Warning...LONG write up following:
On September 27th, 2006 I was able to fulfill a life-long dream; I officially became a Private Pilot.
I was scheduled to take my checkride at 9am on Wednesday morning, and I spent the preceding weeks studying diligently, even staying up to 11pm the night before going over the oral exam guide.
So I get to the flight school at 8am to have my CFI review my flight plan, get all of the appropriate paperwork (aircraft logbooks, 8710 form, etc) and do a pre-flight on the aircraft.
The DE is located on my field, and his trailer is about a 2 minute walk from the flight school, however until today I had never met him. He drives up at 8:55am and tells me and my CFI that I could walk over anytime. I was going to taxi the plane over but he said, “Why waste the Hobbs time, and your money, just walk over and we will walk back to the plane later”. Ok by me!
So I walk over and meet the DE. What an amazing guy. He has been around aviation FOREVER; there are pictures of the various planes he has owned throughout his trailer. He even owned a charter company flying DC-3’s! So we talk a few minutes and he puts me at ease quickly, telling my that flying is not hard, that he wants to make sure that I have solid basics and am not a “know-it-all” as that makes it hard to learn new stuff.
We move into the oral after he checks my paperwork and we go over many things, but always he was pushing me to “think” when he asked me questions that were not those one could just spout out of the FAR/AIM, real practical stuff. It was amazing, I was getting tested but learning at the same time (again, the learning was “real world” stuff, not anything actually test related).
After an hour and a half of that it was time to fly….boy was my heart racing again! We get in the plane and go through my checklists. We taxi out to the runway, do my run-up, and then it is off to do a short field takeoff. After climbing to 500’ AGL. I turn south on my heading for the cross-country and climb to 4500’.
After passing my first checkpoint and approaching my second checkpoint I get diverted. I do a rough estimate in my head and turn, then do a more detailed heading, time, etc. as I am heading towards the diversion airport.
As soon as I determined the appropriate information I do some unusual attitudes under the “foggles”. Boy did he do some funky things to that plane! But I was able to do what needed to be done.
We then moved into steep turns. I did well enough to pass, but he did mention that my speed was close. Then onto slow flight, power off/on stalls, and then “oh no, we have an engine failure”.
I immediately trim to best glide, pull carb heat, and look for a landing zone. I pick what I think is a decent field and the DE only says “is that the one you want?” I look at him and then quickly find one a bit closer and end up picking a much better field closer by. As I am approaching that I see an airfield I know that has a nice grass strip and change to it. I slip it in right on the numbers and about 200’ AGL he says “go around”.
I climb and do a 180 per his request and we do S-turns. After that he says “take me back to the airport”. Enroute he asks me to tune in the Atlanta VOR and tell me on what radial were are and where we were (roughly based on the radial and pilotage).
At the airport I hit the downwind and do a good pattern, executing a short-field landing and I stick it “on the numbers”. What happened next though had me thinking I blew it. He asked for me to do a touch-and-go after the short field immediately into a soft-field takeoff. I had never done that before….so during my ground roll I am trying to reduce flaps while watching airspeed, compensate for a 6 knot crosswind, and set up for an appropriate takeoff (soft field, with the yoke in my lap). Let’s just say it was NOT pretty, I was all over the place and I could feel the landing gear side-loading on me.
I was finally able to get it back on the center line and get it off the ground correctly, but whew I was like “that sucked; surely he is going to fail me for that”.
He simply says give me a soft-field landing. So another pattern, and to me, a not so soft-field landing and boom, we are done. He says, “Take me back to the flight school”.
I am thinking I busted this badly, but I followed through with the after landing checklist, did the proper aerilon placement for the wind, and taxied back. He did tell me a few other nuggets of “real world” knowledge, such as why you should use one finger for flap retraction (it has to do with retractable gear planes).
I shut down per the checklists and the DE helps me push the plane back into its parking spot and says “Come see me when you finish locking up and tying down the plane” and walks away.
So I nervously finish up and walk over about 10 minutes later (in the interest of full disclosure, I was so nervous that I hit my head badly on the wing strut of the 172, hard enough to knock me down on the ground!) As I approach I go over all of the things I blew and what I need to work on. Then I see something I did not expect to see that day, as I walked into his office he was holding a white piece of paper not the “pink slip” I was expecting to see (the pink slip is a failure).
He hands me the temp certificate and I just stared at it, with tears starting to well up. He asked me if the bump on my head caused me to not be able to read as I just stared at the cert for a minute (jokingly of course). I then signed the temp cert, paid the DE, and simply just grinned like I had won the lottery.
I told him I did not think I did that well and did he have any insight for me. He said “I thought you flew fine” but he did offer me a bit of advise of a few things.
I then walked over to my CFI and after at first telling her I failed (I know I was mean) she jumped in joy and gave me a huge hug when I told her I passed. She then walked over the DE’s office to chat with him. Afterwards she took me to lunch and told me the DE said he had rarely seen a more prepared student pilot. I felt humbled and pleased at that.
So now I have my ticket and we are going to purchase a plane early next year. I cannot wait to take the wife to all of the places she wants to see. Without her encouragement and support (emotionally and financially) this would not have been possible.
