Congratulations Tristan!!!

tonycondon

tonycondon

Gastons CRO (Chief Dinner Reservation Officer)
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Tony
Tristan is PoAs, and the worlds, newest Commercial Pilot. Congrats!
 
Yay Tristan!!!!!! Congratulations! I hope you'll give us a full report soon.
 
Fantastic! Way to go Tristan!
 
I knew she'd do fine. But now that she can be paid to fly, how many more days till she's raking in the big bucks and can afford to support Jesse in style?
 
Thanks everyone!

Checkride Report:

I was having trouble on my first attempt at the comm checkride with a few maneuvers so I was sent home a bit disappointed and a bit lost at what to do. More specifically I was misunderstanding how to enter eights on pylons and emergency procedures were lacking on order as well as procedure. I went home and researched what I was missing through the books that I had along with some time with the instructors. I flew once with a CFI a few days ago and something clicked. I have yet to figure out why it clicked so quickly other than I believe I think a little backwards. I then wrote each phase of the procedure out to where I would understand in chunks instead of a confused "just do this" manuever. Instead of being confused of where downwind is with points perpendicular (I'm used to a runway which is parallel) to the wind, I pretend that the airplane is the wind. The next part is the actual entering which was the second part of the confusion. The procedure says you have to enter on a 45 to the downwind. I simplify that, "aim for the corner." Your first pylon is your left, so you make that the bottom and pick a part along the road/treeline/fence further up as a "corner" and point your nose at it. From there, all you have to do is wait for the pylon to come to you. As soon as it does, drop your wing on it. As far as keeping your wing on the manuever, its kinda like keeping up with a "friend." If your point is behind you, its kinda like your friend being behind you. So, slow down (pitch up). If you're friend is ahead of you, you want to catch up, so you go faster (pitch down). The rest of the manuever is the same through the whole eight. Just remember to exit at the same 45 degree spot that you entered. This is how I understand it and I got an "excellent!" for explaining it as well as demonstrating it. Half the battle isn't the manuever, its understanding what you're doing.

The other manuever was engine failure emergencies. I was taught something different this week that apparently most of "old guys" teach (excuse the reference). Emergencies up till now have been mostly an assumption that I knew the "L" check as they call it and also S turns on base to final. When in reality there was a little confusion on how exactly to execute checking the airplane, shutting down, and also which was the biggest, how to judge altitude. I flew yesterday with my isntructor ephasising that I want to be able to spout out the checklist and a simulated call for the emergencie while keeping my field insight and aircraft in control. This week I was also shown that you can actually do spirals at the landing field down to best altitude to make a base and final turn with plenty of time. Now I will say one of the biggest questions is whether to make another turn or not. You have to keep in mind that you are still loosing altitude in your base and final turns, so you still don't want to hit trees if you misjudged. I've noticed that usually if you stop your turns as close as you can to 1,000 AGL, it works out pretty well. From there, you can treat it pretty close to a power off 180. On my final, I had 65kts and around 600ft AGL with a definite promise I could have made the field if needed. She asked if I believed I could have made it, I said yes. She came back with a "I think so too, good job." From there, we went back to Riverside airport.

When we stopped the airplane in front of the FBO after a perfect landing she said I did a really good job and shook my hand. I laughed and told her, "ya know, I never want to have to say this again (because of the expense) but I'm really glad you made me go back and research what I wasn't understanding, I feel like I really know what I'm doing now." She smiled, agreed and said that what she believed I lacked was someone really explaining it on the ground and from there, showing that it works. Not just a copy and paste from CFI to student in the air. She was really impressed with everything I did. From there, I received my lovely new "temporary commercial" certificate and flew back home very happy. I'm of course happy that I passed despite it taking a second look on a few things, but what truly makes me happy is that I didn't BS or just get lucky with anything, I was actually able to talk through all of my maneuvers on the ground with the DE then explain what I was doing while demonstrating those maneuvers in the air with no problems. I'm a very happy and proud Commercial pilot.

Fly safe,
Tristan Star
CP-ASEL-IA
 
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I'm jealous. Congratulations on your success.
 
Tristan....I AM SO PROUD OF YOU GIRL!!!!! Congratulations. Now you can tell everyone you are a Commerical Pilot. :D
 
smigaldi said:
That is one the best benefits! When people ask 'are you a private pilot?' you get to say no, I am a commercial pilot. But then ask 'who do you fly for'.
Click to expand...

I'll bet it'll be fun to tell them that the first time...
Great job and great story.
 
smigaldi said:
That is one the best benefits! When people ask 'are you a private pilot?' you get to say no, I am a commercial pilot. But then ask 'who do you fly for'.
Click to expand...
You could pull a quick one and say "myself." They might think you're a high roller if you pull it off right. The smart ones might see through it though. Especially if they're a pilot too, lol. Either that or "(your last name) enterprise/corporation"
 
Way to go, Tristan! That's great news! What make/model plane did you fly for the test?
 
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Tristar said:
You could pull a quick one and say "myself." They might think you're a high roller if you pull it off right. The smart ones might see through it though. Especially if they're a pilot too, lol. Either that or "(your last name) enterprise/corporation"
Click to expand...

When they ask who you fly for go:

"You, if the price is right."

Don't forget to do the wink/nudge.

Congrats! :D
 
Tristar said:
Either that or "(your last name) enterprise/corporation"
Click to expand...

Be careful with that last one. It is awfully close to 'Hi, I'm Tristan fly me' then a hair flip ala the 1960's airline TV commercials that you are probably too young to have known about but may have heard in history class. :D:D

Try answering, 'the meat sacks that sit behind me'
That'll get 'em thinking
 
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