Today is my one month anniversary of passing my private pilot checkride. I never wrote up the ride and figured I would today. For a little background, I took my initial discovery flight back in January 2003 at KDTO, did my initial training from July 2003 to April 2004 out of KADS and then had to stop at 30ish hours. This year everything aligned to where I could get my training done. I started in February and finished up in October.
We had initially setup my ride for 9am on Oct 22nd. I would fly over from my Class C field to a local non-towered location. The DPE called a few days prior and asked if he could move me to 11am or noon. I told him I had a commitment that evening in which I had an hour drive and had to be there by 6pm. He thought we could fit it in, but I was concerned that I would be distracted by the time crunch. My CFI told me I'd be fine because and that the horror stories about long oral exams wouldn't be an issue for me.
So the morning of the ride I headed to the hangar and started pre-flighting, making sure to catch anything the DPE might ding me on. The weather had started cooling down and I couldn't get a good reading out of my front tire. It needed air. I called up the FBO and made sure someone was around. I taxied across the field and they filled my tire and gave me some gas. As I was about to leave the DPE texted me saying he was on his way. I flew over the field and avoided tangling with a local helicopter. Got gas and parked it on the ramp. DPE showed up and we started up the exam. Since I was nervous about the time, I had tabbed up my log book and airplane logs so we could find everything he needed quickly. After that came question after question for the oral. We seemed to be moving through it fairly well and he told me I seemed to know my stuff. At one point he encouraged me to become a CFI. Probably not in the cards for me, but that was a nice compliment. I tripped up on a few things, one being how to file an international flight plan to the Bahamas. Another was when he used some jargon about being hung over and could he fly. I told him I've never had a drink in my life, let along been drunk, so he was going to have to clarify better the supposed condition. Anyway, 2 hours later and he was satisfied that I knew enough to move onto the flying portion. He did mention that I was one of the quicker oral exams he's given and my preparedness was really good. Then he said, "I hope you fly as well as you answered these questions."
So we head out to the plane to preflight. Went through everything and he wanted to demonstrate to me something about not getting the johnson bar flap lever in my plane set right and a passenger can step on the flap and fall. Good to know. My oil filler door was also not closing well and I pointed it out to him and hoped he didn't fail me for that. Not a big deal. We get in and I go through my briefing. He liked what I had prepared (stole something off the internet with the acronym SAFETY). Went through my startup and got the engine going. Then I slapped myself in the forehead. I had forgotten to pull the chocks. Ugh. I shut down the engine and he retrieved them, grumbling about making an old man climb in and out of a small airplane. Oops.
Got started back up and started to taxi out. He asked about me being excited to get home later and watch the Cubs. I started to reply and then caught myself. Distraction! He asked for a normal takeoff and start on my planned cross country. I exited the pattern and headed for my first waypoint. He looked down at a town and asked which one it was on the chart. At that point I was still going through a few things so told him to standby in case it was another test of distraction. Got myself situated and looked. Mumbled something and then said, I don't think it's on the chart. He said right, and that it should be. Ok. We get up to cruise altitutde and he starts throwing scenarios at me. Fly into a cloud, now what. Have a heart attack, now what. Those sorts of things. Diverted for the heart attack. Then he put me under the hood. Turns, climbs and a few unusual attitudes. Satisfied with that we went into slow flight. Did a few turns and I think a climb. Then we did a power off stall. Then a power on stall. Next did steep turns (my least favorite maneuver). My left was pretty good, which usually isn't the case. Then I went to my right and felt like I was all over the place (which usually isn't the case). I didn't notice me getting close to a bust but I was definitely not holding altitude steady. But as he said earlier, if he doesn't say I failed, keep going knowing you didn't.
Then I got the engine failure. Pitch for speed. Start looking. Hey look, the airport is over there. Head for the airport. Try restart. Knew that I had to do a forward slip during the ride eventually so slipped it down for a straight in. In retrospect (and he lectured me on this later) I should have done some 360s to burn the altitude. We had a good talk about that later. Did a go around and started landings and take offs. First one was regular landing. During the taxi back I noticed something in the runup area. It looked like a coyote. I pointed it out to him. As we got closer it decided to sit down. Move you silly coyote! I revved the engine a bit and he ran off into the corn field. Did a short field takeoff. Then did a short field landing with 50 ft obstacle. Next a soft field takeoff. Left the pattern and did a turn around a point. Back into the pattern and ended with a soft field landing (crosswind). As I taxied toward the end of the runway to turn around he said head for the terminal (big grin). Before I got to the end a bunch of birds were in the way. I started to tell him about a time we had these geese on the approach end of the runway and he blurts at me "don't blow the ride now!" I shut up.
Parked the plane and went in to do paper work, although he did ask me a few more test like questions. I thought that was odd. Told me congrats and printed out my temp cert. Had a debrief on my maneuvers and gave me some compliments (said something about close to commercial standards which was nice to hear). Said he expects to see me in a year for my instrument ride. We'll see.
We got done just in time because I had to run back to the plane, fly back to my Class C airport where my wife and kids were waiting for me with my tuxedo so I could run off and play a concert that night. I made it with a little time to spare.
Anyway, dream fulfilled! I now have a plane and a PPL and can fly as I please. Yesterday I did a massive 9 hour trip to Pittsburgh and back and passed the 100 hour mark. Next I just need my CFI to get his -I to start my instrument (and money - you always need money).
We had initially setup my ride for 9am on Oct 22nd. I would fly over from my Class C field to a local non-towered location. The DPE called a few days prior and asked if he could move me to 11am or noon. I told him I had a commitment that evening in which I had an hour drive and had to be there by 6pm. He thought we could fit it in, but I was concerned that I would be distracted by the time crunch. My CFI told me I'd be fine because and that the horror stories about long oral exams wouldn't be an issue for me.
So the morning of the ride I headed to the hangar and started pre-flighting, making sure to catch anything the DPE might ding me on. The weather had started cooling down and I couldn't get a good reading out of my front tire. It needed air. I called up the FBO and made sure someone was around. I taxied across the field and they filled my tire and gave me some gas. As I was about to leave the DPE texted me saying he was on his way. I flew over the field and avoided tangling with a local helicopter. Got gas and parked it on the ramp. DPE showed up and we started up the exam. Since I was nervous about the time, I had tabbed up my log book and airplane logs so we could find everything he needed quickly. After that came question after question for the oral. We seemed to be moving through it fairly well and he told me I seemed to know my stuff. At one point he encouraged me to become a CFI. Probably not in the cards for me, but that was a nice compliment. I tripped up on a few things, one being how to file an international flight plan to the Bahamas. Another was when he used some jargon about being hung over and could he fly. I told him I've never had a drink in my life, let along been drunk, so he was going to have to clarify better the supposed condition. Anyway, 2 hours later and he was satisfied that I knew enough to move onto the flying portion. He did mention that I was one of the quicker oral exams he's given and my preparedness was really good. Then he said, "I hope you fly as well as you answered these questions."
So we head out to the plane to preflight. Went through everything and he wanted to demonstrate to me something about not getting the johnson bar flap lever in my plane set right and a passenger can step on the flap and fall. Good to know. My oil filler door was also not closing well and I pointed it out to him and hoped he didn't fail me for that. Not a big deal. We get in and I go through my briefing. He liked what I had prepared (stole something off the internet with the acronym SAFETY). Went through my startup and got the engine going. Then I slapped myself in the forehead. I had forgotten to pull the chocks. Ugh. I shut down the engine and he retrieved them, grumbling about making an old man climb in and out of a small airplane. Oops.
Got started back up and started to taxi out. He asked about me being excited to get home later and watch the Cubs. I started to reply and then caught myself. Distraction! He asked for a normal takeoff and start on my planned cross country. I exited the pattern and headed for my first waypoint. He looked down at a town and asked which one it was on the chart. At that point I was still going through a few things so told him to standby in case it was another test of distraction. Got myself situated and looked. Mumbled something and then said, I don't think it's on the chart. He said right, and that it should be. Ok. We get up to cruise altitutde and he starts throwing scenarios at me. Fly into a cloud, now what. Have a heart attack, now what. Those sorts of things. Diverted for the heart attack. Then he put me under the hood. Turns, climbs and a few unusual attitudes. Satisfied with that we went into slow flight. Did a few turns and I think a climb. Then we did a power off stall. Then a power on stall. Next did steep turns (my least favorite maneuver). My left was pretty good, which usually isn't the case. Then I went to my right and felt like I was all over the place (which usually isn't the case). I didn't notice me getting close to a bust but I was definitely not holding altitude steady. But as he said earlier, if he doesn't say I failed, keep going knowing you didn't.
Then I got the engine failure. Pitch for speed. Start looking. Hey look, the airport is over there. Head for the airport. Try restart. Knew that I had to do a forward slip during the ride eventually so slipped it down for a straight in. In retrospect (and he lectured me on this later) I should have done some 360s to burn the altitude. We had a good talk about that later. Did a go around and started landings and take offs. First one was regular landing. During the taxi back I noticed something in the runup area. It looked like a coyote. I pointed it out to him. As we got closer it decided to sit down. Move you silly coyote! I revved the engine a bit and he ran off into the corn field. Did a short field takeoff. Then did a short field landing with 50 ft obstacle. Next a soft field takeoff. Left the pattern and did a turn around a point. Back into the pattern and ended with a soft field landing (crosswind). As I taxied toward the end of the runway to turn around he said head for the terminal (big grin). Before I got to the end a bunch of birds were in the way. I started to tell him about a time we had these geese on the approach end of the runway and he blurts at me "don't blow the ride now!" I shut up.
Parked the plane and went in to do paper work, although he did ask me a few more test like questions. I thought that was odd. Told me congrats and printed out my temp cert. Had a debrief on my maneuvers and gave me some compliments (said something about close to commercial standards which was nice to hear). Said he expects to see me in a year for my instrument ride. We'll see.
We got done just in time because I had to run back to the plane, fly back to my Class C airport where my wife and kids were waiting for me with my tuxedo so I could run off and play a concert that night. I made it with a little time to spare.
Anyway, dream fulfilled! I now have a plane and a PPL and can fly as I please. Yesterday I did a massive 9 hour trip to Pittsburgh and back and passed the 100 hour mark. Next I just need my CFI to get his -I to start my instrument (and money - you always need money).
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fly suave