numl0ck
Line Up and Wait
I passed my checkride yesterday!
My original date was schedule for Oct 28th, but I guess they don’t like to fly the day before a hurricane arrives, so we rescheduled for Nov 2nd.
I arrived at the airport at 9am to meet up with my instructor and do a quick brush-up flight since we hadn’t flown in about a week due to the storm. Started off with landing practice and nailed it. Some of the smoothest landings I have made throughout all of my training. Then we headed out a bit for turns and stalls, all of which I executed fine. A few quick minutes under the hood, and all went well. We headed back to the airport for lunch before departing to North Central Airport (SFZ). All in all, a great confidence boost right before the test.
I departed WST solo an hour before my scheduled start time and had a bumpy flight with light rain showers on the way to SFZ. Arrived without incident, but I noticed it was much more turbulent than when I departed Westerly. Not what I wanted, but I knew the examiner would be a bit more forgiving since it was bumpy. METAR for test start time: KSFZ 021635Z 27010KT 240V300 10SM FEW046 BKN049. The one following that was 8G15 – yay.
We both arrived at the same time and started the checkride about 20 minutes early.
He gave me a synopsis of how the day would go: oral first, then flying. Oral would have special emphasis on certain things, runway incursion, airspace and ADs. And the flight would consist of nothing that wasn’t in the PTS. He would try to put together scenarios at certain times both during the oral and flying portions to get the information he needed out of me.
With that, we started. Let me say I was very nervous about the oral part. The things I read on here had me concerned that I was going to need to dig through the FAR for some obscure rule that I would be asked about. After about 10 minutes I realized that he’s not asking me anything that I didn’t already know from studying for the written test. Advice for future test applicants: if you passed the written, the oral portion will be just like that – just more conversational (although in my case the examiner did 80% of the talking).
He looked over my logbook, airplane logs, W&B and CG, then we looked over my cross country plans. He built a few scenarios around that to discuss airspace (and daytime cloud clearances needed), towers, restricted airspace, etc. We talked about how the weather today wouldn’t work for my planned altitude. He pointed to a random airport and said “Just looking at the sectional, tell me everything you can about this airport.” Then things like “why is this airport blue and that one purple?”, “What’s the ceiling of XYZ’s airspace?” Easy enough. After that we talked about the plane a bit, most of the Vspeeds and explained what they mean and when they are used. Fuel and planned fuel for my XC. He had a few questions about ADs (Who’s responsible for doing the work, who issues them…). That was about it, 45 minutes of “aviation conversation” and I went out to preflight.
Feeling pretty good from the oral, I answered two questions about the outside of the plane: identify the pitot tube and static port, followed by what instruments are affected if one or the other fails.
He wanted to start with a short field take off and landing (ok, get the hardest part of the test out of the way first). Takeoff was uneventful, but my landing was completely messed up - too fast and too steep so I executed a go-around (may as well check that one off the list). My second attempt wasn’t much better but managed to wrestle the plane down within an acceptable distance of his mark. But still not anywhere near my real ability. I’m starting to wonder at this point what’s going to happen next. We taxi back to runway 33 and he says, “I want to see a nice crosswind takeoff and a normal crosswind landing.” (Thinking to myself he’s testing my ability to handle the plane smoothly after two mediocre approaches.) I was a bit rattled at this point because I knew I could do better and I tried to refocus, but I ended up flying 150 above pattern altitude before I caught it, but then acknowledged it and quickly corrected it. Made a decent landing, and he said to taxi back again.
We started the XC and flew for a bit, but less than 10 minutes. He asked where we were and I showed him my iPad with the blue plane tracking over the purple line. He made a comment “It’s hard to get lost with two GPSs in the plane isn’t it?” (The plane also had a G430).
On to maneuvers: first was a steep turn to the right, which I used all of the 100ft allotted to me. He mentioned that I nearly exceeded the standard and asked for one to the left. That was much better and I think my altitude only varied by about 30ft. Then a power-on stall. Since this was a 180hp C172 he had me pull the throttle to 2100rpm and recover at the buffet (as to not exceed the pitch attitude given by the FAA). Next was hood work. Straight and level, a decent of 1500ft while taking a new heading and tuning in a VOR and turning to it and one unusual attitude. Slow flight was easy, had me to a 90° turn. Followed by just pulling the throttle and doing a power-off stall to the break. Recovered with no issues.
He chopped the power, although since my hand was on the throttle he had to ask me to remove it (no surprise power reduction). Ran through my emergency procedure with (surprise!) no luck of restoring power. The field I chose was next to a neighborhood that has been known to call 911 if they see a plane with no power overhead, so we didn’t continue much below 1000ft. Power restored, we climbed up to 2500ft and then we discussed emergency descents in case of fire. I executed a full slip back down to 1000ft. He said that was good, and take him back to SFZ.
Climbed back up to 2500ft and he put together scenario about the flaps circuit breaker popping. He asked “Should you reset it in flight?” “No.” “Do you need them to land?” “No.” “Ok, enter the pattern and execute a no-flaps landing.” My speed was a little high, so I floated longer than I should have, but once down he said to taxi back to parking.
He critiqued me on my altitude discipline, which normally is not an issue. I attribute that to nerves. He said that when I was too fast, I was very good at letting the speed bleed off, and not forcing the plane to land when it didn’t want to. He didn’t comment on the early landings, but I know they were poor but within the standards. Again, nerves.
Paperwork took about 5 minutes, and I walked out with my Temp Cert!
Best advice I can give anyone going for a checkride is READ Capt Ron Levy’s advice. The points that really hit home with me are if he doesn’t ask you to repeat a maneuver, you passed. Admit when you don’t know something (this happened twice during the oral, and he asked several other questions to get the answer he was looking for), and admit when you screw up. When I flew 150ft over TPA I though I was done, but I acknowledged and fixed it right away - he didn’t say a word about it.
My original date was schedule for Oct 28th, but I guess they don’t like to fly the day before a hurricane arrives, so we rescheduled for Nov 2nd.
I arrived at the airport at 9am to meet up with my instructor and do a quick brush-up flight since we hadn’t flown in about a week due to the storm. Started off with landing practice and nailed it. Some of the smoothest landings I have made throughout all of my training. Then we headed out a bit for turns and stalls, all of which I executed fine. A few quick minutes under the hood, and all went well. We headed back to the airport for lunch before departing to North Central Airport (SFZ). All in all, a great confidence boost right before the test.
I departed WST solo an hour before my scheduled start time and had a bumpy flight with light rain showers on the way to SFZ. Arrived without incident, but I noticed it was much more turbulent than when I departed Westerly. Not what I wanted, but I knew the examiner would be a bit more forgiving since it was bumpy. METAR for test start time: KSFZ 021635Z 27010KT 240V300 10SM FEW046 BKN049. The one following that was 8G15 – yay.
We both arrived at the same time and started the checkride about 20 minutes early.
He gave me a synopsis of how the day would go: oral first, then flying. Oral would have special emphasis on certain things, runway incursion, airspace and ADs. And the flight would consist of nothing that wasn’t in the PTS. He would try to put together scenarios at certain times both during the oral and flying portions to get the information he needed out of me.
With that, we started. Let me say I was very nervous about the oral part. The things I read on here had me concerned that I was going to need to dig through the FAR for some obscure rule that I would be asked about. After about 10 minutes I realized that he’s not asking me anything that I didn’t already know from studying for the written test. Advice for future test applicants: if you passed the written, the oral portion will be just like that – just more conversational (although in my case the examiner did 80% of the talking).
He looked over my logbook, airplane logs, W&B and CG, then we looked over my cross country plans. He built a few scenarios around that to discuss airspace (and daytime cloud clearances needed), towers, restricted airspace, etc. We talked about how the weather today wouldn’t work for my planned altitude. He pointed to a random airport and said “Just looking at the sectional, tell me everything you can about this airport.” Then things like “why is this airport blue and that one purple?”, “What’s the ceiling of XYZ’s airspace?” Easy enough. After that we talked about the plane a bit, most of the Vspeeds and explained what they mean and when they are used. Fuel and planned fuel for my XC. He had a few questions about ADs (Who’s responsible for doing the work, who issues them…). That was about it, 45 minutes of “aviation conversation” and I went out to preflight.
Feeling pretty good from the oral, I answered two questions about the outside of the plane: identify the pitot tube and static port, followed by what instruments are affected if one or the other fails.
He wanted to start with a short field take off and landing (ok, get the hardest part of the test out of the way first). Takeoff was uneventful, but my landing was completely messed up - too fast and too steep so I executed a go-around (may as well check that one off the list). My second attempt wasn’t much better but managed to wrestle the plane down within an acceptable distance of his mark. But still not anywhere near my real ability. I’m starting to wonder at this point what’s going to happen next. We taxi back to runway 33 and he says, “I want to see a nice crosswind takeoff and a normal crosswind landing.” (Thinking to myself he’s testing my ability to handle the plane smoothly after two mediocre approaches.) I was a bit rattled at this point because I knew I could do better and I tried to refocus, but I ended up flying 150 above pattern altitude before I caught it, but then acknowledged it and quickly corrected it. Made a decent landing, and he said to taxi back again.
We started the XC and flew for a bit, but less than 10 minutes. He asked where we were and I showed him my iPad with the blue plane tracking over the purple line. He made a comment “It’s hard to get lost with two GPSs in the plane isn’t it?” (The plane also had a G430).
On to maneuvers: first was a steep turn to the right, which I used all of the 100ft allotted to me. He mentioned that I nearly exceeded the standard and asked for one to the left. That was much better and I think my altitude only varied by about 30ft. Then a power-on stall. Since this was a 180hp C172 he had me pull the throttle to 2100rpm and recover at the buffet (as to not exceed the pitch attitude given by the FAA). Next was hood work. Straight and level, a decent of 1500ft while taking a new heading and tuning in a VOR and turning to it and one unusual attitude. Slow flight was easy, had me to a 90° turn. Followed by just pulling the throttle and doing a power-off stall to the break. Recovered with no issues.
He chopped the power, although since my hand was on the throttle he had to ask me to remove it (no surprise power reduction). Ran through my emergency procedure with (surprise!) no luck of restoring power. The field I chose was next to a neighborhood that has been known to call 911 if they see a plane with no power overhead, so we didn’t continue much below 1000ft. Power restored, we climbed up to 2500ft and then we discussed emergency descents in case of fire. I executed a full slip back down to 1000ft. He said that was good, and take him back to SFZ.
Climbed back up to 2500ft and he put together scenario about the flaps circuit breaker popping. He asked “Should you reset it in flight?” “No.” “Do you need them to land?” “No.” “Ok, enter the pattern and execute a no-flaps landing.” My speed was a little high, so I floated longer than I should have, but once down he said to taxi back to parking.
He critiqued me on my altitude discipline, which normally is not an issue. I attribute that to nerves. He said that when I was too fast, I was very good at letting the speed bleed off, and not forcing the plane to land when it didn’t want to. He didn’t comment on the early landings, but I know they were poor but within the standards. Again, nerves.
Paperwork took about 5 minutes, and I walked out with my Temp Cert!
Best advice I can give anyone going for a checkride is READ Capt Ron Levy’s advice. The points that really hit home with me are if he doesn’t ask you to repeat a maneuver, you passed. Admit when you don’t know something (this happened twice during the oral, and he asked several other questions to get the answer he was looking for), and admit when you screw up. When I flew 150ft over TPA I though I was done, but I acknowledged and fixed it right away - he didn’t say a word about it.
. have fun
