwatch and had me use the plane's chronograph. I was early to my first checkpoint and then near my second he said, "those are some big clouds ahead. We better divert. Where should we go?" I pointed out where my "planned diversion" was on my chart. We were about 18 miles away and could be there in less than 10 minutes. He said let's go there. This is where the colossal freebie started. It was evening. The airport that I picked was one I'd been to before. It wasn't lighted and didn't have a beacon, and we had used up 15 minutes of daylight in the pattern before heading out. So I circled, looking for an airport I knew was hiding from me in the fading light. He kept asking where we were. I knew where we were because I recognized a factory. He later told me that we were circling right over the field, but it was on his side of the plane. I couldn't see it when I looked down over the gear on my side. I confirmed our position with a VOR fix and told him where my second choice was. It was lighted but he said that's okay. You do know where we are. Consider time of day when you pick diversions. I had been told that I would make a massive blunder on my checkride and I did everything to avoid it. I made a massive blunder anyway but he gave me the freebie.
Next was airwork. Stalls. He didn't let me take them to full break but also didn't like that I become an instrument-monger during stalls. I stare at the coordinator and airspeed indicator like a hawk. He wanted me to look outside and catch the wing based on my sight picture. Next was steep turns. I trimmed in and held altitude. Sometimes I fought for that and I think I hit my own wake rolling from the right turn to the left turn. He said he wanted to fly. I said ok. He said, "Look, I'm old. I don't like to work near as hard as you did there." He rolled the plane into a 45 degree bank, trimmed it and took his hands off the controls, just keeping coordinated with the rudder. He said, "see I like it to fly itself." Then we did instruments and slow flight, and then he told me head back to the airport, and by the way your engine is on fire. So I busted out the engine fire checklist. Mixture off, fuel off, emergency descent. He said, "okay fire went out. Why don't you try restarting?" I told him something caused the fire and restarting was too risky. He said good answer, so what are you going to do? I told him I'm going to that field right there. At that point he said, "Go around and let's head home." We talked a bit about my long term aviation goals on the way back. Once we got on downwind he said, "give yourself an engine failure." I pulled power and announced the power off 180. That was a drill my first CFI did to me a couple of times to entice me to fly tight patterns. It was even a pretty touchdown. We taxied back and shut down. He said, "your diversion was pretty awful. Don't choose unlighted airports without nearby navaids for evening flights. You knew where we were the whole time, but you couldn't find it." That was when he told me he saw where we were on ForeFlight and saw the airport beneath us. Then he said, "But I'm comfortable to say you passed. Congratulations."
I passed my checkride today. This was the culmination of three years of work, but the journey that brought me here began long before that. My grandpa was a WWII naval aviator. An Avenger tail gunner, to be precise. After he got out of the Navy he took lessons in a Piper J3 Cub. Then my dad was born, and that was that. When I was little my grandparents watched me while my parents were at work. My great grandma lived in Cahokia, Illinois, and my grandparents went to visit her. They brought me along. She just so happened to live near Parks Air College. Grandpa would take me to Parks to watch the pilots train there. This was in the early 90's, before Saint Louis University closed the old Parks campus. I loved airplanes. Then one day I got home from school and saw a burning fuel slick on the news. A TWA 747, Flight 800, had exploded over the Atlantic Ocean. That image, and the reporter saying that some of the passengers may have survived the explosion to plummet 13,000 feet to the water below, stuck with me and made me terrified of aviation. I had my first airplane flight a year later and was convinced that I was going to die the entire time.
Fast forward twenty years. A long term relationship was ending and my ex had a number of things that I could do a lot better on. I examined them closely and realized she was right about one thing - I had a real problem facing my fears. I was also entering my PhD program, which would require a lot of travel. A lot of air travel. My brother in law told me that maybe I should call a flight school and schedule a discovery flight, so that I could learn how the machines operated. He thought that might ease my fear of flying a bit. I did that, and I took my first ever general aviation ride in a Piper Tomahawk, that was probably a bit overloaded, in summer of 2014. After we got about 1000 AGL and the shaking from the thermals stopped I looked out of the canopy and the instructor said, "you take the controls and fly a bit. I'll help you where you need it." And I was hooked. In April, 2015 I took my introductory flight at what would become my flight school. I once again repeated to myself, "the machine wants to fly, the machine wants to fly, the machine wants to fly," as 737WQ lurched and bucked in thermals. Three and a half years and two CFI's later I flew that same plane on my checkride.
I wore a baseball cap that my grandpa gave me today. I pulled up to my school and had to dry my eyes a bit before I went in. I got an abbreviated weather briefing and did the wind correction for my nav plan. I double checked the airplane logs and my log books. By then WQ had returned from her lesson flight she was on and was refueled. I went out and went over the plane with a fine toothed comb. I checked the avionics on the ground and asked our mechanics about a few missing screws on the engine cowl. Before I went inside I asked her to be as good to me today as she was to me on my first day three years ago.
I triple checked my nav, reviewed my airspace requirements, ate a couple of energy bars and sat down to wait. My examiner got caught in a traffic jam and was a few minutes behind. We sat down and we first went over my paperwork and my logbook. Then we sat down with the airplane logbooks and made sure she was truly legal to fly. These were the first freebies he gave me. The mechanics try to keep a sheet in the logbooks that has all of the current inspection times on it. They didn't all sync up and so we had to dig through the logs. Lesson: Do long-hand checks of aircraft logs. Times I felt stupid count: 1.
Next up we talked about the weather. I had found through my briefings that the President was in Kansas City today, and there was a TFR at our destination. However, it was due to end before our scheduled arrival. There was also one over us on Thursday. Very good. We went over METAR's and TAF's. Then we dug into the chart and my nav plan. He asked me about my wind correction, how I arrived at my fuel burn numbers, and why I chose my route. He liked that I gave myself a higher fuel burn than the chart said. I told him I know I don't lean the engine out as well as Cessna's test pilots could, and I figure at worst it makes me stop for fuel sooner. We went over our fuel minimums and he liked that I didn't want to fly with less than an hour of reserve time in the tanks. He drilled into the chart some more until he got me hung up on a question, and it's one we went over in ground prep with my CFI! Times I felt stupid count: 2. Then we talked about the mechanics of the airplane, and I think he quickly figured out that I was a total gearhead. He switched topics pretty quickly. Aeromedical factors. Once again I did well. He said he was satisfied. Let's go fly.
He was fairly quiet on my preflight. He just watched everything I did. We did my pattern work first. First up was the short field takeoff and landing. I did well on hitting Vx and Vy, but we were heavy and so I rode the mains on the runway a bit longer than I would have liked after rotation. I aimed at the numbers and for the first time in my life I touched down just before my target. I remained silent and he said, "carb heat off, flaps 10, give me a soft field takeoff." My soft field takeoff was good. On approach I called out a stable approach and he said, "I'm old. Make this one nice and soft for me." Got a nice chirp and held the nose off. He said, "flaps up, carb heat cold, let's go on our cross country." Pattern work complete.
Did my climb and cruise checklists and started the clock. He didn't want me to use my stopwatch and had me use the plane's chronograph. I was early to my first checkpoint and then near my second he said, "those are some big clouds ahead. We better divert. Where should we go?" I pointed out where my "planned diversion" was on my chart. We were about 18 miles away and could be there in less than 10 minutes. He said let's go there. This is where the colossal freebie started. It was evening. The airport that I picked was one I'd been to before. It wasn't lighted and didn't have a beacon, and we had used up 15 minutes of daylight in the pattern before heading out. So I circled, looking for an airport I knew was hiding from me in the fading light. He kept asking where we were. I knew where we were because I recognized a factory. He later told me that we were circling right over the field, but it was on his side of the plane. I couldn't see it when I looked down over the gear on my side. I confirmed our position with a VOR fix and told him where my second choice was. It was lighted but he said that's okay. You do know where we are. Consider time of day when you pick diversions. I had been told that I would make a massive blunder on my checkride and I did everything to avoid it. I made a massive blunder anyway but he gave me the freebie.
Next was airwork. Stalls. He didn't let me take them to full break but also didn't like that I become an instrument-monger during stalls. I stare at the coordinator and airspeed indicator like a hawk. He wanted me to look outside and catch the wing based on my sight picture. Next was steep turns. I trimmed in and held altitude. Sometimes I fought for that and I think I hit my own wake rolling from the right turn to the left turn. He said he wanted to fly. I said ok. He said, "Look, I'm old. I don't like to work near as hard as you did there." He rolled the plane into a 45 degree bank, trimmed it and took his hands off the controls, just keeping coordinated with the rudder. He said, "see I like it to fly itself." Then we did instruments and slow flight, and then he told me head back to the airport, and by the way your engine is on fire. So I busted out the engine fire checklist. Mixture off, fuel off, emergency descent. He said, "okay fire went out. Why don't you try restarting?" I told him something caused the fire and restarting was too risky. He said good answer, so what are you going to do? I told him I'm going to that field right there. At that point he said, "Go around and let's head home." We talked a bit about my long term aviation goals on the way back. Once we got on downwind he said, "give yourself an engine failure." I pulled power and announced the power off 180. That was a drill my first CFI did to me a couple of times to entice me to fly tight patterns. It was even a pretty touchdown. We taxied back and shut down. He said, "your diversion was pretty awful. Don't choose unlighted airports without nearby navaids for evening flights. You knew where we were the whole time, but you couldn't find it." That was when he told me he saw where we were on ForeFlight and saw the airport beneath us. Then he said, "But I'm comfortable to say you passed. Congratulations."
