roebuck85
Pre-Flight
Well, after doing the oral Saturday, I got out early Sunday with the examiner to do the flight test.
PASSED!
Then I took my dad over to Shanon's Landing at Lansing in Illinois for a Father's Day lunch. His first flight in about 8 years. Needless to say, he was happy. He talked about how he was giving me airplane rides from the time I was 4 till I soled at 16, now I got to give him a ride. A rather fun day indeed!
The Write-up:
Oral was Saturday. My examiner was renewing his certificate so I did my Oral with an FAA inspector observing. Didn't bother me because I knew he wouldn't be interfering and the local FSDO has a very good relationship with the school I'm at so I knew it would be a non-event from that standpoint. The good thing for me: I didn't have to pay the examiners fee for the checkride!
We started with the basic aircraft documents AROW and the logbook stuff, which was very simple since the school does an excelent job of maintanence and recordkeeping.
Moved on to Airspeeds and some aircraft systems, Instruments, fuel system, placarding etc. (C-172P)
Talked a little about aeromedical factors, Carbon Monoxide poisoning (Which I actually experianced one time flying with my Dad several years ago)
Moved on to the chart and airspace questions (What equipment is required in this airspace, if we were at this altitude at his point on the chart, what airspace wouldwe be in? etc. Talked a little about the route I'd planned for the cross country portion and that's when he hit me:
"Well, that's all good and that would be the end of the oral but, I have to discontinue here and write up a dis-approval because: The chart you're using is out of date by a month!"
$#!^ I couoldn't believe it, I hadn't even checked that. (I found out later that he had noticed earlier during a break we took for a drink, bathroom, etc, and checked my flight bag to see if hopefully I had a new one that I could at least reference, anything to get around having to fail me, no dice)
So, I had to get a new chart, and I had to have my instructor log some training and we had to do a new IACRA application. Examiner was perfectly willing to come back Sunday morning if I could meet with my instructor and get everything done. Had a good (empathetic) laugh with the FAA guy, examiner, and instructor got a new chart, drove out to my instructor's house, he wrote .2 in my logbok for ground instruction (flight planning and current charts) and called the examiner back to set up for Sunday morning.
All in all the oral seemed pretty easy, some of it was overpre-paredness, some of it was just being able to answer quickly and confidently and not giving the examiner a reason to go too in depth on any specific thing. I read ASA's Oral Exam Guide and we only got into about a quarter of what was in that book. 1.7 hrs total.
Sunday Morning:
Showed up ready to go flying, weather was actually much better than Saturday afternoon. Examiner told me the FAA rep, was actually looking forward to riding along on the checkride as he was impressed on the oral and was looking forward to the actual ride, but really didn't want to drive all the way out on Sunday morning.
Went out to the plane for the pre-flight, examiner stood back and watched, said just do what you normally do (I probably did a little more than I normally do, explained a bit of what I was doing, he seemed to like that) and said we'd go when I was ready.
Got in, did more of a talk about a passenger briefing than an actuaol briefing and picked up some good tips from that. Started up, did a brake check, taxied to the runway did a run-up, made a point of using a checklist all along, and talking about what I was doing. Asked if he wanted to see a specific take-off, did a short field, want good. He had me climb up to 3,000 (airfield elev. is about 850) and turn on course for my cross country. Had about 3 checpoints picked out withing 15 miles or so. Crossed the first one right on time, gave a time to the second one, pretty simple since it was already wrote down, but I didn't really expect to get there on time and figured I'd have to re-calculate groundspeed. Nope, he handed me an E6B and said, well, if we had to go back to the airport and were doing 110 across the ground, how long would it take us? barely had it figured out and was telling him the answer and he said, ok, thats enough of that, lets turn South and set-up for slow flight.
Did a couple clearing turns and slowed it down to about 45-50 did some 90 deg turns and 100' or so climbs and descents, he said go ahead and set up for a power-off stall and then a power-on. Both went fine, had the airspeed darn near pegged on 0 before the power-on stall broke (calibration error)
Then under the hood, I did some hood time in training with an instrument inspector so this was easy. hold a course, make some level turns. Do a 200' climb combined with a 30 deg. turn, do that in the other direction descending.
Now for a surprise. "Ok tune the ADF reciever to channel 221 and identify that station"
(I have never touched an ADF in that or any airplane. Read about it, studied it for the test, never used one) "Ok, I say" tuning it in was easy, obviously, id it? well looked at the audio panel, found the ADF switch, and flipped it to the headphones side. Heard morse code. Ok so far I said to myself, to him "Well, I don't know what morse I'm supposed to hear for that station..." He says thats ok, it's right and flips the audio panel switch off.
Now he says, "Fly to it"
$#&^, $#&^, #@$$, I'm thinking, how do I do that again, "Ok" I say, starting a gentle turn to put the needle pointing at the top of the gauge and hope I'm guessing correctly.
After about 20 seconds he says "ok, that will get us there eventually"
Phew!
Now time for unusual attitudes. He gave me one where we were in a descending turn, easily recovered from.
Then he covered the instruments with a clipboard and said close your eyes and make a 90 deg, turn to the right and level off, then' I'll have you recover. (I've read about this and know there is really no way to do it, but by-God, I was going to cheat and make it look good anyways
put in some pressure on the yoke for about 3 seconds and then relaxed that and held some rudder for 30 seconds, pretty much wasn't touching the yoke. after 30 seconds, put some left pressure in for about 3 seconds and said ok, level. About 10 seconds later, he said recover. Looked at the instruments, was within 50 feet of the starting altitude, almost 90 degrees from where we started and in about a 20 deg bank to the right, I'm smirking, roll the wings level and said, ok. He said, "well that didn't get as bad as I thought it would". So he gave me one more nose high, turning and very slow. Recovered and he had me take the hood off. .3 under the hood, seemed like a long time, but I don't know what would be normal.
Actually, just before I took the hood off, he said "use the GPS and find me the nearest airport. Which happened to be right under us. Ok, I think, I know what's coming now...
Sure enough, took the hood off and he said, manuver however you want and put us down somewhere on the property. Circled down from 3000(checklist, talked about radio, 121.5 etc), aimed for the first quarter of the runway, no wind, did a full slip with full flaps and put it down about 1000' down form the end of a 4000' runway (3000 remaining) Taxied to the far end and did a soft field takeoff.
Rolled about 2-300 feet, it seemed, and the nose was trying to come off the ground and the stall horn was trying to beep ( of course I had the yoke all the way back) but what I had forgot was the several turns of nose up trim I had put in. I remembered it quickly! Made a comment about how we were starting to fly at the minimum speed and were going to accelerate in ground affect while at the same time getting some trim out so I didn't need What seeemed like a hydrualic jack's worth of pressure to keep the nose down
He never said any thing about it
Flew back to LaPorte and did a simple turn around a point on the way. No wind, so we knew it was kind of pointless, but altitude and speed were right on and up until now I've had a tendency to lose altiitude doing these in the 172.
Oh, btw Did steep turns earlier while we were up high, to the right was great, to the left sucked, he covered up the AI and had me do another one, perfect. But I knew how I screwed up the first one to the left and made sure I kept the 45 deg bank the whole time.
Got back into the pattern at Laporte, asked me for a soft field landing ( I hate these in the 172, the only time I've ever done them really well was at night, and that was unintentional, I was just trying to land and they happened to be greaser landings.)
Saved by the magical heard of kangaroo on the Runway!! initaited a go around without even thinking about it.
Came around the pattern and he asked me how I would do a soft, short field landing. Made something up that must have sounded good, because he said "See that taxiway that goes to the fuel pumps, lets get stopped by that and try to make it soft"
Ok, "you don't want me to land at a certian point?", "nah"
Came in low and at 50-55, not much over the runway lights, touched down about 200' down the runway and could have been stopped in 6-800 the taxiway is 800-1000 down the runway.
He asks, "anything elso you want to work on, or practice?"
YEAH RIGHT! It sounds to me like were done, I'm not about to take enough rope to hang myself with! "Nope, if you're happy, I'm happy!"
Well, If you can get us back to the hanger without hitting anything, You'l be a private Pilot."
I did, And I am
PASSED!
Then I took my dad over to Shanon's Landing at Lansing in Illinois for a Father's Day lunch. His first flight in about 8 years. Needless to say, he was happy. He talked about how he was giving me airplane rides from the time I was 4 till I soled at 16, now I got to give him a ride. A rather fun day indeed!
The Write-up:
Oral was Saturday. My examiner was renewing his certificate so I did my Oral with an FAA inspector observing. Didn't bother me because I knew he wouldn't be interfering and the local FSDO has a very good relationship with the school I'm at so I knew it would be a non-event from that standpoint. The good thing for me: I didn't have to pay the examiners fee for the checkride!
We started with the basic aircraft documents AROW and the logbook stuff, which was very simple since the school does an excelent job of maintanence and recordkeeping.
Moved on to Airspeeds and some aircraft systems, Instruments, fuel system, placarding etc. (C-172P)
Talked a little about aeromedical factors, Carbon Monoxide poisoning (Which I actually experianced one time flying with my Dad several years ago)
Moved on to the chart and airspace questions (What equipment is required in this airspace, if we were at this altitude at his point on the chart, what airspace wouldwe be in? etc. Talked a little about the route I'd planned for the cross country portion and that's when he hit me:
"Well, that's all good and that would be the end of the oral but, I have to discontinue here and write up a dis-approval because: The chart you're using is out of date by a month!"
$#!^ I couoldn't believe it, I hadn't even checked that. (I found out later that he had noticed earlier during a break we took for a drink, bathroom, etc, and checked my flight bag to see if hopefully I had a new one that I could at least reference, anything to get around having to fail me, no dice)
So, I had to get a new chart, and I had to have my instructor log some training and we had to do a new IACRA application. Examiner was perfectly willing to come back Sunday morning if I could meet with my instructor and get everything done. Had a good (empathetic) laugh with the FAA guy, examiner, and instructor got a new chart, drove out to my instructor's house, he wrote .2 in my logbok for ground instruction (flight planning and current charts) and called the examiner back to set up for Sunday morning.
All in all the oral seemed pretty easy, some of it was overpre-paredness, some of it was just being able to answer quickly and confidently and not giving the examiner a reason to go too in depth on any specific thing. I read ASA's Oral Exam Guide and we only got into about a quarter of what was in that book. 1.7 hrs total.
Sunday Morning:
Showed up ready to go flying, weather was actually much better than Saturday afternoon. Examiner told me the FAA rep, was actually looking forward to riding along on the checkride as he was impressed on the oral and was looking forward to the actual ride, but really didn't want to drive all the way out on Sunday morning.
Went out to the plane for the pre-flight, examiner stood back and watched, said just do what you normally do (I probably did a little more than I normally do, explained a bit of what I was doing, he seemed to like that) and said we'd go when I was ready.
Got in, did more of a talk about a passenger briefing than an actuaol briefing and picked up some good tips from that. Started up, did a brake check, taxied to the runway did a run-up, made a point of using a checklist all along, and talking about what I was doing. Asked if he wanted to see a specific take-off, did a short field, want good. He had me climb up to 3,000 (airfield elev. is about 850) and turn on course for my cross country. Had about 3 checpoints picked out withing 15 miles or so. Crossed the first one right on time, gave a time to the second one, pretty simple since it was already wrote down, but I didn't really expect to get there on time and figured I'd have to re-calculate groundspeed. Nope, he handed me an E6B and said, well, if we had to go back to the airport and were doing 110 across the ground, how long would it take us? barely had it figured out and was telling him the answer and he said, ok, thats enough of that, lets turn South and set-up for slow flight.
Did a couple clearing turns and slowed it down to about 45-50 did some 90 deg turns and 100' or so climbs and descents, he said go ahead and set up for a power-off stall and then a power-on. Both went fine, had the airspeed darn near pegged on 0 before the power-on stall broke (calibration error)
Then under the hood, I did some hood time in training with an instrument inspector so this was easy. hold a course, make some level turns. Do a 200' climb combined with a 30 deg. turn, do that in the other direction descending.
Now for a surprise. "Ok tune the ADF reciever to channel 221 and identify that station"
(I have never touched an ADF in that or any airplane. Read about it, studied it for the test, never used one) "Ok, I say" tuning it in was easy, obviously, id it? well looked at the audio panel, found the ADF switch, and flipped it to the headphones side. Heard morse code. Ok so far I said to myself, to him "Well, I don't know what morse I'm supposed to hear for that station..." He says thats ok, it's right and flips the audio panel switch off.
Now he says, "Fly to it"
$#&^, $#&^, #@$$, I'm thinking, how do I do that again, "Ok" I say, starting a gentle turn to put the needle pointing at the top of the gauge and hope I'm guessing correctly.
After about 20 seconds he says "ok, that will get us there eventually"
Phew!
Now time for unusual attitudes. He gave me one where we were in a descending turn, easily recovered from.
Then he covered the instruments with a clipboard and said close your eyes and make a 90 deg, turn to the right and level off, then' I'll have you recover. (I've read about this and know there is really no way to do it, but by-God, I was going to cheat and make it look good anyways
Actually, just before I took the hood off, he said "use the GPS and find me the nearest airport. Which happened to be right under us. Ok, I think, I know what's coming now...
Sure enough, took the hood off and he said, manuver however you want and put us down somewhere on the property. Circled down from 3000(checklist, talked about radio, 121.5 etc), aimed for the first quarter of the runway, no wind, did a full slip with full flaps and put it down about 1000' down form the end of a 4000' runway (3000 remaining) Taxied to the far end and did a soft field takeoff.
Rolled about 2-300 feet, it seemed, and the nose was trying to come off the ground and the stall horn was trying to beep ( of course I had the yoke all the way back) but what I had forgot was the several turns of nose up trim I had put in. I remembered it quickly! Made a comment about how we were starting to fly at the minimum speed and were going to accelerate in ground affect while at the same time getting some trim out so I didn't need What seeemed like a hydrualic jack's worth of pressure to keep the nose down
Flew back to LaPorte and did a simple turn around a point on the way. No wind, so we knew it was kind of pointless, but altitude and speed were right on and up until now I've had a tendency to lose altiitude doing these in the 172.
Oh, btw Did steep turns earlier while we were up high, to the right was great, to the left sucked, he covered up the AI and had me do another one, perfect. But I knew how I screwed up the first one to the left and made sure I kept the 45 deg bank the whole time.
Got back into the pattern at Laporte, asked me for a soft field landing ( I hate these in the 172, the only time I've ever done them really well was at night, and that was unintentional, I was just trying to land and they happened to be greaser landings.)
Saved by the magical heard of kangaroo on the Runway!! initaited a go around without even thinking about it.
Came around the pattern and he asked me how I would do a soft, short field landing. Made something up that must have sounded good, because he said "See that taxiway that goes to the fuel pumps, lets get stopped by that and try to make it soft"
Ok, "you don't want me to land at a certian point?", "nah"
Came in low and at 50-55, not much over the runway lights, touched down about 200' down the runway and could have been stopped in 6-800 the taxiway is 800-1000 down the runway.
He asks, "anything elso you want to work on, or practice?"
YEAH RIGHT! It sounds to me like were done, I'm not about to take enough rope to hang myself with! "Nope, if you're happy, I'm happy!"
Well, If you can get us back to the hanger without hitting anything, You'l be a private Pilot."
I did, And I am
