SkyHog
Touchdown! Greaser!
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2005
- Messages
- 18,431
- Location
- Castle Rock, CO
- Display Name
Display name:
Everything Offends Me
Well, today was the big day of first attempt at the PPL checkride. The winds were nice and gusty....good sign I guess.
We started with the Oral exam, and it went ok. I definitely felt like I should have known a whole lot more than I did tho, and I think the DE did too. He really got me with "If you have a 15 knot crosswind, would you rather have it from the left side or the right side?"
Didn't know the answer to that one.
So we go fly. I have a -18 degree crab angle because the winds were so stiff. Not bad, I did ok on the cross country work. Next - we do flight by reference to instruments. I did pretty good on that, as I always have. Unusual attitudes were great also. I actually did ok on my steep turns. When I moved on to the stalls, I was getting kinda nervous, because I was doing everything decent enough so far. Stalls went fine. Ground reference was next.
Doing the turns around a point, I actually kept the plane almost perfect around the crossroads. Doing the S-Turns, I kept a constant radius, even though the wind was easily above 20 knots at this point (big, wide s-turns).
But oh boy....the landings.
We came in, and we had winds of 160@16 gusting 27. Luckily, we have a runway 17. We came in and tried a short field. Busted....but the DE didn't say anything. We went around the pattern again, and I had a humongous crosswind correction in to keep straight. Trying another short field....I busted again. DE still didn't say anything. I added full power, and he said "That's enough," and we exited the taxiway. The DE still didn't say anything at all to me.
When we got back inside the flight school, the first thing he says to my instructor is "Get the Camera!"
I passed!!! I Passed!!!! I PASSED!!!! I have my PPL!!!
I guess I hadn't actually busted the minimums on the short field....whoo!!!
Oh - and yes, I was trying to drag y'all along on thinking I had failed....I'm evil!
We started with the Oral exam, and it went ok. I definitely felt like I should have known a whole lot more than I did tho, and I think the DE did too. He really got me with "If you have a 15 knot crosswind, would you rather have it from the left side or the right side?"
Didn't know the answer to that one.
So we go fly. I have a -18 degree crab angle because the winds were so stiff. Not bad, I did ok on the cross country work. Next - we do flight by reference to instruments. I did pretty good on that, as I always have. Unusual attitudes were great also. I actually did ok on my steep turns. When I moved on to the stalls, I was getting kinda nervous, because I was doing everything decent enough so far. Stalls went fine. Ground reference was next.
Doing the turns around a point, I actually kept the plane almost perfect around the crossroads. Doing the S-Turns, I kept a constant radius, even though the wind was easily above 20 knots at this point (big, wide s-turns).
But oh boy....the landings.
We came in, and we had winds of 160@16 gusting 27. Luckily, we have a runway 17. We came in and tried a short field. Busted....but the DE didn't say anything. We went around the pattern again, and I had a humongous crosswind correction in to keep straight. Trying another short field....I busted again. DE still didn't say anything. I added full power, and he said "That's enough," and we exited the taxiway. The DE still didn't say anything at all to me.
When we got back inside the flight school, the first thing he says to my instructor is "Get the Camera!"
I passed!!! I Passed!!!! I PASSED!!!! I have my PPL!!!
I guess I hadn't actually busted the minimums on the short field....whoo!!!
Oh - and yes, I was trying to drag y'all along on thinking I had failed....I'm evil!
