The check ride began in a pretty typical fashion, which was I had to prove that I was qualified to be there and fly. Following the recommendations of the King Schools check ride DVD that I consulted, I came with several folders containing everything required for the various phases of the check ride. This really simplified the whole process. I just pulled out the first folder and provided the examiner with everything he required. Once we completed the initial examination of my paperwork and I paid for the examination, the check ride began.
I grabbed the other folder and prepared to produce my flight plan. First, however, I would have to endure a bit of questioning. At this point, I was so nervous it wasn’t even funny; I saw every little utterance as some form of a test. Call me paranoid or crazy, but it was how I felt. We discussed airspace, what constitutes VFR flight, and what’s required of a private pilot and the aircraft. We briefly touched on special VFR clearances and what the airport beacon operating during the day meant. Everything was discussed in a hypothetical, or I suppose situational, way. It was actually a really great way to address the various topics.
After about an hour of questions and discussion, we moved on to my prepared cross country. The very first thing was that he looked over my nav log, flight plan, and sectional. The first questions were about actually filing a flight plan and obtaining the updated weather, which prompted a conversation about weather sources for preliminary flight planning. Then we moved on to the actual route and a discussion of my selected way points. He liked the fact that I included the VOR in my flight plan, but inquired about how I planned to use it. I answered that I planned to use it as a radio navigation aid as well as a visual checkpoint. I mentioned that this was in case it was out of service as it had been recently. Using it as a visual checkpoint is a valid strategy in either case.
From there, we moved into the more technical aspects of the plan. We started with a brief discussion regarding the data he gave me to use. Then we discussed how the wind would impact our proposed flight. The wind he gave was pretty light, so it didn’t make much of a difference. From here we discussed the various speeds involved in the flight. We started with distinguishing indicated airspeed from true airspeed and ground speed. Then, we discussed my calculated ground speed and cruise airspeed and why the two might differ. He also briefly discussed the relationship between airspeed and altitude.
At this point, we moved quickly through the rest of the plan and adjourned to move our vehicles and meet in the flight school lobby to make sure the plane was airworthy. First, however, he had one last thing for me to do: calculate the numbers on a maximum performance takeoff. Now I know this is a lowly 172 and that maximum performance doesn’t sound anything like the plane, but I calculated nonetheless. The bad thing was that this was far from a standard day and we were at a middling weight. This meant that my calculation, since it is based on the POH charts, would basically amount to a best guess and hope he liked the number. I got it in the ball park and that number seemed to match up with numbers I’d seen in training so I went with it. Once I got up to the flight school lobby, I provided the examiner with my calculation. I explained my thought process and he accepted the calculations as “probably pretty close.” They weren’t completely wrong so I figured I was better off than I could have been.
Now came the scariest part of the entire oral exam. “Where are the logs for the plane?” Realizing at once that I should have seen them by now, I quickly looked around for them on the table or desk where they were supposed to be. Nothing. I immediately stalled and went to the closet where they are normally stored — locked. Now I was really worried; I was going to get a pink slip because I couldn’t show the logs. I asked if I could call Josh and see whether I was missing something and the examiner said “Go for it.” I called and I told him what was up. He immediately directed me to a set of keys for the closet and I retrieved them. I gave him a mini-briefing on the check-ride so far and he prompted me to go ahead and find what the examiner would be looking for in the book. I took it out and I showed him the annual and we were ready to head to the plane.
I walked him through preflight. It was a little weird explaining all this to someone knowing that 6 months ago I was on the receiving end. I was intensely conscious of the fact that he was standing right over my shoulder. Without thinking, I caught myself just as I reached over to put down the flaps – I turned around and said, “watch out for the flaps.” I figure knocking the examiner in the head wouldn’t reflect well on me. We continued on with the preflight, occasionally he would stop and ask me something. Most notably, he asked about all the antennae on the aircraft. I didn’t want to volunteer more than I needed to give, but after the second question about one of the antennae, I just pointed out the rest of them unprompted. There was some talk about sumps and why it was necessary. Then we progressed to the prop. I checked it, but he was curious about whether I could tell if the prop was good just by listening to it. I said I wasn’t sure what he was talking about and he flicked the prop. There was a nice ringing sound. He told me that fixed pitch props were all one piece, so they make a nice ringing sound unless something is dodgy. We made a brief detour to the 182 right next to it and he showed me that the constant speed props make a thud because they are not all one piece. We wrapped up the preflight and I said “are we ready to go flying?”
We loaded up and I gave a short safety briefing complete with “the prop is a spinning wheel of death, so exit away from it. ” I started the plane, radioed for clearance which sadly was a bit convoluted as I was starting with landings and then we would be departing to the practice area. We were given a clearance and I proceeded to do a run-up. Everything was fully functional and so I contacted ground for taxi clearance to the runway. Just as we began to taxi, a pack of dogs came running across the runway and taxiway. The examiner called the tower and informed them that they had a pack of dogs running about unattended and that they might see about getting someone to look into that. The tower responded back, “So…umm, they’re not yours?” The examiner’s response really helped me relieve some stress. “No. They’re too ugly.”
We were immediately cleared for takeoff, which was to be the maximum performance takeoff and would also be a learning experience for me. I proceeded to treat it like I had learned, but as soon as I started to rotate early and enter a climb, the examiner told me not to raise the nose. I realized then that I was probably going to have problems with other things too. We got off the ground and I looked over and realized that I never changed the transponder to altimeter. I blushed a bit, but reached over and changed it. He didn’t say anything so neither did I. He told me that I would do one or two landings. One if I performed a good short soft-field landing. Two if I performed either a short or a soft-field landing. Once w were on final, he said to shoot for the 1000 foot marker. I interpreted that to mean put it on the numbers and stop it before the 1000 foot marker. Especially since one of the ideas behind a short field landing is to use all the runway. He chastised me for being to low until I said I was aiming for the numbers this distracted me, so I made a fairly rough short field landing. Looks like I’d be going around again. The second time around I made a decent soft landing, but the roll out was long. He said to go around one more time by this time I was absolutely wrecked. I knew I had failed and that he was just dragging out the inevitable. We went around the pattern, he gave me some pointers, and then on short final he said, “look at that [insert something strange here] on the runway. I immediately called that we were going around. I started the go around and once we were almost to the point of turning crosswind, the examiner told the tower we’d like to depart to the west and do some maneuvering.
We headed out toward the Loudon Dam practice area for the maneuvers. On the way out I was very nervous and I confessed to the examiner that to be honest, this was some of the worst flying I’ve ever done. He told me that he hadn’t seen anything unsafe or we would have already been on the ground. This helped me to calm down some and I felt a little better about the impending portion of the practical test. Not long after, we started the maneuvers. I started with slow flight, steep turns, and stalls. Slow flight was pretty uneventful. I did clearing turns and entered slow flight. The examiner fed me some instructions and I performed turns and all manners of maneuvering while maintaining slow flight to the specifications given by the examiner. It was pretty standard stuff. I did pretty well with the steep turns too. They weren’t perfect, but I never blew my heading or altitude.
Considering my performance as of late, stalls made me nervous. I was pretty scared this was going to be the end of my check-ride, but there wasn’t anything to be alarmed about. He had me do a power-on stall. I manage not to lose the heading too bad and I recovered pretty well. Then he had me do a power off stall. I did pretty well, within standards at least. Then he took the controls and basically gave me a lesson on stalls. He talked about how a lot of people, including me, recover by cramming the yoke forward and slamming the throttle full. Oh by the way, this included a full demonstration while he was telling me about it. Then he pulled the power back and held the plane level as the airspeed fell. He kept adding back pressure through the buffet and through the stall. Then he held the plane in the stall and showed me that the plane will just float all the way down. Then he added power and let off a minuscule amount of back pressure and the plane recovered instantly. He explained that the best way to recover is to avoid any sort of abrupt control inputs and that if you remove the problem that causes the stall, the plane will recover itself.
At this point, he looks out the window and says, “do you see that island down there? do a turn around a point on the pointy edge of it. I saw what he was talking about and I maneuvered it around to enter downwind. He wanted a pretty steep bank angle, but I managed to get it done with the minimum of issues. I exited, turned around, and came in to do one the opposite way. It was as good or better than the first one.
I rolled out on heading and altitude and he said for me to put on the foggles. I put them on and he started giving me some instructions to follow. We flew along for a while and then he took the controls for upset recoveries. He flew the plane a bit to disorient me and then said “your airplane.” I looked up and the plane was slightly nose low and in a let bank. I immediately leveled the wings and pulled level. It was a lot more subtle than I expected, but I definitely felt disoriented. He took the controls and performed some more maneuvering and once again I recovered.
At this point he told me to take off the foggles and grab the sectional and show me where we were. Unfortunately, as I was reaching for it, I pointed out several landmarks and told him exactly what he was looking for without the sectional, so it was a wasted effort. We set a heading for the interstate for s-turns. While on the way, he reached over and pulled the throttle and informed me the engine had died. I immediately located a field straight out that was would be good for landing. Our current path would put us on a good base leg for landing, so I started running the checklist. I ran through several things and eventually, he told me he expected we would have made the field and that to go ahead and recover, but to maintain 2000 ft MSL. This would set us up perfectly for s-turns.
Once again, I find myself out over the interstate weaving back and forth up and down the road. I’m sure it looks weird from the ground. He had me do two complete s-turns up and back. He just had me make a complete circle on the last one and keep going the other way. So it was more convenient and I was pretty sure that either he felt I could fly by this point or that it didn’t matter in the least.
The last thing he wanted was for me to use the sectional and get us headed back to the airport. So I pointed out that we were over the interstate, what area we were near and where the Fort Loudon Dam was as it was basically directly between us and the airport. I set a course for the dam and called tower to let them know we were coming back. Then, the best part of the check-ride started. To highlight the innate stability of the aircraft and the importance of trim, he had me trim the aircraft for level flight and then he didn’t allow me to touch the controls…for the rest of the check-ride. Yes that’s right we spent about 15 minutes of a short check-ride flying around hands-free. Periodically he would have to stop me from trying to grab the yoke, but I eventually eased up and went with it. Finally, he let me take the yoke and land the plane.
After landing, he asked me to stop by the FBO so he could grab some coffee “and then we’ll get to the paperwork.” The scary thing about the examiner, and the hardest part about the exam, is that he is impossible to read. You never know what is going through his mind or what is coming next. So I drop him off at the FBO completely unaware of whether I’ve passed or failed. If we go by my self – assessment I’m sure I’ve failed at this point, but there is nothing else to do but secure the plane and wait for the paperwork. So I taxi over, shut down, and secure the plane. As I am finishing the last tie-down, which is always the tail for me, the examiner comes up behind me and says, “Well, congratulations.” I’m thinking…”Congratulations, you failed, but we didn’t die here’s a pink slip.” I shook his hand and we went upstairs to start the paperwork that would culminate with private pilot privileges being conveyed to me. I was ecstatic, but I remained in disbelief for quite some time.
Once again, if you remember my application process, you know how I feel about IACRA. It is nice in theory but not so nice in practice. Well, the entire process is like that. After about 30 minutes of clicking and logging in and such the paperwork was finished. I received a temporary certificate and he filled in my log book. We locked up the flight school and walked down to the ramp. There was some brief discussion about the new little Diamond DA20 that was available for rental and I told him I’d see him when I needed another check-ride. We parted ways and I immediately called Josh to let him know: I passed.