jheyen
Pre-Flight
First off, I’m going to start with a few acknowledgements. Thank you to my wife for supporting my through this. Love ya.
Thank you to my CFI Steven (he’s on the board). What a great job he did working with me and I really appreciate him taking time away from his family, just like I was doing with mine, to work on my license. Secondly, thanks to Joe and Brent, a couple other instructors that helped along the way. Brent did a mock checkride with me that was fantastic at prepping for the real thing. Thanks also to my backyard neighbor Jeff that I didn’t even know had his license until I started mine.
Now on with the summary, which I’m providing for others since this forum has been a great source of information for me.
I had started my pilot training at the end of September hoping to be done by my birthday in May. Suffice it to say I passed my checkride this past Wednesday, so perseverance through this training definitely helps. What I did was approach training like everything else in my life and physically scheduled it in my calendar a week ahead of time, so that work, family and other things could be scheduled around it if appropriate. Obviously life takes precedence every once in a while, but I thought it worked pretty well as I probably averaged about 1.5 to 2 hours per week over the course of my training. So through fall and winter and the hintings of spring my training went until I was ready this week.
The DPE I had scheduled with was located about a 40 min. flight away, so right away I had to get ready for two cross countries, the real one and the mock one. Luckily weather turned out to be perfect for my flight, as I was worried about morning fog we’d been having lately in this winter to spring transitional weather (more on that later).
So the day before my checkride I called the DPE and get the W/B information, cross country information and the fee, getting all set for the prepwork that night. I had scheduled for 9am the next morning thinking that if it gets warm, I can get my flying out of the way before the heat and turbulence of the afternoon. With it being so early, I briefed for the winds aloft and finished my cross country planning the night before. It was a risk if the winds shifted, but I figured I would get there early and adjust if necessary. So the next morning I get up, re-brief for my winds aloft and yep, they changed so step one when landing is re-calcing all my winds. I get over to the other airport about 45 min. early, and sit down to update all my winds. About 15 minutes later he walks in and introduces himself. He asks what I was up to and told him just updating my plan for the winds and he says take my time. Not sure if this helped or hurt, but at least he knew I was serious about his.
So we sat down for the oral portion and we just eased right into everything, starting with my logbook, IACRA form and all my individual requirements. We get through the upfront paperwork and on with the rest. Starting off with the plane requirements, which I had tabbed everything in the logbooks and had all the paperwork very organized. Again, something I think is important to show preparation and dedication to what you are doing. He asked me about what systems on the plane are hydraulic, what is electrically powered and what is part of the pitot static system. We went through airspeeds for the plane (C172), liftoff speed. landing config. stall speed, clean config. stall speed and maneuvering speed. Showed me a generic speed indicator and asked about the colored arcs and what they meant. We then talked a little bit about maneuvering speed and what it means to the plane and flying around normally, basically trying to get out of me that if you get into rough air, slow down so you don’t hurt the plane.
Next was on to my cross country planning. I had done the traditional e6b calculations on a paper flight plan as well as on foreflight. I pulled out my sectional and basically described my cross country route, explaining reasons why I had chosen to fly this way or that way. He asked questions along the way about what airspace we would be in, cloud requirements for Class E and Class G, special VFR if we needed it, MOA areas along the route that I had avoided along with where on the sectional to find the details (on one of the folds of the map), VOR’s and the frequencies (115.5R for example), he had me explain the airport description on the sectional and the checkpoints I had chosen along the way. Next on to weather, which he had me pull up my briefing and read the coded description of the METAR, TAF, Winds aloft, Area Forecast, PIREPS and any notams along the route.
Next was some biomedical questions about what to do if my son complained of his ear’s hurting when I decided to start descending. Explained that I would climb back up and use different methods to try and clear his sinuses then start a very gradual descent. Asked about the party I had and when I could fly again afterwards. Eight hours bottle to throttle, 0.04 BAC or if I still didn’t feel good hold off. Asked me about general wellbeing before flying. I explained that I need to make sure I’m stress free (not needing to get anywhere “gettheritis), not tired, am healthy and have good spirits and have done my due diligence to prepare for the flight.
We talked a little bit about spin prevention and then he briefed me a little about about him being an interested passenger only today and that I’m PIC. He went through his syllabus that he uses for the flight portion so that I would know what’s coming during that portion.
I think that’s about it. There may have been a little more that I’m forgetting, but that should be 95% of it. One hour of basically having a conversation and he said let’s go fly.
So I get all my stuff packed up and head out to preflight. Do my normal walkaround procedure to get everything prepped and when I’m done he walks out. He says he watched me from inside and asks if we are ready to go and I say yes. That’s it and we climb in.
I go into “King School Checkride Mode”, explaining everything that I’m doing and verbally confirming my checklists. I asked if he wanted a passenger briefing on seatbelts and emergency procedures and politely declines, but says good to ask him and do it with all my passengers. I get the plane fired up and show him the taxi diagram I had on my kneeboard along with the list of frequencies already programmed into the radio, including the two upcoming VOR’s I’m going to use, and am able to check the morse code of the one at the field while sitting on the ground. Call up ground and get my taxi instructions. He says to ask for the bravo intersection of runway 14L so we don’t have to taxi all the way down. No problem, done that at my own airport.
Taxi over, do my runup, prep before take-off checklist still king schooling it and he says this is the start of the runway, so let’s do a shortfield takeoff. As we taxi out to the runway I explain the procedure before I do it and off we go. I had a brainfart on my mock checkride where he asked me to do the same thing and I just did a normal takeoff, so I was extra attentive and pulled Vx to clear the obstacle and then Vy’d the rest of the way.
We start off on my xcountry heading, tracking away from the VOR on my heading. We get out and he has me identify a couple of small towns we are passing over along with a couple other map features to test my pilotage. All goes well. He has me put on the foggles and we do some climbs and descents while turning for a little bit, then asks me to look something up on the map while he takes the controls. Like 10 seconds later he has the plane all catywhompus and says “I’m sorry, I just lost control of your airplane”, so I grab the controls and recover from his unusual attitude. Great practical way of introducing that in a real world scenario.
Foggles come off and and he says to see where we are at. I use the original VOR I still had tuned it and use the DME on the plane and foreflight to nail my location. He says good job, now triangulate with VOR’s. Sneaky guy had reset all my other presets, so I had to re-find the frequencies, test the code and tune it in.
Next up he says let’s head west to a little untowered strip I know of. As he says this he covers my directional gyro and says, let’s use something else to turn west. I explain that the compass won’t be exactly correct as I’m turning but since I can see the sun and the roads, I use those to help with direction. He says this is a diversion and to tell him how far we are from his airport and how long it will take. Thank you foreflight because this was easy. I also tuned the radial it would be off of and explain we should be real close when it centers. So I look up the airport to get pattern information and see it’s freaking 30’ wide and 2000’ long. The narrowest I’d landed on ever before had been 75’ and my home airport is 150’. This should be interesting. He asks if I’ve ever done a soft field landing on grass and tell him no, that through winter training we’d never gotten around to it. He says, no problem, do a soft field landing on the asphalt and we’ll do a soft field takeoff on the grass (which will by my first). So as we approach I see the airport and damn it looks small. I set up for a left downwind and start announcing on the CTAF. It had been awhile since I was at an untowered airport, but it all went fine. Turn final and am working my crab against the 30 degree crosswind, come in real stable, align to the runway, flare, touch of power, soft landing, nailed it. Wow I was proud. He actually said good job on that one and if you can land on this strip, you can land anywhere. I announce our backtaxi to the grass strip, hold back on the yolk, don’t stop and off we go from the grass. It really wasn’t that bumpy and we got off the ground pretty quick. Got my climb going, retracted flaps and he says lets do some maneuvers.
We head a little further west and I set up slow flight, get the stall horning going and do some turns. He says approach to landing stall and I pull power, start a descent and then pull back announcing “tree”, stall recover and back to original altitude and heading. He now says power on stall, then asks if I’m the guy that asked him about this. A little backstory. During training for the power on stalls, my instructor and I had always practiced full power and then an aggressive pull back to get into and out of the maneuver quickly. This typically introduced a steep angle and sometimes an exciting recovery. Fastforward to my mock checkride and that instructor said he definitely wasn’t prepared for that and I should ask the DPE about it. So I did when we scheduled the checkride and he explained it’s full power with a higher than normal attitude, but not too steep, just enough to let the speed bleed off and stall. My instructor and I practiced this new technique before the checkride and I had it down. Back to the maneuver. I think he was worried I’d pull back too much because when I started to pull back the stall horn was just starting to go off and he said not too steep. I lowered the nose and acted like I was recovering and that was it. Not sure I even stalled it. I felt the buffet, but I think I corrected just a little early, but I don’t think he cared. He then went on to explain that he once had a guy nearly put a plane on its back.
Next was steep turns. I got myself stabilized and started off to the left. A little movement but well within tolerances. We went to the right, which always feels better. He says to pull out at a west heading and just as I level out, bump, we hit my wake turbulence. He says good level turn. At this point, I know we are 80% through the flight portion and I’m feeling great.
Next up he says I have an engine failure and points out the field I’m going to land in. Here’s my brainfart for the day. Instead of heading straight for it and spiraling down, I set best glide and do a nice long downwind going through all the emergency procedures, turn final and he asks how far we are, I say about two miles. Then I say, yep should’ve headed straight for the field. He explains that if the wind was too strong, it would have held us up and we wouldn’t have made it to the field. Luckily the wind wasn’t that strong and we made it easily. He asks me to show a sideslip to lose some more altitude and then he says go around.
We climb back up to 1500’ and says turns around a point. I found a shed by itself and am entering upwind. I ask if that’s ok since we’re supposed to enter downwind and he says no problem. I do one 360 and pull out. This is something else I learned during my mock checkride. My instructor for that said I only need to do the maneuver once. Obviously during practice we go around a few times, but during the checkride, do it once then get out. Next was s-turns. Same thing, one loop on each side and out.
We climb back up to 2500’ and he says talk to me about what you would do with an engine fire. I explain what I’m looking for with an electrical fire or engine fire, explain shutting things down and closing any openings between the engine compartment and the cabin, calling tower and declaring emergency, coding in 7700 in the transponder and the attitude and airspeed for emergency descent. He says show me and I pull power, turn off into a 45 degree bank and get up to about 110 knots. Says that’s good after about 250 feet and says let’s call up the airport and ask for a full stop. This is it, getting close.
I get the ATIS, call them up and start heading in. He says show me on the GPS how to get a heading to the airport. I dial up the closest airport page, scroll down, enter, enter and there we go.
I’m cleared for 14L and he shows me a diagram of the large white 1000’ markers and says the beginning of those are your mark for a short field landing. I’ve practiced this exact point several times so I feel good. I come in stabilized, a little steeper than normal, get a little too low, add some power to drag it in and then hit it. Start on the breaks and he says you’re good, we don’t want to keep everyone else waiting. I taxi off and get cleaned up then get instructions to taxi back. We’re talking on the way back to the FBO and he says, as long as you don’t hit anything on the way back, you’ve passed. I could hear my skin stretch I was smiling so big.
I get everything shut down (1.4 on the hobbs) and he heads in to start on my paperwork. I text my wife immediately then my CFI. Others come later.
We go in and debrief and he asks if I have any questions or concerns. I tell him that I forgot to verbalize my gumps check, but did it and realized I busted my emergency landing. He says that I knew it immediately and knew the consequences so no problem. Says everything else went really well and was within PTS and says sign here pilot!
It was a great experience and he was a joy to have as an examiner. He asks when I’m going to start my IFR saying it would be good for me. I explain that I’d like to see how it goes over the next year and see what kind of cancellation percentage I get from planning my flights for work and personal (more on this in a bit). Says that sounds fine. So at this time, it’s been about 6 hours since I had breakfast and am starving, so I get a sandwich and eat at the FBO before returning. He brought his lunch so we talk for a while before I leave. Once again, great examiner.
So now I’m a pilot, what’s next? Well, today (Friday) I had planned my first cross county for a work meeting about an hour and a half flight away. Weather forecast looks good as of Wednesday. I make all the preparations, call the FBO where I’m going to land to let them know I’m coming so they can give me a ride to the nearby train station. Thursday night about 10 I go to bed looking at the TAF and MOS and see it’s calling for MVFR at 6AM with clearing by 8 or 9, better as you head north. I set my limit at a 2500’ lowest ceiling since the forecast shows it’ll lift and that will give me 500’ below the clouds and 1000’ over any obstacles. There are several airports along the way and I can easily divert and drive if the weather goes bad, so I have my out. Plan A is driving, Plan B is flying. Keep that mentality.
So I wake up at 5:45 and the weather sucks. IFR and LIFR everywhere. At least it was an easy decision. Confirm my rental car for the way there and the train ride on the way back. As I write this now on my way back on the train, 12 hours after that forecast, it is still MVFR. They really blew that one. In a perfect world, I would have been home by now, rather than 2 hours from now, and it would have been a heck of a lot more fun. So of course, I’ve already looked up the IFR training requirements and text my backyard neighbor about sharing safety pilot duties. Probably a kneejerk reaction since it’s been like 48 hours since I’ve had my license, but the count is weather 1, me 0.
Weather should be better this weekend and I’m planning to take the family up for a little cruise along with getting checked out in our clubs piper archers, giving me three planes to work with. We also have a 182, but I’ll get a little closer to 100 hours for that one.
So there it is. Sorry for the long post, but I was soaking up as many videos and write-ups as I could preparing myself for this and just want to share my experience.
Once again thank you again to the POA forums for the knowledge I’ve gained and I’m glad I could add to that.
Thank you to my CFI Steven (he’s on the board). What a great job he did working with me and I really appreciate him taking time away from his family, just like I was doing with mine, to work on my license. Secondly, thanks to Joe and Brent, a couple other instructors that helped along the way. Brent did a mock checkride with me that was fantastic at prepping for the real thing. Thanks also to my backyard neighbor Jeff that I didn’t even know had his license until I started mine.
Now on with the summary, which I’m providing for others since this forum has been a great source of information for me.
I had started my pilot training at the end of September hoping to be done by my birthday in May. Suffice it to say I passed my checkride this past Wednesday, so perseverance through this training definitely helps. What I did was approach training like everything else in my life and physically scheduled it in my calendar a week ahead of time, so that work, family and other things could be scheduled around it if appropriate. Obviously life takes precedence every once in a while, but I thought it worked pretty well as I probably averaged about 1.5 to 2 hours per week over the course of my training. So through fall and winter and the hintings of spring my training went until I was ready this week.
The DPE I had scheduled with was located about a 40 min. flight away, so right away I had to get ready for two cross countries, the real one and the mock one. Luckily weather turned out to be perfect for my flight, as I was worried about morning fog we’d been having lately in this winter to spring transitional weather (more on that later).
So the day before my checkride I called the DPE and get the W/B information, cross country information and the fee, getting all set for the prepwork that night. I had scheduled for 9am the next morning thinking that if it gets warm, I can get my flying out of the way before the heat and turbulence of the afternoon. With it being so early, I briefed for the winds aloft and finished my cross country planning the night before. It was a risk if the winds shifted, but I figured I would get there early and adjust if necessary. So the next morning I get up, re-brief for my winds aloft and yep, they changed so step one when landing is re-calcing all my winds. I get over to the other airport about 45 min. early, and sit down to update all my winds. About 15 minutes later he walks in and introduces himself. He asks what I was up to and told him just updating my plan for the winds and he says take my time. Not sure if this helped or hurt, but at least he knew I was serious about his.
So we sat down for the oral portion and we just eased right into everything, starting with my logbook, IACRA form and all my individual requirements. We get through the upfront paperwork and on with the rest. Starting off with the plane requirements, which I had tabbed everything in the logbooks and had all the paperwork very organized. Again, something I think is important to show preparation and dedication to what you are doing. He asked me about what systems on the plane are hydraulic, what is electrically powered and what is part of the pitot static system. We went through airspeeds for the plane (C172), liftoff speed. landing config. stall speed, clean config. stall speed and maneuvering speed. Showed me a generic speed indicator and asked about the colored arcs and what they meant. We then talked a little bit about maneuvering speed and what it means to the plane and flying around normally, basically trying to get out of me that if you get into rough air, slow down so you don’t hurt the plane.
Next was on to my cross country planning. I had done the traditional e6b calculations on a paper flight plan as well as on foreflight. I pulled out my sectional and basically described my cross country route, explaining reasons why I had chosen to fly this way or that way. He asked questions along the way about what airspace we would be in, cloud requirements for Class E and Class G, special VFR if we needed it, MOA areas along the route that I had avoided along with where on the sectional to find the details (on one of the folds of the map), VOR’s and the frequencies (115.5R for example), he had me explain the airport description on the sectional and the checkpoints I had chosen along the way. Next on to weather, which he had me pull up my briefing and read the coded description of the METAR, TAF, Winds aloft, Area Forecast, PIREPS and any notams along the route.
Next was some biomedical questions about what to do if my son complained of his ear’s hurting when I decided to start descending. Explained that I would climb back up and use different methods to try and clear his sinuses then start a very gradual descent. Asked about the party I had and when I could fly again afterwards. Eight hours bottle to throttle, 0.04 BAC or if I still didn’t feel good hold off. Asked me about general wellbeing before flying. I explained that I need to make sure I’m stress free (not needing to get anywhere “gettheritis), not tired, am healthy and have good spirits and have done my due diligence to prepare for the flight.
We talked a little bit about spin prevention and then he briefed me a little about about him being an interested passenger only today and that I’m PIC. He went through his syllabus that he uses for the flight portion so that I would know what’s coming during that portion.
I think that’s about it. There may have been a little more that I’m forgetting, but that should be 95% of it. One hour of basically having a conversation and he said let’s go fly.
So I get all my stuff packed up and head out to preflight. Do my normal walkaround procedure to get everything prepped and when I’m done he walks out. He says he watched me from inside and asks if we are ready to go and I say yes. That’s it and we climb in.
I go into “King School Checkride Mode”, explaining everything that I’m doing and verbally confirming my checklists. I asked if he wanted a passenger briefing on seatbelts and emergency procedures and politely declines, but says good to ask him and do it with all my passengers. I get the plane fired up and show him the taxi diagram I had on my kneeboard along with the list of frequencies already programmed into the radio, including the two upcoming VOR’s I’m going to use, and am able to check the morse code of the one at the field while sitting on the ground. Call up ground and get my taxi instructions. He says to ask for the bravo intersection of runway 14L so we don’t have to taxi all the way down. No problem, done that at my own airport.
Taxi over, do my runup, prep before take-off checklist still king schooling it and he says this is the start of the runway, so let’s do a shortfield takeoff. As we taxi out to the runway I explain the procedure before I do it and off we go. I had a brainfart on my mock checkride where he asked me to do the same thing and I just did a normal takeoff, so I was extra attentive and pulled Vx to clear the obstacle and then Vy’d the rest of the way.
We start off on my xcountry heading, tracking away from the VOR on my heading. We get out and he has me identify a couple of small towns we are passing over along with a couple other map features to test my pilotage. All goes well. He has me put on the foggles and we do some climbs and descents while turning for a little bit, then asks me to look something up on the map while he takes the controls. Like 10 seconds later he has the plane all catywhompus and says “I’m sorry, I just lost control of your airplane”, so I grab the controls and recover from his unusual attitude. Great practical way of introducing that in a real world scenario.
Foggles come off and and he says to see where we are at. I use the original VOR I still had tuned it and use the DME on the plane and foreflight to nail my location. He says good job, now triangulate with VOR’s. Sneaky guy had reset all my other presets, so I had to re-find the frequencies, test the code and tune it in.
Next up he says let’s head west to a little untowered strip I know of. As he says this he covers my directional gyro and says, let’s use something else to turn west. I explain that the compass won’t be exactly correct as I’m turning but since I can see the sun and the roads, I use those to help with direction. He says this is a diversion and to tell him how far we are from his airport and how long it will take. Thank you foreflight because this was easy. I also tuned the radial it would be off of and explain we should be real close when it centers. So I look up the airport to get pattern information and see it’s freaking 30’ wide and 2000’ long. The narrowest I’d landed on ever before had been 75’ and my home airport is 150’. This should be interesting. He asks if I’ve ever done a soft field landing on grass and tell him no, that through winter training we’d never gotten around to it. He says, no problem, do a soft field landing on the asphalt and we’ll do a soft field takeoff on the grass (which will by my first). So as we approach I see the airport and damn it looks small. I set up for a left downwind and start announcing on the CTAF. It had been awhile since I was at an untowered airport, but it all went fine. Turn final and am working my crab against the 30 degree crosswind, come in real stable, align to the runway, flare, touch of power, soft landing, nailed it. Wow I was proud. He actually said good job on that one and if you can land on this strip, you can land anywhere. I announce our backtaxi to the grass strip, hold back on the yolk, don’t stop and off we go from the grass. It really wasn’t that bumpy and we got off the ground pretty quick. Got my climb going, retracted flaps and he says lets do some maneuvers.
We head a little further west and I set up slow flight, get the stall horning going and do some turns. He says approach to landing stall and I pull power, start a descent and then pull back announcing “tree”, stall recover and back to original altitude and heading. He now says power on stall, then asks if I’m the guy that asked him about this. A little backstory. During training for the power on stalls, my instructor and I had always practiced full power and then an aggressive pull back to get into and out of the maneuver quickly. This typically introduced a steep angle and sometimes an exciting recovery. Fastforward to my mock checkride and that instructor said he definitely wasn’t prepared for that and I should ask the DPE about it. So I did when we scheduled the checkride and he explained it’s full power with a higher than normal attitude, but not too steep, just enough to let the speed bleed off and stall. My instructor and I practiced this new technique before the checkride and I had it down. Back to the maneuver. I think he was worried I’d pull back too much because when I started to pull back the stall horn was just starting to go off and he said not too steep. I lowered the nose and acted like I was recovering and that was it. Not sure I even stalled it. I felt the buffet, but I think I corrected just a little early, but I don’t think he cared. He then went on to explain that he once had a guy nearly put a plane on its back.
Next was steep turns. I got myself stabilized and started off to the left. A little movement but well within tolerances. We went to the right, which always feels better. He says to pull out at a west heading and just as I level out, bump, we hit my wake turbulence. He says good level turn. At this point, I know we are 80% through the flight portion and I’m feeling great.
Next up he says I have an engine failure and points out the field I’m going to land in. Here’s my brainfart for the day. Instead of heading straight for it and spiraling down, I set best glide and do a nice long downwind going through all the emergency procedures, turn final and he asks how far we are, I say about two miles. Then I say, yep should’ve headed straight for the field. He explains that if the wind was too strong, it would have held us up and we wouldn’t have made it to the field. Luckily the wind wasn’t that strong and we made it easily. He asks me to show a sideslip to lose some more altitude and then he says go around.
We climb back up to 1500’ and says turns around a point. I found a shed by itself and am entering upwind. I ask if that’s ok since we’re supposed to enter downwind and he says no problem. I do one 360 and pull out. This is something else I learned during my mock checkride. My instructor for that said I only need to do the maneuver once. Obviously during practice we go around a few times, but during the checkride, do it once then get out. Next was s-turns. Same thing, one loop on each side and out.
We climb back up to 2500’ and he says talk to me about what you would do with an engine fire. I explain what I’m looking for with an electrical fire or engine fire, explain shutting things down and closing any openings between the engine compartment and the cabin, calling tower and declaring emergency, coding in 7700 in the transponder and the attitude and airspeed for emergency descent. He says show me and I pull power, turn off into a 45 degree bank and get up to about 110 knots. Says that’s good after about 250 feet and says let’s call up the airport and ask for a full stop. This is it, getting close.
I get the ATIS, call them up and start heading in. He says show me on the GPS how to get a heading to the airport. I dial up the closest airport page, scroll down, enter, enter and there we go.
I’m cleared for 14L and he shows me a diagram of the large white 1000’ markers and says the beginning of those are your mark for a short field landing. I’ve practiced this exact point several times so I feel good. I come in stabilized, a little steeper than normal, get a little too low, add some power to drag it in and then hit it. Start on the breaks and he says you’re good, we don’t want to keep everyone else waiting. I taxi off and get cleaned up then get instructions to taxi back. We’re talking on the way back to the FBO and he says, as long as you don’t hit anything on the way back, you’ve passed. I could hear my skin stretch I was smiling so big.
I get everything shut down (1.4 on the hobbs) and he heads in to start on my paperwork. I text my wife immediately then my CFI. Others come later.
We go in and debrief and he asks if I have any questions or concerns. I tell him that I forgot to verbalize my gumps check, but did it and realized I busted my emergency landing. He says that I knew it immediately and knew the consequences so no problem. Says everything else went really well and was within PTS and says sign here pilot!
It was a great experience and he was a joy to have as an examiner. He asks when I’m going to start my IFR saying it would be good for me. I explain that I’d like to see how it goes over the next year and see what kind of cancellation percentage I get from planning my flights for work and personal (more on this in a bit). Says that sounds fine. So at this time, it’s been about 6 hours since I had breakfast and am starving, so I get a sandwich and eat at the FBO before returning. He brought his lunch so we talk for a while before I leave. Once again, great examiner.
So now I’m a pilot, what’s next? Well, today (Friday) I had planned my first cross county for a work meeting about an hour and a half flight away. Weather forecast looks good as of Wednesday. I make all the preparations, call the FBO where I’m going to land to let them know I’m coming so they can give me a ride to the nearby train station. Thursday night about 10 I go to bed looking at the TAF and MOS and see it’s calling for MVFR at 6AM with clearing by 8 or 9, better as you head north. I set my limit at a 2500’ lowest ceiling since the forecast shows it’ll lift and that will give me 500’ below the clouds and 1000’ over any obstacles. There are several airports along the way and I can easily divert and drive if the weather goes bad, so I have my out. Plan A is driving, Plan B is flying. Keep that mentality.
So I wake up at 5:45 and the weather sucks. IFR and LIFR everywhere. At least it was an easy decision. Confirm my rental car for the way there and the train ride on the way back. As I write this now on my way back on the train, 12 hours after that forecast, it is still MVFR. They really blew that one. In a perfect world, I would have been home by now, rather than 2 hours from now, and it would have been a heck of a lot more fun. So of course, I’ve already looked up the IFR training requirements and text my backyard neighbor about sharing safety pilot duties. Probably a kneejerk reaction since it’s been like 48 hours since I’ve had my license, but the count is weather 1, me 0.
Weather should be better this weekend and I’m planning to take the family up for a little cruise along with getting checked out in our clubs piper archers, giving me three planes to work with. We also have a 182, but I’ll get a little closer to 100 hours for that one.
So there it is. Sorry for the long post, but I was soaking up as many videos and write-ups as I could preparing myself for this and just want to share my experience.
Once again thank you again to the POA forums for the knowledge I’ve gained and I’m glad I could add to that.
