IFR Checkride Complete

jeremyk13

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Jan 15, 2016
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jeremyk13
It's taken a while wrap everything up, but as of yesterday, I scared an examiner enough to get him to punch a hole in my certificate.

I started in January, taking a couple weeks off work to try to fast-track my way through the instrument rating. Everything was going smoothly other than being able to schedule progress check instructors. Once I went back to work, schedule became an issue (surprise surprise), so finishing up the last few flights and the progress check took a while. To add a cherry on top, I had been working on the rating in an Arrow, and both Arrow's went down for maintenance before my checkride. So it was back to the glass in a G1000 C172 for the ride. Fortunately, I remembered which buttons did what (for the most part).

The knowledge portion was last Tuesday, with the flight deferred due to thunderstorms. About 3 hours of reviewing paperwork and going over ground. Nothing here was surprising. Lessons learned? Do whatever you need to do to learn the material. Period. I had my fiance asking me questions on a daily basis out of the Instrument Oral Exam Guide almost every day leading up to the progress checks and checkride. Youtube has some great videos on checkride prep as well. And of course, POA gave me plenty of opportunity to fact-check.

The flight was yesterday, and I almost canceled due to a not-so-great looking forecast. Basically every source I was looking at said that it would start to storm within 30 minutes of our start time. I discussed this with the examiner and told him that since he was my eyes, any indication he saw of a building storm should be communicated to me and we would stop the flight at that time. He agreed, so off we went. I'm not going to give a full play-by-play, but I will share my lessons learned in case it can help anyone.

1. Remember that you're PIC. The examiner tried to get me to copy a clearance while taxing. My response was "stand-by. I'd like to copy my clearance at the hold short line." That's the correct answer.

2. Remember your stand-by instruments if you have them. I forgot to check my stand-by attitude indicator while taxing.

3. Life is easier when you know your power settings. I wish I had at least one more flight getting my power settings nailed down in this plane before I went up for the checkride. I managed everything well enough, but it was a lot more work to be chasing a desired airspeed or vertical speed than it should have been. In the Arrow, you probably could cover up the manifold pressure and RPMs and I would still get the power settings that I wanted the first try.

4. Know your autopilot. One approach was shot from initial fix through the missed approach procedure 100% by autopilot. MDA = 640' MSL. My problem? I could dial the altitude down to 700' or 600'. I did not know how to get the autopilot down to 640'. Like the power settings, I think this could have been avoided if I were more familiar with the plane. The Arrow's both had single-axis autopilots vs the two-axis autopilot this particular 172 had.

tl;dr: I'm legal to fly in less than awesome weather!
 
Congrats! I haven't flown autopilot that lets you fly as accurate as "10's" of an altitude. Most do 100's and 1000's. If the MDA was 640 and you flew it at 700 the tolerances I believe are +100/-0 so you'd be in the green for sure.

In a real life situation you may want to hand-fly it down to 640 if you had any chance of breaking out.

But I digress, sounds like you did a great job and don't forget to go up again ASAP in actual conditions and get your wings wet :)
 
Congrats! now the challenge is to make sure you continue to be not only current, but proficient. So, go get that rating wet!
 
Thanks everyone!

@azblackbird Goal for the remainder of the year is to build time by getting involved with Pilots N Paws, fly a Fouga, fly a TBM (and get my high altitude endorsement), and some more time building. Next year, I'll probably be looking at my multi-engine rating, and/or possibly my commercial rating. I don't intend on becoming a professional pilot, but I see a few advantages in taking another checkride for the commercial.
 
Thanks everyone!

@azblackbird Goal for the remainder of the year is to build time by getting involved with Pilots N Paws, fly a Fouga, fly a TBM (and get my high altitude endorsement), and some more time building. Next year, I'll probably be looking at my multi-engine rating, and/or possibly my commercial rating. I don't intend on becoming a professional pilot, but I see a few advantages in taking another checkride for the commercial.

That's what I did basically. I stopped at commercial and I'm working on endorsements as able. I was going after my CMEL but then cancelled because I'll probably never use it.

Commercial definitely raises the bar from your private license and the best part is you can actually be paid to fly (in some cases).
 
Thanks everyone!

@azblackbird Goal for the remainder of the year is to build time by getting involved with Pilots N Paws, fly a Fouga, fly a TBM (and get my high altitude endorsement), and some more time building. Next year, I'll probably be looking at my multi-engine rating, and/or possibly my commercial rating. I don't intend on becoming a professional pilot, but I see a few advantages in taking another checkride for the commercial.
@jeremyk13 Awesome!
 
Congratulations... :cheers: Now as others have said, go get that thing wet...:thumbsup:
 
Just a thought:
Once you pass and the novelty of it fades, do not forget that it, just like the PPL, is just a license to learn. (insert an honest smiley without snark or any ulterior motive)

I personally like to look at fun and challenging charts from time to time and quiz other IR pilots, just to keep my IR skills up because they really do atrophy.
I also joined our local IMC club with other IR friends and it too helps me stay a little better proficient.
While I do remain current at all times by flying with a SP in VMC if I have to, I like to also stay proficient in all the rules, legalities, procedures and more.

IOW: if you enjoyed your IR training like I did, the good news is that you don't have to stop! :)
 
Late follow up. Since passing my IFR check ride, I had a handful of VFR flights (including two aerobatic flights in a Fouga) up until last weekend. An opportunity came up to leave Sugar Land for an early flight down to Harlingen. I went ahead and filed IFR, and was able to log all of 0.1 of solo actual instrument time. Nothing to write home about at all, but it was nice to know that I could still talk to controllers.

The high points of the flight: Side by side with Southwest for parallel runways, flying the coastline, and listening to some of the activity going on in Corpus

The not so great point: Losing my avionics just before touching down and having to fly commercial back to Houston while my alternator is being replaced
 
Missed this thread the first time around, wishing you a belated congratulations - on the ride, and on getting your ticket wet!
 
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