Its Showtime!!!

[DutchessFlier]

Final X-C today: POU-GON-POU this morning. Two final dual rides with my CFI to hone the skills (when was the last time I flew a circle around a point or S turns across a road)

Trying to do the end of course/FAA checkride early next week (maybe on Monday...other than Cap't. Levy's checkride advice posted above, any thoughts, suggestions, advice is appreciated...am I nervous Nawwww (yeah right)

 

[jdwatson]

Hey Dutchess !

I've come to the party late, as usual, what rating are you working towards ?

 

[vontresc]

Good luck on the Checkride. Just remember to relax. It goes a lot better when you do.

 

[rottydaddy]

Good luck! Not that you should need much... sounds like you are in good form, flying often and making progress.
For the checkride, best advice I can give is to focus less on perfection with your flying and technical details and more on demonstrating sound airmanship. Be in command, talk about what you're doing and why, and just relax, 'cuz you've done it all before.

 

[DutchessFlier]

Yeah..everyone says to relax...okay then. Flew the first dual this afternoon with my instructor. Went pretty well...some things need to be brushed up but nothing major. I did go to 1150 ft in the pattern with a TPA of 1200 and he said that that could bust me so I have to be careful!

EDIT: I left this out of the original post...just after the stalls and recoveries from unusual attitude work my CFI and I reviewed the spin recovery procedure. He looks at me and smiled, said, okay my man, lets spin this plane. I had asked him to spin us (back when I was about half way through the course) so I could actually experience it...not just read and talk about it. He had me shadow him on the controls for 2 spins, then he shadowed me. I thought it was pretty cool, and not as scary as I thought it would be. But man, that 172 really had to be coaxed into the incipient spin mode.

JDW I am going for my PPASEL

 

[rottydaddy]

I did go to 1150 ft in the pattern with a TPA of 1200 and he said that that could bust me so I have to be careful!

Okay... some precision is important... But again, if you level off at the wrong alt., or rollout not-quite-on-heading, and catch it right away and fix it, it should not be a big deal. Get too psyched-out about the TPA, and you may miss something else (distance from runway or whatever).

This reminds me of one little wrinkle on my PPASEL ride: the DE asked me to do ground-ref maneuvers, in some place where I normally did not do them, and I was momentarily at a loss as to A: what my altitude AGL should be and B: how to determine that. He was not as upset about that brain-fart as I was, fortunately. But that's something you might want to review... especially if your instructor has been in the habit of assigning you MSL altitudes to fly, relieving you of that mental exercise.

But man, that 172 really had to be coaxed into the incipient spin mode.

That's the most useful part of that lesson- seeing how really badly you'd need to screw up in order to accidentally stall/spin a 172. And yet people manage to do it...

 

[DutchessFlier]

Flew this afternoon (Saturday 9-5) Short and soft field work and crosswind T-O/Landings. Actually went into the grass strip at KPOU and used that for the soft field work. Flew to a small paved field (2800ft) hidden in a bunch of trees 12NM west of us (Kobelt N45) and did a real world short field approach/Land-T/O. Short final was right in between trees surrounding the runway (03-21). NOT planning on going back there soon. CFI says man you are ready!! One more flight with him on Monday morning to simulate the actual checkride..then Wednesday noon it's a go if the WX cooperates

 

[C. Kelley]

Final X-C today: POU-GON-POU this morning. (when was the last time I flew a circle around a point or S turns across a road)

I was told to do ground reference maneuvers on my stage III out of the blue after my divert. I had not even thought about them since the ground reference lesson three months prior. Let's just say I don't know how I still passed after my 'display'. Of course it didn't help that the winds were at ~25 knots that day. I think it helped that I made a pretty good x-wind landing afterwards .