AerialGhost
Pre-Flight
Hey all, I passed my Private Pilot Checkride today so I am pretty stoked. Here is the write up.
My checkride was originally supposed to be on July 8th; however, it was rainy with low ceilings that day so I had to scrub and reschedule that ride for today, the 22nd. My checkride was scheduled for 9am in Decatur with me traveling from Dallas Airpark just north of Addison. I got to the airport at 7:00am and looked at a radar and saw rain developing west of Denton and moving east. So, I'm half thinking great I'm going to have to cancel again, but I called the briefer and he said it was just light showers with 10000 ft ish ceilings and should be clear by 10:30 local. I also called my DPE and asked him how it looked since he lives close to Decatur, and he said it should be no problem and he'd see me at 9; thus I saddled up and headed west. Over Lake Lewisville I flew into some rain, but it was pretty light, and I could see the good and bad spots. I had Denton Tower tuned and there was a decent amount of traffic, and they were still vfr so I pressed on. I then tuned the Decatur AWOS and it was reporting 700ft broken. At that time the rain seemed to intensify, so I called up Denton and diverted there. I had never landed to a full stop there so I got to play the "hey Denton Ground I diverted here, havent been here, what are the local FBO's , and can I get progressive" game. The controllers were super nice and accommodating, and after tying down at Business Air, I went to go get some photos of the Spirit of Detroit DC-3. I then called my DPE and told him what was going on, he said that I had exercised good judgement, and to call him when the next METAR sequence came out. I lounged around the FBO and went over a few things, and when the next METAR came out the sky over Decatur had magically cleared to 9,500, so I then taxied out, and headed over there.
When I tied down, the DPE came up to greet me. His name is David Graben, and he was actually in the same F-105 squadron as my Grandpa was, and they flew the first F-105 combat missions in Vietnam together, so he was very nice to me, shared some stories of them, and asked me how my Grandpa was doing. He then told me that somebody else had a CFI checkride scheduled with him at 9am. The other ride was suppose to call him the previous evening and finalize the details, but he didnt, and he had a flight at 6:30 pm back to Florida where he is from. So I was asked if I could delay my ride, and I had no problem with it as I had all day. At lunch time they were still doing the oral, so Mr. Graben let me take his car into downtown Decatur to get some Fuzzy's tacos. I guess I look trustworthy or something. (that was his first mistake!) Basically I got to sit around from 9-1:30 sitting around and sweat the test even more, but after lunch I was just ready to get it over with after all the delays so I was feeling confident by the time my oral rolled around.
The oral lasted a little less than an hour like most orals I assume, and after looking at all the logbooks to make sure everything was in order. He went straight through the PTS booklet so no surprises. He seemed to really emphasized wake turbulence and MTRs. The rest of the oral was typical stuff like name this airspace, what type of front is this, what type of weather is associated with it, read this METAR and TAF, what color is the heavy precipitation on radar, what are the symptoms of an alternator failure and what should you do, what types of flaps does your airplane have, name the various speeds associated with your airplane, show me your nav log and explain it to me, what is required for day and night VFR, what are currency requirements. I didn't answer everything 100% obviously, but I nailed a lot of it. There are others questions but that is pretty much what I remember. After the oral he said that I had done a really good, and that it was time to fly.
He watched me do about the first half of the preflight from the comforts of the terminal to escape the Texas heat. He then joined me for the last part of the preflight and looked in the cowling and asked me to identify various components. After that we started up, did the run up and did a soft field take off. From there we traveled to the first checkpoint, and I got there on time so that helped build confidence. After that he had me divert to an airfield about 20 NM away. He asked me what heading we should use to get there and approximately how long it would take to get there and how much gas we would use. After navigating there we broke off to to steep, stalls, and slow flight. Everything I did was well within the standards and I was very pleased with my performance. He then told me to climb to 3,500 feet to do spins since he knew I had never done them and said it would be good to do them before you actually need to know how to recover. He demonstrated the first one to the left, and then I did one to the right. He was also very particular to have me note the buffeting and onset of the stalls and spins, as it is better to recognize and recover from a stall before it happens. From there he pulled the throttle and had me do an engine out. At that time I was right over an airport that was in the middle of getting a new runway so I chose to land in the grass strip next to where the runway used to be. I did a forward slip to landing and used go around procedures to recover from the engine out. After that we climbed to about 700 ft agl and did a turn around a point. Next the hood went on and he had me do turns to various headings, climbs and descents to various altitudes, and constant airspeed climbs and descents. That was it for the airwork, and when he had me take the hood off we were back over Decatur airport about to cross midfield. The first landing was a short field/spot landing on the numbers, and i touched down about 50-100 feet smoothly further than the numbers and applied the brakes. It was a stop and go, so from there we did a short field take off, and the next landing was a soft field landing, and he wanted me to keep the nose wheel up the entire time we transitioned to take off, so after touch down I applied a little more power to keep the nose wheel up, and when he said to, I added the rest and we took off. It was all very smooth and I was pleasantly surprised with it. The last landing as a normal landing with a full stop, and I greased that one. Those were probably the best three landings I had done, so I can't complain about the timing of when they happened. After the last landing he claimed I was showing off, so that was another confidence booster. He then printed my temporary certificate, and congratulated me. By the time I got back to my home airport it was about 5:30 so it had been a long day, but it was very rewarding, I learned a lot, got more familiar with different types of weather, and at the end of the day I get to be a private pilot!
My checkride was originally supposed to be on July 8th; however, it was rainy with low ceilings that day so I had to scrub and reschedule that ride for today, the 22nd. My checkride was scheduled for 9am in Decatur with me traveling from Dallas Airpark just north of Addison. I got to the airport at 7:00am and looked at a radar and saw rain developing west of Denton and moving east. So, I'm half thinking great I'm going to have to cancel again, but I called the briefer and he said it was just light showers with 10000 ft ish ceilings and should be clear by 10:30 local. I also called my DPE and asked him how it looked since he lives close to Decatur, and he said it should be no problem and he'd see me at 9; thus I saddled up and headed west. Over Lake Lewisville I flew into some rain, but it was pretty light, and I could see the good and bad spots. I had Denton Tower tuned and there was a decent amount of traffic, and they were still vfr so I pressed on. I then tuned the Decatur AWOS and it was reporting 700ft broken. At that time the rain seemed to intensify, so I called up Denton and diverted there. I had never landed to a full stop there so I got to play the "hey Denton Ground I diverted here, havent been here, what are the local FBO's , and can I get progressive" game. The controllers were super nice and accommodating, and after tying down at Business Air, I went to go get some photos of the Spirit of Detroit DC-3. I then called my DPE and told him what was going on, he said that I had exercised good judgement, and to call him when the next METAR sequence came out. I lounged around the FBO and went over a few things, and when the next METAR came out the sky over Decatur had magically cleared to 9,500, so I then taxied out, and headed over there.
When I tied down, the DPE came up to greet me. His name is David Graben, and he was actually in the same F-105 squadron as my Grandpa was, and they flew the first F-105 combat missions in Vietnam together, so he was very nice to me, shared some stories of them, and asked me how my Grandpa was doing. He then told me that somebody else had a CFI checkride scheduled with him at 9am. The other ride was suppose to call him the previous evening and finalize the details, but he didnt, and he had a flight at 6:30 pm back to Florida where he is from. So I was asked if I could delay my ride, and I had no problem with it as I had all day. At lunch time they were still doing the oral, so Mr. Graben let me take his car into downtown Decatur to get some Fuzzy's tacos. I guess I look trustworthy or something. (that was his first mistake!) Basically I got to sit around from 9-1:30 sitting around and sweat the test even more, but after lunch I was just ready to get it over with after all the delays so I was feeling confident by the time my oral rolled around.
The oral lasted a little less than an hour like most orals I assume, and after looking at all the logbooks to make sure everything was in order. He went straight through the PTS booklet so no surprises. He seemed to really emphasized wake turbulence and MTRs. The rest of the oral was typical stuff like name this airspace, what type of front is this, what type of weather is associated with it, read this METAR and TAF, what color is the heavy precipitation on radar, what are the symptoms of an alternator failure and what should you do, what types of flaps does your airplane have, name the various speeds associated with your airplane, show me your nav log and explain it to me, what is required for day and night VFR, what are currency requirements. I didn't answer everything 100% obviously, but I nailed a lot of it. There are others questions but that is pretty much what I remember. After the oral he said that I had done a really good, and that it was time to fly.
He watched me do about the first half of the preflight from the comforts of the terminal to escape the Texas heat. He then joined me for the last part of the preflight and looked in the cowling and asked me to identify various components. After that we started up, did the run up and did a soft field take off. From there we traveled to the first checkpoint, and I got there on time so that helped build confidence. After that he had me divert to an airfield about 20 NM away. He asked me what heading we should use to get there and approximately how long it would take to get there and how much gas we would use. After navigating there we broke off to to steep, stalls, and slow flight. Everything I did was well within the standards and I was very pleased with my performance. He then told me to climb to 3,500 feet to do spins since he knew I had never done them and said it would be good to do them before you actually need to know how to recover. He demonstrated the first one to the left, and then I did one to the right. He was also very particular to have me note the buffeting and onset of the stalls and spins, as it is better to recognize and recover from a stall before it happens. From there he pulled the throttle and had me do an engine out. At that time I was right over an airport that was in the middle of getting a new runway so I chose to land in the grass strip next to where the runway used to be. I did a forward slip to landing and used go around procedures to recover from the engine out. After that we climbed to about 700 ft agl and did a turn around a point. Next the hood went on and he had me do turns to various headings, climbs and descents to various altitudes, and constant airspeed climbs and descents. That was it for the airwork, and when he had me take the hood off we were back over Decatur airport about to cross midfield. The first landing was a short field/spot landing on the numbers, and i touched down about 50-100 feet smoothly further than the numbers and applied the brakes. It was a stop and go, so from there we did a short field take off, and the next landing was a soft field landing, and he wanted me to keep the nose wheel up the entire time we transitioned to take off, so after touch down I applied a little more power to keep the nose wheel up, and when he said to, I added the rest and we took off. It was all very smooth and I was pleasantly surprised with it. The last landing as a normal landing with a full stop, and I greased that one. Those were probably the best three landings I had done, so I can't complain about the timing of when they happened. After the last landing he claimed I was showing off, so that was another confidence booster. He then printed my temporary certificate, and congratulated me. By the time I got back to my home airport it was about 5:30 so it had been a long day, but it was very rewarding, I learned a lot, got more familiar with different types of weather, and at the end of the day I get to be a private pilot!
