ajyeary
Pre-takeoff checklist
tl;dr: Yesterday I rejoined the League of Temporary Airmen!
Prepare for an impenetrable wall of text.
I started my instrument training this past December with PoA's very own RussR as my CFII. This winter in Ohio was the coldest I remember it ever being, but a lot of nights were clear both in ceilings and visibility, so I got a lot of training in. We crammed in 34 hours between December and March, when he moved out of the area for work. Those were some busy months, trying to do two or three flights a week when weather allowed.
After he moved, I was assigned a new instructor, and our schedules just didn't mesh at all. We were on the schedule five different times, and didn't fly once - something always came up. Then both of us got busy and there just wasn't a good time to get things lined up that worked for either of us. So, two months went by without a single instrument training flight - I still went up a couple times solo to not atrophy my VFR skills too much (and also build XC PIC time).
Finally, one day I sent him a text asking when we were going to resume my training, and he told me that he was in the process of assigning me a new instructor who used to teach at the flight school seven or eight years ago, but left for the airlines. She had recently quit the airlines to spend more time at home, as she had just had a baby about six months ago, and the flight school asked if she wanted to come back. Anyway - she got a hold of me and we got on schedule pretty quickly.
So I go to my first flight with her and found out that we had personalities that meshed very well - needless to say, training was very quick and efficient from this point forward. It really helps when you mesh well! So we flew for a handful of times over the past month, including my long cross-country, and she thought I was ready to go. Took my knowledge test a couple weeks ago (85, woo!), then she signed me off last week to take the ride. Got a hold of the DPE and scheduled it for Saturday, June 14th. I did a mock checkride with our chief flight instructor Thursday, who said I was going to have no problem, then another flight with my instructor on Friday to brush up on partial panel stuff. Then I went home and tried to relax for the ride...
So, yesterday morning I decided to wake up early and head to the airport an hour before my ride, just to have a chance to get my nerves settled down... which was a great idea, except my DPE was also there an hour early. Due to that, we decided to just start the oral portion a bit early. It was pretty uneventful. Biggest upset during the oral portion was that my CFII's endorsement for the practical was incomplete - the DPE wasn't happy with the phrasing of it. My CFII had another student that morning, so I texted her asking her to drop by when she showed up, and the DPE and I started our chat about various weather information things for our pretend IFR flight down to Nashville. We took a look at prog charts, radar summary charts, etc., which was pretty simple. The only issues I had was on the airmet/sigmet charts, I had forgotten the criteria required to issue them (moderate for airmet, severe for sigmet), but the DPE just treated that as a teaching moment since I had nailed everything else. Remember, they're not looking for perfect! At about this point, my CFII showed up and fixed my endorsement, and off she went to fly with her other student.
We covered pretty much all the regs - currency requirements, equipment required, lost comms, etc., as well as what would happen during verious system failures and what I was supposed to do. He also dropped a hint that we were going to have a mock electrical failure and I'd have to deal with that (the plane I was using has an Aspen setup, so I knew that was going to be my partial panel experience. But with a complete electrical failure, how do you use your NAV radios? I'll cover that later.).
We discussed circle-to-land procedures, looked over some charts which he had me explain, which, again, total non-factor. It's awful hard to be signed off for a checkride when you can't read charts, y'know? We then briefed for the ride itself - we were going to depart MGY and go up to SGH VFR en-route to avoid traffic at I19 and potential skydivers at 70A7, do the VOR/DME33 with him giving vectors-to-final terminating in a circle-to-land, then shoot the ILS24 and land to take a break, get some water, and drain the sumps. Then we'd take off, do the localizer into 24, then go do airwork and our partial-panel stuff back into MGY.
We preflighted the plane and got the radios set up to navigate to SGH before taking off, then off we went. It was clear and a million, but there was surprisingly no traffic between MGY and SGH. It was a bit bumpy, as it was early afternoon, so I knew I was going to have to do a lot of fighting with updrafts and such. Sigh. After passing I19 and seeing that there was nothing going on at 70A7, I went under the hood and the DPE gave me vectors for the VOR/DME33 into SGH. While I was briefing the approach, I mentioned I was going to need to use the 430 to get DME using the SGH VOR/DME and started to set it up, when he asked "why not just use the approach in the GPS so it'll auto-sequence the waypoints for you?" Well, I had only done this a couple of times during my training (Russ liked making things hard on me!), but we gave it a shot anyway. I wasn't expecting the DPE to try to make my life easier here! We shot the approach down to modified minima because the A/FD mentions that practice circling approaches are N/A below 2000' (apparently the nearby town of Yellow Springs get very complain-y about airplanes), then circled to 6 to land. During the circling approach, he had me bring the plane in to 3 red, one white on the PAPIs so he could demonstrate how close to the trees you get on the approach if you bring it in low. That was eye-opening! Fun times. I did a normal landing, then taxied back around to hold short on 6 while I set up the radios for the ILS. Again, he had me set it up on the GPS as well for situational awareness. We took off and did the ILS24 full procedure. It was pretty much a non-event except I was a bit high on the glideslope during the last segment because I was fighting some awesome thermals and a tailwind, but I stayed within the standards, so we landed and shut down at the FBO to relax for a bit. He knows one of the guys working the line, so while I got some water and drained the sumps, he wandered off to chat with that guy for awhile.
While we were on the ground, I took the opportunity to look at the next approach that we were going to do and got myself briefed since things were going to be tight in the plane. I preflighted the plane, got her started up, and while taxiing over, we heard there was someone else in the pattern using 6 for his takeoffs and landings. We started to try to plan a different approach for 6 instead of 24, since we didn't want to try to land into this other guy, when he announced he was departing the pattern. Score! We got everything set up for the LOC24 approach, then took off and did that full procedure, including the missed which was trivial. Climb straight ahead, then left turn direct to the VOR and hold. What could be easier? Did the hold entry, got myself established, then he gave me vectors to follow so we could get away from the airport and go do some airwork.
From there, we did a couple of unusual attitude recoveries, then he failed all of my electrical system. Aspen went bye-bye, as did my turn coordinator and complete radio stack. How was I going to handle this situation? Well, since it was an emergency, and I had a moving-map GPS on my tablet... let's see how precisely we can shoot an approach using the tablet and remaining steam gauges, shall we? I did a brief for the LOC/DME20 into MGY, using Foreflight on his iPad as our navigation source with my Nexus 10 running Avare as backup. Not really a legal nav source, but you're in an emergency and ceilings are low across the entire Midwest, so you do what you need to to get on the ground. I shot the approach using the tablet (lots of "scan, glance down to see where I am and what I need to do next, glance back up and fix the attitude upsets, rinse, repeat" (thanks, thermals!)) and it's pretty accurate - good enough to potentially save your bacon in a pinch.
We did another circle to land to 2 since the winds favored that, did a pretty uneventful landing, then taxied to the tiedowns and shut down. Went inside, filled in our paperwork, took some pictures, and signed my new temporary certificate. I had passed!
There wasn't really any doubt in my mind during the whole checkride. Things went really, really well. Better than I was expecting, even! It really helps when you manage to convince yourself that you're ready. It also helps when you've got a DPE that's pretty laid back and doesn't make you feel like you're going to fail constantly (that's how my PPL ride was...). He was thorough, but also understanding and fair. I couldnt have asked for a better ride!
So, yeah. It feels pretty awesome knowing I've got this rating under my belt. It was a lot of work, but once you really get your mind wrapped around the situation, it's extremely satisfying. Next up: getting some experience in actual with my CFII and get my complex endorsement and 172RG checkout done.
Edited to add:
Remember, they're not looking for perfection, and if you bust an altitude, as long as you're doing something to fix it, they're happy, as long as you're not consistently out of spec. I had one point where I was off on an altitude by a bit, but I was working to fix it, so he didn't even mention it. Did I mention it was bumpy? I had a couple points where the plane was trimmed for level flight, then all of a sudden we were in a 500-1000 fpm climb without changing the plane's attitude. Ya shouldn't have to pitch 5-10° down to maintain level flight, but them's the breaks sometimes...
Prepare for an impenetrable wall of text.
I started my instrument training this past December with PoA's very own RussR as my CFII. This winter in Ohio was the coldest I remember it ever being, but a lot of nights were clear both in ceilings and visibility, so I got a lot of training in. We crammed in 34 hours between December and March, when he moved out of the area for work. Those were some busy months, trying to do two or three flights a week when weather allowed.
After he moved, I was assigned a new instructor, and our schedules just didn't mesh at all. We were on the schedule five different times, and didn't fly once - something always came up. Then both of us got busy and there just wasn't a good time to get things lined up that worked for either of us. So, two months went by without a single instrument training flight - I still went up a couple times solo to not atrophy my VFR skills too much (and also build XC PIC time).
Finally, one day I sent him a text asking when we were going to resume my training, and he told me that he was in the process of assigning me a new instructor who used to teach at the flight school seven or eight years ago, but left for the airlines. She had recently quit the airlines to spend more time at home, as she had just had a baby about six months ago, and the flight school asked if she wanted to come back. Anyway - she got a hold of me and we got on schedule pretty quickly.
So I go to my first flight with her and found out that we had personalities that meshed very well - needless to say, training was very quick and efficient from this point forward. It really helps when you mesh well! So we flew for a handful of times over the past month, including my long cross-country, and she thought I was ready to go. Took my knowledge test a couple weeks ago (85, woo!), then she signed me off last week to take the ride. Got a hold of the DPE and scheduled it for Saturday, June 14th. I did a mock checkride with our chief flight instructor Thursday, who said I was going to have no problem, then another flight with my instructor on Friday to brush up on partial panel stuff. Then I went home and tried to relax for the ride...
So, yesterday morning I decided to wake up early and head to the airport an hour before my ride, just to have a chance to get my nerves settled down... which was a great idea, except my DPE was also there an hour early. Due to that, we decided to just start the oral portion a bit early. It was pretty uneventful. Biggest upset during the oral portion was that my CFII's endorsement for the practical was incomplete - the DPE wasn't happy with the phrasing of it. My CFII had another student that morning, so I texted her asking her to drop by when she showed up, and the DPE and I started our chat about various weather information things for our pretend IFR flight down to Nashville. We took a look at prog charts, radar summary charts, etc., which was pretty simple. The only issues I had was on the airmet/sigmet charts, I had forgotten the criteria required to issue them (moderate for airmet, severe for sigmet), but the DPE just treated that as a teaching moment since I had nailed everything else. Remember, they're not looking for perfect! At about this point, my CFII showed up and fixed my endorsement, and off she went to fly with her other student.
We covered pretty much all the regs - currency requirements, equipment required, lost comms, etc., as well as what would happen during verious system failures and what I was supposed to do. He also dropped a hint that we were going to have a mock electrical failure and I'd have to deal with that (the plane I was using has an Aspen setup, so I knew that was going to be my partial panel experience. But with a complete electrical failure, how do you use your NAV radios? I'll cover that later.).
We discussed circle-to-land procedures, looked over some charts which he had me explain, which, again, total non-factor. It's awful hard to be signed off for a checkride when you can't read charts, y'know? We then briefed for the ride itself - we were going to depart MGY and go up to SGH VFR en-route to avoid traffic at I19 and potential skydivers at 70A7, do the VOR/DME33 with him giving vectors-to-final terminating in a circle-to-land, then shoot the ILS24 and land to take a break, get some water, and drain the sumps. Then we'd take off, do the localizer into 24, then go do airwork and our partial-panel stuff back into MGY.
We preflighted the plane and got the radios set up to navigate to SGH before taking off, then off we went. It was clear and a million, but there was surprisingly no traffic between MGY and SGH. It was a bit bumpy, as it was early afternoon, so I knew I was going to have to do a lot of fighting with updrafts and such. Sigh. After passing I19 and seeing that there was nothing going on at 70A7, I went under the hood and the DPE gave me vectors for the VOR/DME33 into SGH. While I was briefing the approach, I mentioned I was going to need to use the 430 to get DME using the SGH VOR/DME and started to set it up, when he asked "why not just use the approach in the GPS so it'll auto-sequence the waypoints for you?" Well, I had only done this a couple of times during my training (Russ liked making things hard on me!), but we gave it a shot anyway. I wasn't expecting the DPE to try to make my life easier here! We shot the approach down to modified minima because the A/FD mentions that practice circling approaches are N/A below 2000' (apparently the nearby town of Yellow Springs get very complain-y about airplanes), then circled to 6 to land. During the circling approach, he had me bring the plane in to 3 red, one white on the PAPIs so he could demonstrate how close to the trees you get on the approach if you bring it in low. That was eye-opening! Fun times. I did a normal landing, then taxied back around to hold short on 6 while I set up the radios for the ILS. Again, he had me set it up on the GPS as well for situational awareness. We took off and did the ILS24 full procedure. It was pretty much a non-event except I was a bit high on the glideslope during the last segment because I was fighting some awesome thermals and a tailwind, but I stayed within the standards, so we landed and shut down at the FBO to relax for a bit. He knows one of the guys working the line, so while I got some water and drained the sumps, he wandered off to chat with that guy for awhile.
While we were on the ground, I took the opportunity to look at the next approach that we were going to do and got myself briefed since things were going to be tight in the plane. I preflighted the plane, got her started up, and while taxiing over, we heard there was someone else in the pattern using 6 for his takeoffs and landings. We started to try to plan a different approach for 6 instead of 24, since we didn't want to try to land into this other guy, when he announced he was departing the pattern. Score! We got everything set up for the LOC24 approach, then took off and did that full procedure, including the missed which was trivial. Climb straight ahead, then left turn direct to the VOR and hold. What could be easier? Did the hold entry, got myself established, then he gave me vectors to follow so we could get away from the airport and go do some airwork.
From there, we did a couple of unusual attitude recoveries, then he failed all of my electrical system. Aspen went bye-bye, as did my turn coordinator and complete radio stack. How was I going to handle this situation? Well, since it was an emergency, and I had a moving-map GPS on my tablet... let's see how precisely we can shoot an approach using the tablet and remaining steam gauges, shall we? I did a brief for the LOC/DME20 into MGY, using Foreflight on his iPad as our navigation source with my Nexus 10 running Avare as backup. Not really a legal nav source, but you're in an emergency and ceilings are low across the entire Midwest, so you do what you need to to get on the ground. I shot the approach using the tablet (lots of "scan, glance down to see where I am and what I need to do next, glance back up and fix the attitude upsets, rinse, repeat" (thanks, thermals!)) and it's pretty accurate - good enough to potentially save your bacon in a pinch.
We did another circle to land to 2 since the winds favored that, did a pretty uneventful landing, then taxied to the tiedowns and shut down. Went inside, filled in our paperwork, took some pictures, and signed my new temporary certificate. I had passed!
There wasn't really any doubt in my mind during the whole checkride. Things went really, really well. Better than I was expecting, even! It really helps when you manage to convince yourself that you're ready. It also helps when you've got a DPE that's pretty laid back and doesn't make you feel like you're going to fail constantly (that's how my PPL ride was...). He was thorough, but also understanding and fair. I couldnt have asked for a better ride!
So, yeah. It feels pretty awesome knowing I've got this rating under my belt. It was a lot of work, but once you really get your mind wrapped around the situation, it's extremely satisfying. Next up: getting some experience in actual with my CFII and get my complex endorsement and 172RG checkout done.
Edited to add:
Remember, they're not looking for perfection, and if you bust an altitude, as long as you're doing something to fix it, they're happy, as long as you're not consistently out of spec. I had one point where I was off on an altitude by a bit, but I was working to fix it, so he didn't even mention it. Did I mention it was bumpy? I had a couple points where the plane was trimmed for level flight, then all of a sudden we were in a 500-1000 fpm climb without changing the plane's attitude. Ya shouldn't have to pitch 5-10° down to maintain level flight, but them's the breaks sometimes...
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