I know, I know, I still owe you details about the checkride and I'm working on it! Here's a teaser... the METAR when I showed up at the airport Saturday morning; needless to say, it was a tense hour of go/don't-go fretting leading up to the scheduled departure time:
KJGG 241401Z AUTO 33015G22KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
This morning Husband and I went up for the easiest 1.4 hours I could possibly get -- as his safety pilot! :) And so it begins! He did a good job. We did the VOR 9 and VOR 27 approaches with holds and all that down at Franklin (FKN), then a VOR check just west of AKQ at the WAIKS intersection, then the HCM VOR approach to JGG for a very well-executed circle-to-land on 13. Husband is good. :)
As a completely off-topic side note, a warning: I'm trying to resolve some identity theft issues right now and one thing the bastard(s) did was to open a Macy's credit card. Ok, fine. I saw it on my credit report as "MACYDSNB", called them up and they closed it. Today I was giving ye olde credit reports another perusal, and a new account with the same institution information appeared as "VISDSNB." I figured another credit card had been opened, but it turns out that Macy's is just a shady creditor. When they open a store account, they also automatically open a VISA account with a $10,000 credit limit and tie it to the same card so their store card can be used at any retailer that takes VISA. No consumer approval or application required (not that I applied for the Macy's card to begin with!). Shady. So I called them again and verified that the Macy's account was closed and asked that this account also be closed. They complied, but that just seems so wrong. Be advised...
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Checkride Part 2b: Landings and Debrief
Oh, goodness! What mixed emotions! I knew I had been doing well overall and was feeling really good about that as I got AKQ in the GPS and took us back there, but I knew that the real test was to come: if the winds were as random and variable and gusty as they were when we left, the landings portion of the checkride was going to be a challenge! Plus, the possibility of the never-before-attempted forward-slip to a landing loomed...
As we got within ~10 miles of the airport, I dialed in the ASOS. Not good news. I don't remember the exact numbers now, but I do clearly remember the sinking feeling I got when I heard them. We'd be landing runway 2 in sketchy, variable, gusty conditions.
We were on the wrong side of the airport for downwind for 2, so I decided to cross mid-field and check out the wind triangle. At that particular moment, it was perpendicular to the runway, indicating a direct left crosswind. Ok, fine, but is that what it would be in another minute or two?
As I crossed the field, someone announced they were on downwind. Eek! We were a few hundred feet above pattern altitude, and had been listening to CTAF the whole time, but I certainly had my eyes on the ground while looking for and assessing the wind situation! My instant decision was to stay straight (direct perpendicular crossing would minimize the time we might be near each other), ascend a bit more, announce my position again, and look like crazy for the bogie. I asked Linda if she had the other plane, and after a few seconds she said she had them, they had just then turned from crosswind onto downwind, and by now we were past the downwind path he'd be taking. (It turns out it was a local pilot that she knows well -- was this a test?!?!)
After a moment to chill the heartbeat -- the scare of a mid-air collision on a checkride! -- I enacted the next step in the plan. Since I was high and heading away from the airport, I announced my position again and intention to do a right-360 (well, 270 really) while descending to pattern altitude to join up on downwind near midfield. That would also give the other plane time to get out ahead of us. By the time I got to downwind, we could see him well ahead on base.
Then Linda asked me to start with a soft-field landing. I know how to do one, but thinking that this would be one of those times to demonstrate conscientious use of a checklist, I pulled out the maneuver flipbook and turned to the right page. While I was calling out the list, it got choppy over the trees and I set the book down to do the aviate thing. She commented that we were a little too close to the ground anyway to be reading instead of flying. I felt a little embarassed. Oh well, shake it off and land...
Since the winds were all sketchy, I wanted to have a long enough final to assess and make decisions, so I extended my downwind a bit. It was bouncy all the way down, and I was right on target for the numbers, nose up, right past the road and next to the hangars. The mains touched down pretty gently, and then SLAP! The nose came down firmly. I immediately said that that definitely didn't qualify as a soft-field landing, though I had set it up pretty well, but I didn't know why the nose rotated down so dramatically unless the winds just gave out at that moment. She said that on a day like this, that wouldn't be surprising, but to go do it again.
Blech. Not off to a good start. I turned around at the mid-field turn and back-taxiied for 2. With a normal takeoff, I was back in the left pattern for another soft-field landing. This time around was much the same as the first, bumpy and a long final. This time, though, she told me to aim for just past the treeline as my touchdown point, which was maybe 1/5 of the way down the runway, so that the wind might be broken up some when I touch down and to carry a few extra mphs. I did so, and was pleased to have landed at her target, but it was still not as soft as I'm capable of doing. She asked me to turn around and back-taxi again, then do a short-field takeoff and landing. I guess that soft-field was good enough!
This time, before leaving the mid-field turnaround, I pulled out the checklist and scanned both the takeoff and the landing procedures. Again, I know them, but use of the checklist at an appropriate time... you know...
The short-field takeoff was typical. The short-field landing was crap! I bounced! OMG!!!! Bouncing on my checkride! My first touchdown was right on the numbers, as requested, but the second one was a little farther. Despite the bounce, I still stopped in a pretty damn short distance. But I was dying inside! I was so flunked! My mind flashed to having to tell Husband and Chuck that I did 5 hours of great work followed by the capstone terrifically horrible landing to cancel it all out! How miserable!
I powered up and got down to the turnaround, wanting to crawl under the seat and have a good cry, when Linda asked what went wrong. I flared late, maybe the shifty winds were hosing me again, .... She said she was pretty sure that the winds were the culprit (I think she sensed my withered insides and was being nice) and asked me to go up again for a forward-slip landing this time. As we back-taxiied, she talked about one of the benefits of more experience is the use of a touch of power to cushion a badly executed flare and also to give the subsequent landing after a bounce a chance of being soft.
I was listening with my ears, but my heart was still sinking. On the one hand, if that was bad enough to fail me, would she have told me to go again? On the other hand, with just one, maybe two landings left, was she just letting me get those out of the way so that when I had to come back for the retest I'd just have to do a short-field for her? And saving the one manuever that I've never, ever done for last! The torture of it all! Ok, so I'd be coming back to retest on two things... My inner child was sad.
But as I turned around for my takeoff, I snapped to and got back on the ball. Normal takeoff, and since she knew I had never slipped as part of a landing she coached me on downwind, emphasizing that staying aligned with the runway would be the biggest challenge today and to just feel it out and correct as necessary. As we got around toward base, she suggested aiming for the treeline and carrying a tad bit of extra airspeed. I set up my aim, set up the slip, descended, stayed aligned, got past the trees, and as I started to let out the slip I realized I was not going to make the 400' touchdown zone (starting from the beginning of the trees, anyway) but it would be close. Since I was going a little fast, we floated, and floated, and floated, and then had a firm (but bounceless!) touchdown. Except for the fact that it was so long, I was pretty happy with my first slipped-in landing. I could do it again and would do it better.
Even being long, we were able to turn out midfield. She told me to taxi back and park. NO! That must have clinched it! I had failed! I bounced the short-field landing and missed the landing zone for the forward slip. I had used up all of my second chances! :( :( :( :( :(
I don't think she could tell, but I was mortified and shaking as we went back to the terminal. I turned the plane around and parked facing the runway. As I did the shutdown checklist, she pointed out that a Diamond, flown by one of the high-hour local pilots, was coming in and said we'd watch and see how he handled the variable winds. He looked about like I had felt -- wings constantly bobbing around. He landed pretty long, too.
Linda: "Even the experienced pilots are having trouble today."
Me (dejected): "Yes, ma'am."
Linda: "With more time, you're landings will get better, even in conditions like these."
Me (morose): "Yes, ma'am."
Linda: "But you'll have plenty of time to practice now that you have your license to learn."
Me (dumbfounded): "I passed?!??!?!!"
Linda: "Well, yes, didn't you think so?"
Me (shocked): "Up until the landings I was sure of it, but they were so bad I wasn't so sure."
Linda: "They weren't graceful and you know what you need to work on, but you're a competent and safe pilot."
Me (clapping): "Yay!"
Seriously, I clapped. :)
She instructed me to finish my shutdown procedure while she went in and got started typing up my temporary license, then we'd debrief. I floated through the process and bounced -- the good kind of bouncing -- into the terminal.
Inside we went over points on the oral that I hadn't done so well on -- like confusing myself about whether there's Class G airspace directly over a Class E airport (there is). We went over the flight portion, too, and she really had only three things to say there: stall recovery always, always gets full power immediately, my landings need polish, and I need to work on flying with one hand more, especially in the pattern.
I had actually been working on keeping one hand on the throttle during the climb, and I generally did that naturally on final as well. My problem, however, is that when it's as choppy as it was that day, my instinct is to death-grip the yoke with both hands. It's either subconsciously for my own comfort or to add some balance/stability to an unstable situation. In any case, she called me on that and I'll work on it.
I FREAKIN' PASSED! I'm a private pilot! :)
As we got within ~10 miles of the airport, I dialed in the ASOS. Not good news. I don't remember the exact numbers now, but I do clearly remember the sinking feeling I got when I heard them. We'd be landing runway 2 in sketchy, variable, gusty conditions.
We were on the wrong side of the airport for downwind for 2, so I decided to cross mid-field and check out the wind triangle. At that particular moment, it was perpendicular to the runway, indicating a direct left crosswind. Ok, fine, but is that what it would be in another minute or two?
As I crossed the field, someone announced they were on downwind. Eek! We were a few hundred feet above pattern altitude, and had been listening to CTAF the whole time, but I certainly had my eyes on the ground while looking for and assessing the wind situation! My instant decision was to stay straight (direct perpendicular crossing would minimize the time we might be near each other), ascend a bit more, announce my position again, and look like crazy for the bogie. I asked Linda if she had the other plane, and after a few seconds she said she had them, they had just then turned from crosswind onto downwind, and by now we were past the downwind path he'd be taking. (It turns out it was a local pilot that she knows well -- was this a test?!?!)
After a moment to chill the heartbeat -- the scare of a mid-air collision on a checkride! -- I enacted the next step in the plan. Since I was high and heading away from the airport, I announced my position again and intention to do a right-360 (well, 270 really) while descending to pattern altitude to join up on downwind near midfield. That would also give the other plane time to get out ahead of us. By the time I got to downwind, we could see him well ahead on base.
Then Linda asked me to start with a soft-field landing. I know how to do one, but thinking that this would be one of those times to demonstrate conscientious use of a checklist, I pulled out the maneuver flipbook and turned to the right page. While I was calling out the list, it got choppy over the trees and I set the book down to do the aviate thing. She commented that we were a little too close to the ground anyway to be reading instead of flying. I felt a little embarassed. Oh well, shake it off and land...
Since the winds were all sketchy, I wanted to have a long enough final to assess and make decisions, so I extended my downwind a bit. It was bouncy all the way down, and I was right on target for the numbers, nose up, right past the road and next to the hangars. The mains touched down pretty gently, and then SLAP! The nose came down firmly. I immediately said that that definitely didn't qualify as a soft-field landing, though I had set it up pretty well, but I didn't know why the nose rotated down so dramatically unless the winds just gave out at that moment. She said that on a day like this, that wouldn't be surprising, but to go do it again.
Blech. Not off to a good start. I turned around at the mid-field turn and back-taxiied for 2. With a normal takeoff, I was back in the left pattern for another soft-field landing. This time around was much the same as the first, bumpy and a long final. This time, though, she told me to aim for just past the treeline as my touchdown point, which was maybe 1/5 of the way down the runway, so that the wind might be broken up some when I touch down and to carry a few extra mphs. I did so, and was pleased to have landed at her target, but it was still not as soft as I'm capable of doing. She asked me to turn around and back-taxi again, then do a short-field takeoff and landing. I guess that soft-field was good enough!
This time, before leaving the mid-field turnaround, I pulled out the checklist and scanned both the takeoff and the landing procedures. Again, I know them, but use of the checklist at an appropriate time... you know...
The short-field takeoff was typical. The short-field landing was crap! I bounced! OMG!!!! Bouncing on my checkride! My first touchdown was right on the numbers, as requested, but the second one was a little farther. Despite the bounce, I still stopped in a pretty damn short distance. But I was dying inside! I was so flunked! My mind flashed to having to tell Husband and Chuck that I did 5 hours of great work followed by the capstone terrifically horrible landing to cancel it all out! How miserable!
I powered up and got down to the turnaround, wanting to crawl under the seat and have a good cry, when Linda asked what went wrong. I flared late, maybe the shifty winds were hosing me again, .... She said she was pretty sure that the winds were the culprit (I think she sensed my withered insides and was being nice) and asked me to go up again for a forward-slip landing this time. As we back-taxiied, she talked about one of the benefits of more experience is the use of a touch of power to cushion a badly executed flare and also to give the subsequent landing after a bounce a chance of being soft.
I was listening with my ears, but my heart was still sinking. On the one hand, if that was bad enough to fail me, would she have told me to go again? On the other hand, with just one, maybe two landings left, was she just letting me get those out of the way so that when I had to come back for the retest I'd just have to do a short-field for her? And saving the one manuever that I've never, ever done for last! The torture of it all! Ok, so I'd be coming back to retest on two things... My inner child was sad.
But as I turned around for my takeoff, I snapped to and got back on the ball. Normal takeoff, and since she knew I had never slipped as part of a landing she coached me on downwind, emphasizing that staying aligned with the runway would be the biggest challenge today and to just feel it out and correct as necessary. As we got around toward base, she suggested aiming for the treeline and carrying a tad bit of extra airspeed. I set up my aim, set up the slip, descended, stayed aligned, got past the trees, and as I started to let out the slip I realized I was not going to make the 400' touchdown zone (starting from the beginning of the trees, anyway) but it would be close. Since I was going a little fast, we floated, and floated, and floated, and then had a firm (but bounceless!) touchdown. Except for the fact that it was so long, I was pretty happy with my first slipped-in landing. I could do it again and would do it better.
Even being long, we were able to turn out midfield. She told me to taxi back and park. NO! That must have clinched it! I had failed! I bounced the short-field landing and missed the landing zone for the forward slip. I had used up all of my second chances! :( :( :( :( :(
I don't think she could tell, but I was mortified and shaking as we went back to the terminal. I turned the plane around and parked facing the runway. As I did the shutdown checklist, she pointed out that a Diamond, flown by one of the high-hour local pilots, was coming in and said we'd watch and see how he handled the variable winds. He looked about like I had felt -- wings constantly bobbing around. He landed pretty long, too.
Linda: "Even the experienced pilots are having trouble today."
Me (dejected): "Yes, ma'am."
Linda: "With more time, you're landings will get better, even in conditions like these."
Me (morose): "Yes, ma'am."
Linda: "But you'll have plenty of time to practice now that you have your license to learn."
Me (dumbfounded): "I passed?!??!?!!"
Linda: "Well, yes, didn't you think so?"
Me (shocked): "Up until the landings I was sure of it, but they were so bad I wasn't so sure."
Linda: "They weren't graceful and you know what you need to work on, but you're a competent and safe pilot."
Me (clapping): "Yay!"
Seriously, I clapped. :)
She instructed me to finish my shutdown procedure while she went in and got started typing up my temporary license, then we'd debrief. I floated through the process and bounced -- the good kind of bouncing -- into the terminal.
Inside we went over points on the oral that I hadn't done so well on -- like confusing myself about whether there's Class G airspace directly over a Class E airport (there is). We went over the flight portion, too, and she really had only three things to say there: stall recovery always, always gets full power immediately, my landings need polish, and I need to work on flying with one hand more, especially in the pattern.
I had actually been working on keeping one hand on the throttle during the climb, and I generally did that naturally on final as well. My problem, however, is that when it's as choppy as it was that day, my instinct is to death-grip the yoke with both hands. It's either subconsciously for my own comfort or to add some balance/stability to an unstable situation. In any case, she called me on that and I'll work on it.
I FREAKIN' PASSED! I'm a private pilot! :)
Checkride Part 2a: The flight exam
So you know from reading the the beginning of the oral exam post that it was uncertain due to winds whether the checkride would actually transpire today. The little voice in my head was thinking about the wind conditions for my first solo, and I gotta admit that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. But I've come a long way, baby, and am much better equipped to handle some bumps now.... Still, these could be major bumps, and the questions of (1) aircraft crosswind limitations and (2) personal limits had to be asked.
When I departed for AKQ, the winds had settled somewhat and were within both plane and personal limits. On the high end of the limits, but within. Pre-checkride forward-slip landing practice was canceled on account of the winds, but closer to the zero hour it was acceptable.
This is what the conditions were between the time when I arrived at AKQ just before 11 am and just after I left a little after 4 pm:
KAKQ 241954Z AUTO 03011G16KT 10SM CLR 09/M12 A3018 RMK AO2 SLP222 T00941117 TSNO
KAKQ 241854Z AUTO 03005KT 10SM CLR 09/M12 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP226 T00891122 TSNO
KAKQ 241754Z AUTO 01007KT 10SM CLR 08/M12 A3021 RMK AO2 SLP233 T00781122 10078 21061 58018 TSNO
KAKQ 241654Z AUTO VRB06KT 10SM CLR 06/M14 A3024 RMK AO2 SLP243 T00561139 TSNO
KAKQ 241554Z AUTO 36010G16KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO2 SLP250 T00441144 TSNO
KAKQ 241454Z AUTO 33008KT 290V010 10SM CLR 03/M16 A3026 RMK AO2 SLP251 T00281156 50009 TSNO
Big fun, eh?
So after the oral exam, we headed out to 388 and Linda asked me to do a thorough preflight, except that fuel samples wouldn't be necessary. I was to talk her through the process and point out where samples would be taken. I was actually caught a little off-guard by that. I figured that since the plane had been out of my sight for over 2 hours at an unfamiliar airport that sampling I would need to do. It may have been a challenge from her to see if I, as PIC, would do the conservative thing or not. I did not check the fuel, and she didn't say anything about that.
I walked around with my checklist, and about the time I got past the right wing up to the nose she got chatty. Ah, perhaps this is a distraction test. She asked me a question, and I heard her but blocked her out long enough to mark my place on the checklist. I then talked to her and came back to my checklist, letting her know I was going back two items in the list to ensure that I hadn't missed something. Score! A minute later the same thing happened again, and I responded the same way. Then another pilot based at AKQ came out and talked to her so I was largely unsupervised for the rest of the preflight.
We hopped in and got organized. I noticed that she didn't fasten her seatbelt, and assumed that was another test -- she has to have billions of hours, so not buckling up wouldn't be a mistake on her part. I didn't say anything yet, knowing that it was one of the first few items on the in-cockpit checklist. Preflight inspection, complete. Passenger briefing -- here we go. I explained how the seatbelts work and asked her to fasten in and tighten down, then explained the door operation, then asked her to not touch anything unless we had an understanding about it, and asked her to continue the briefing so we would know what to expect on the flight. She said we'd start with the x-c and at some point would break off to do instrument work, maneuvers, and so forth then do some landings and debrief at AKQ. Super! I was so excited!
The rest of the preflight was fine and normal and before long we were rolling to the threshold. At AKQ you enter the runway pavement on the numbers for 2, so if you want 20 you have to back-taxi the entire length. I paused before the threshold line to assess the current winds. Variable, still, but favoring 2. Well at least that part would be easy! I announced that I was departing 2 and would leave the pattern to the northeast.
And that I did, though the mechanical turbulence over the treetops, and began my climb to the x-c cruise altitude of 4500'. It was bumpy all the way up, as expected! The surprise was that at about 4400' the chop switched off, just like that. The whole x-c portion at 4500' was actually nice and smooth! I got an opportunity during the climb, though, to demonstrate traffic-scanning effectiveness; maybe ~2500' I saw a twin-engine out in front of us going the opposite direction, perhaps half a mile or so to our left and a couple thousand feet above. I pointed him out as "no factor" and continued the climb.
Here's an overview pic of the checkride flight (click to enlarge):
What I've learned from x-c planning is to not start the timer between checkpoints from takeoff, but rather from the first checkpoint, selected to coincide with reaching cruise altitude. I had shown Linda the calculations that did take that climb leg into account for total trip time and fuel consumption, and she ok'd that plan. I hit checkpoint #1 just below 4500', but started my timer anyway and jotted down the time and the ETA for checkpoint #2. I then checked the sectional to be positive of our position. Linda was pointing out features here and there and amidst scans for traffic and scans of the instruments I would indicate whether they were or were not on the sectional. (In the debrief she praised my pilotage skills! :) ) Of course, those could have been distraction attempts, too, because she had quite a few things to point out.
The second checkpoint would be a turn in the power lines we were following. We got there just barely behind schedule, which surprised the hell out of me since the winds now were supposed to be dramatically lighter than the ones predicted when I had done the calculations earlier in the morning. Something was wrong, but I didn't put my finger on it yet... I knew the plan was to fly straight (as though the power lines hadn't turned) until we hit I-95, then turn SSW. We got to I-95 ahead of schedule, according to my navlog calculations. Hmmmm...
I turned off SSW and followed the interstate with it out my window, since that was the plan. I consulted the sectional to make sure that the interchange on I-95 that was the checkpoint was indeed the one I expected. It was. So what was wrong? Why were the times off, and off inconsistently?
Duh! I wanted to throw myself out the window in shame! For the whole trip, I had picked 17 checkpoints, and that required two navlog forms. I had the second page of checkpoints on top and hadn't noticed! Bonehead! I made this realization and was analyzing my options (transfer times to the right log boxes? ignore those first two and just get back on track by starting the timer at the next checkpoint?) when Linda asked me to calculate our groundspeed based on the past checkpoints and then estimate remaining time en route. I immediately admitted my mistake and said that I planned to start the timer at the next checkpoint to get on track, and that after the following checkpoint I could do that calculation.
Still suffering my self-humiliation, after hitting the checkpoint and starting the clock I realized that I didn't need to do that to give her the time en route. The last minute of shame fell away completely as I refocused and pointed out that the GPS gave me groundspeed and suggested that I could calculate from that. She approved, I did the math, and came up with roughly an hour to get to LHZ. She was satisfied with that, and I felt a little better.
After one more checkpoint, Linda had me go under the foggles under the guise that we had just unexpectedly flown into clouds. I said I'd be doing a left 180 to go back to VFR weather, but first I wanted to tip my left wing so she could check for traffic for us (brownie points!). I did a nice standard-rate 180, maintaining altitude pretty closely.
Then she asked me to descend to 3000' while maintaining heading. I felt I did that right-on, but the GPS shows some slight right deviation. My first thought is precession of the heading indicator, but it wouldn't precess that quickly, I wouldn't think, and I don't remember which way it precesses anyway.
Anyhow, at altitude she had me turn to headings by IR. These were, in effect, clearing turns. Foggles off, time for stalls!
I swear we did a full-flaps approach-to-landing stall first, but the GPS track indicates a power-on stall first. In any case, I was glad that Chuck had run stall drills in one of our recent pre-checkride flights! The power-on stall was good, and the full-flaps stall, done while turning, seemed good to me. In training we rarely did full-flap stalls, if ever (I'll have to review my flight (b)logs!). The only thing I could remember was what I knew I had been taught about a go-around from a full-flaps configuration: half power, flaps to 20, full power, Vy, milk the flaps the rest of the way. Not using full power initially is to avoid a sudden nose-up; made sense to me that you'd use the same procedure to avoid a secondary stall. So that's what I did, and didn't lose much altitude at all. She didn't say anything then, but when we got back for the debriefing, she laid down the law: always go full-power when recovering from a stall, period. Period.
Staying in slow flight, I let the stall warning squeal while doing requested clearing turns. The foggles then came back on for unusual attitudes. The most inexplicable part of the GPS track is, naturally, during this portion! See that abrupt left (you can't tell from this view, but the side-view shows a roller coaster for altitude, too!) followed by some straight flying (the recovery portion, regaining desired heading and altitude), then a tight-tight climbing turn? Yeah....
After the unusual attitudes, which went just fine, Linda asked for a steep turn. I said that I'd do clearing turns and then start a left-hand steep turn. Near the end of the first half of the clearing turn, she suggested that I go right into the steep turn, and I agreed after vocalizing that I thought it would be ok to use that as the completion of the clearing turn. My left steep turn wasn't very pretty -- a little tight and not ended in quite the right place -- but the altitude was good and that's the #1 thing I was being anal about! As I got perhaps 3/4 of the way through it, she instructed me to go straight into a right-hand steep turn, which I did. Again, not beautiful, but better than the first and the altitude was right on.
I stabilized coming out of the steep turns and had my hand on the throttle, finishing the throttle/altitude/airspeed balancing act, when suddenly she put her hand on top of mine! If I hadn't been surprised I would have been suspicious -- odd time to put the moves on! :) Ha ha ha... I hesitated for a second, glanced over at her, and when she didn't move her hand I decided to withdraw mine. You probably guessed it: simulated engine failure. She pulled out the throttle and sat back to watch.
Instinct is a good thing, and practice gives you that! I talked through what I was doing: trim for best glide speed of 80 mph, pick a landing site and fly towards it.... As you can see from the pictures, southside Virginia is thoroughly bespeckled with fields, so finding a landing site should have been easy, considering we were at something like 3000' when I "lost my engine." But I had a dickens of a time picking a field! First, thinking out loud all the while, I was attempting to assess the winds to see if a particular field orientation would be better and to determine my landing direction. The surface winds had been generally NNW (but variable) when we left the airport, and we were within 15 miles of Wakefield, by my estimation. But I wasn't positive that that was correct now, especially given the variability. Franklin was basically directly in front of us, and the smoke stacks there seemed to indicate a wind from the southeast.
Ok, I'd go by that. I wanted to land on an southeasterly heading, so I started eliminating fields: this one's too short in that direction, that one's good-sized and aligned right but those power lines, ... I swear, it seemed like we had all the time in the world, so I let the standards be too high and just kept looking, confident that I'd spot the right one for the exercise, and frequently checking out the right side as well.
My training says to cross mid-field at 1100' AGL, hit the key point between 800' & 900', and do what you gotta do to get down from there. About the time we were at 1500', I checked the smokestacks again -- the smoke was blowing *to the southeast* now! Yay, variable winds! It was also about that time that I realized the field I was going for had goats in it. Drat, scramble time! Luckily, I looked out Linda's window and there was a gorgeous big green perfect field to shoot for, so I immediately turned right to fly over it, and was over at just under 1100', then did a good normal pattern with 20 degrees of flaps, and as soon as we cleared the trees she told me to abort.
Whew! You can certainly see the lesson in that, in what I did wrong, and we talked about it at the debrief.
As I was cleaning up and climbing, she pointed out my window at a trio of old abandoned-looking barns in the middle of a patch of fields. She asked me to do a turn around a point around those. I said I'd go up to 1000' and do it from there. Another check of the smokestacks indicated winds from the southwest; I explained that I'd use a northeast heading as my downwind entry into the maneuver and did that big loop-de-loo to get positioned right. It became obvious that the winds were not what I thought, or at least they weren't being consistent. I really don't think she had noticed how non-circular my turn was -- she was dialing in Franklin's ATIS and CTAF (presumably so we could shoot landings there). About 2/3 of the way through, though, I was irritated by my turn performance (altitude was just fine) and told her that I was dissatisfied, that I felt that just at that moment the winds were at our back. She said "Okay, then do another one."
Me and my big mouth, huh? But I did it, and as you can see from the GPS track this one was pretty darn good! :)
You know what, that's quite enough for this post! I'll publish the finale, including the reasons why I thought I wouldn't pass, in a bit!
When I departed for AKQ, the winds had settled somewhat and were within both plane and personal limits. On the high end of the limits, but within. Pre-checkride forward-slip landing practice was canceled on account of the winds, but closer to the zero hour it was acceptable.
This is what the conditions were between the time when I arrived at AKQ just before 11 am and just after I left a little after 4 pm:
KAKQ 241954Z AUTO 03011G16KT 10SM CLR 09/M12 A3018 RMK AO2 SLP222 T00941117 TSNO
KAKQ 241854Z AUTO 03005KT 10SM CLR 09/M12 A3019 RMK AO2 SLP226 T00891122 TSNO
KAKQ 241754Z AUTO 01007KT 10SM CLR 08/M12 A3021 RMK AO2 SLP233 T00781122 10078 21061 58018 TSNO
KAKQ 241654Z AUTO VRB06KT 10SM CLR 06/M14 A3024 RMK AO2 SLP243 T00561139 TSNO
KAKQ 241554Z AUTO 36010G16KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO2 SLP250 T00441144 TSNO
KAKQ 241454Z AUTO 33008KT 290V010 10SM CLR 03/M16 A3026 RMK AO2 SLP251 T00281156 50009 TSNO
Big fun, eh?
So after the oral exam, we headed out to 388 and Linda asked me to do a thorough preflight, except that fuel samples wouldn't be necessary. I was to talk her through the process and point out where samples would be taken. I was actually caught a little off-guard by that. I figured that since the plane had been out of my sight for over 2 hours at an unfamiliar airport that sampling I would need to do. It may have been a challenge from her to see if I, as PIC, would do the conservative thing or not. I did not check the fuel, and she didn't say anything about that.
I walked around with my checklist, and about the time I got past the right wing up to the nose she got chatty. Ah, perhaps this is a distraction test. She asked me a question, and I heard her but blocked her out long enough to mark my place on the checklist. I then talked to her and came back to my checklist, letting her know I was going back two items in the list to ensure that I hadn't missed something. Score! A minute later the same thing happened again, and I responded the same way. Then another pilot based at AKQ came out and talked to her so I was largely unsupervised for the rest of the preflight.
We hopped in and got organized. I noticed that she didn't fasten her seatbelt, and assumed that was another test -- she has to have billions of hours, so not buckling up wouldn't be a mistake on her part. I didn't say anything yet, knowing that it was one of the first few items on the in-cockpit checklist. Preflight inspection, complete. Passenger briefing -- here we go. I explained how the seatbelts work and asked her to fasten in and tighten down, then explained the door operation, then asked her to not touch anything unless we had an understanding about it, and asked her to continue the briefing so we would know what to expect on the flight. She said we'd start with the x-c and at some point would break off to do instrument work, maneuvers, and so forth then do some landings and debrief at AKQ. Super! I was so excited!
The rest of the preflight was fine and normal and before long we were rolling to the threshold. At AKQ you enter the runway pavement on the numbers for 2, so if you want 20 you have to back-taxi the entire length. I paused before the threshold line to assess the current winds. Variable, still, but favoring 2. Well at least that part would be easy! I announced that I was departing 2 and would leave the pattern to the northeast.
And that I did, though the mechanical turbulence over the treetops, and began my climb to the x-c cruise altitude of 4500'. It was bumpy all the way up, as expected! The surprise was that at about 4400' the chop switched off, just like that. The whole x-c portion at 4500' was actually nice and smooth! I got an opportunity during the climb, though, to demonstrate traffic-scanning effectiveness; maybe ~2500' I saw a twin-engine out in front of us going the opposite direction, perhaps half a mile or so to our left and a couple thousand feet above. I pointed him out as "no factor" and continued the climb.
Here's an overview pic of the checkride flight (click to enlarge):
What I've learned from x-c planning is to not start the timer between checkpoints from takeoff, but rather from the first checkpoint, selected to coincide with reaching cruise altitude. I had shown Linda the calculations that did take that climb leg into account for total trip time and fuel consumption, and she ok'd that plan. I hit checkpoint #1 just below 4500', but started my timer anyway and jotted down the time and the ETA for checkpoint #2. I then checked the sectional to be positive of our position. Linda was pointing out features here and there and amidst scans for traffic and scans of the instruments I would indicate whether they were or were not on the sectional. (In the debrief she praised my pilotage skills! :) ) Of course, those could have been distraction attempts, too, because she had quite a few things to point out.
The second checkpoint would be a turn in the power lines we were following. We got there just barely behind schedule, which surprised the hell out of me since the winds now were supposed to be dramatically lighter than the ones predicted when I had done the calculations earlier in the morning. Something was wrong, but I didn't put my finger on it yet... I knew the plan was to fly straight (as though the power lines hadn't turned) until we hit I-95, then turn SSW. We got to I-95 ahead of schedule, according to my navlog calculations. Hmmmm...
I turned off SSW and followed the interstate with it out my window, since that was the plan. I consulted the sectional to make sure that the interchange on I-95 that was the checkpoint was indeed the one I expected. It was. So what was wrong? Why were the times off, and off inconsistently?
Duh! I wanted to throw myself out the window in shame! For the whole trip, I had picked 17 checkpoints, and that required two navlog forms. I had the second page of checkpoints on top and hadn't noticed! Bonehead! I made this realization and was analyzing my options (transfer times to the right log boxes? ignore those first two and just get back on track by starting the timer at the next checkpoint?) when Linda asked me to calculate our groundspeed based on the past checkpoints and then estimate remaining time en route. I immediately admitted my mistake and said that I planned to start the timer at the next checkpoint to get on track, and that after the following checkpoint I could do that calculation.
Still suffering my self-humiliation, after hitting the checkpoint and starting the clock I realized that I didn't need to do that to give her the time en route. The last minute of shame fell away completely as I refocused and pointed out that the GPS gave me groundspeed and suggested that I could calculate from that. She approved, I did the math, and came up with roughly an hour to get to LHZ. She was satisfied with that, and I felt a little better.
After one more checkpoint, Linda had me go under the foggles under the guise that we had just unexpectedly flown into clouds. I said I'd be doing a left 180 to go back to VFR weather, but first I wanted to tip my left wing so she could check for traffic for us (brownie points!). I did a nice standard-rate 180, maintaining altitude pretty closely.
Then she asked me to descend to 3000' while maintaining heading. I felt I did that right-on, but the GPS shows some slight right deviation. My first thought is precession of the heading indicator, but it wouldn't precess that quickly, I wouldn't think, and I don't remember which way it precesses anyway.
Anyhow, at altitude she had me turn to headings by IR. These were, in effect, clearing turns. Foggles off, time for stalls!
I swear we did a full-flaps approach-to-landing stall first, but the GPS track indicates a power-on stall first. In any case, I was glad that Chuck had run stall drills in one of our recent pre-checkride flights! The power-on stall was good, and the full-flaps stall, done while turning, seemed good to me. In training we rarely did full-flap stalls, if ever (I'll have to review my flight (b)logs!). The only thing I could remember was what I knew I had been taught about a go-around from a full-flaps configuration: half power, flaps to 20, full power, Vy, milk the flaps the rest of the way. Not using full power initially is to avoid a sudden nose-up; made sense to me that you'd use the same procedure to avoid a secondary stall. So that's what I did, and didn't lose much altitude at all. She didn't say anything then, but when we got back for the debriefing, she laid down the law: always go full-power when recovering from a stall, period. Period.
Staying in slow flight, I let the stall warning squeal while doing requested clearing turns. The foggles then came back on for unusual attitudes. The most inexplicable part of the GPS track is, naturally, during this portion! See that abrupt left (you can't tell from this view, but the side-view shows a roller coaster for altitude, too!) followed by some straight flying (the recovery portion, regaining desired heading and altitude), then a tight-tight climbing turn? Yeah....
After the unusual attitudes, which went just fine, Linda asked for a steep turn. I said that I'd do clearing turns and then start a left-hand steep turn. Near the end of the first half of the clearing turn, she suggested that I go right into the steep turn, and I agreed after vocalizing that I thought it would be ok to use that as the completion of the clearing turn. My left steep turn wasn't very pretty -- a little tight and not ended in quite the right place -- but the altitude was good and that's the #1 thing I was being anal about! As I got perhaps 3/4 of the way through it, she instructed me to go straight into a right-hand steep turn, which I did. Again, not beautiful, but better than the first and the altitude was right on.
I stabilized coming out of the steep turns and had my hand on the throttle, finishing the throttle/altitude/airspeed balancing act, when suddenly she put her hand on top of mine! If I hadn't been surprised I would have been suspicious -- odd time to put the moves on! :) Ha ha ha... I hesitated for a second, glanced over at her, and when she didn't move her hand I decided to withdraw mine. You probably guessed it: simulated engine failure. She pulled out the throttle and sat back to watch.
Instinct is a good thing, and practice gives you that! I talked through what I was doing: trim for best glide speed of 80 mph, pick a landing site and fly towards it.... As you can see from the pictures, southside Virginia is thoroughly bespeckled with fields, so finding a landing site should have been easy, considering we were at something like 3000' when I "lost my engine." But I had a dickens of a time picking a field! First, thinking out loud all the while, I was attempting to assess the winds to see if a particular field orientation would be better and to determine my landing direction. The surface winds had been generally NNW (but variable) when we left the airport, and we were within 15 miles of Wakefield, by my estimation. But I wasn't positive that that was correct now, especially given the variability. Franklin was basically directly in front of us, and the smoke stacks there seemed to indicate a wind from the southeast.
Ok, I'd go by that. I wanted to land on an southeasterly heading, so I started eliminating fields: this one's too short in that direction, that one's good-sized and aligned right but those power lines, ... I swear, it seemed like we had all the time in the world, so I let the standards be too high and just kept looking, confident that I'd spot the right one for the exercise, and frequently checking out the right side as well.
My training says to cross mid-field at 1100' AGL, hit the key point between 800' & 900', and do what you gotta do to get down from there. About the time we were at 1500', I checked the smokestacks again -- the smoke was blowing *to the southeast* now! Yay, variable winds! It was also about that time that I realized the field I was going for had goats in it. Drat, scramble time! Luckily, I looked out Linda's window and there was a gorgeous big green perfect field to shoot for, so I immediately turned right to fly over it, and was over at just under 1100', then did a good normal pattern with 20 degrees of flaps, and as soon as we cleared the trees she told me to abort.
Whew! You can certainly see the lesson in that, in what I did wrong, and we talked about it at the debrief.
As I was cleaning up and climbing, she pointed out my window at a trio of old abandoned-looking barns in the middle of a patch of fields. She asked me to do a turn around a point around those. I said I'd go up to 1000' and do it from there. Another check of the smokestacks indicated winds from the southwest; I explained that I'd use a northeast heading as my downwind entry into the maneuver and did that big loop-de-loo to get positioned right. It became obvious that the winds were not what I thought, or at least they weren't being consistent. I really don't think she had noticed how non-circular my turn was -- she was dialing in Franklin's ATIS and CTAF (presumably so we could shoot landings there). About 2/3 of the way through, though, I was irritated by my turn performance (altitude was just fine) and told her that I was dissatisfied, that I felt that just at that moment the winds were at our back. She said "Okay, then do another one."
Me and my big mouth, huh? But I did it, and as you can see from the GPS track this one was pretty darn good! :)
You know what, that's quite enough for this post! I'll publish the finale, including the reasons why I thought I wouldn't pass, in a bit!
Checkride Part I: The oral exam
[Update: Man, for the most momumental post(s) of my training, I would have thought this would have more detail about the actual content of the oral exam! But the parts of the day that really stood out to me are described fairly well...]
This past Wednesday I had lunch with John, one of our partners in 388 and a friend who did his checkride a few weeks back with the same examiner I was going to, Linda. Over the course of two ham biscuits each from his wife's restaurant (website coming soon courtesy of Husband), a slice of homemade chocolate pie for me and cherry pie for John, and three hours, he divulged all the details of his oral, his flight test, her methods and the items to which she seemed particularly sensitive.
Everything seemed ok, with two exceptions: (1) In the oral, she asked him a lot of engine and system mechanics questions, and I'm not too good with that stuff -- tell me symptoms and I can tell you what's likely the problem and how to troubleshoot, but it's not because I know how everything works. (2) She asked for a no-flap, forward-slip landing, which I've never actually done -- I'd done forward slips as part of forced landing practice out over the fields of Virgina, but of course we do go-arounds there, and I'd never used that technique to land.
Needless to say, that night I boned up on the mechanics. Husband quizzed me, and I learned a lot.
The forward-slips were worrisome, though. Everything else I was comfortable doing (or else I wouldn't have scheduled my checkride!), and really it's my fault for not seeing that red flag when going through the PTS. Husband and I had been planning to go up on Friday afternoon, so I'd plan to try it out then under his supervision.
Unfortunately, as the week went on, the light winds became more extreme, with base winds in the mid-20s and gusts into the 40-kt range. Friday's practice was cancelled, and so I asked Chuck to go up with me at 9 am on Saturday to stay in the pattern a few times to do forward slips to landings, knowing that I'd like to leave at 10 to do the 15-minute flight to AKQ and have time to stow 388, settle in and get organized for the 11 am appointment.
Surprisingly, Friday night I felt quite tranquil. I had largely stuck to my plan of finishing all studying and x-c prep (sans wind-based calculations) before Friday evening so I could have that time to get on the elliptical, have a nice dinner, take a bath and read a (non-flying) book, and just unwind. It was nice.
Saturday morning was a different story. I got up at 6, expecting to do the usual morning routine, get the winds aloft, finish the x-c plan, and get to JGG at 8 with Husband to check out the Columbia 350 that he and John would be test flying while I was out on the checkride. It seemed, though, that for every minute I spent doing something, three minutes went by on the clock, and before I knew it, Husband was ready to go to the airport! Stressed out at being behind schedule and angry about it, I told him he'd have to go drool on the Columbia without me. I still intended to meet Chuck at 9 for no-flap landing practice.
On top of that, the winds were unfavorable. Winds aloft were 40-kts at my cruise altitude of 4500'. Surface winds were gusty. The forecast had been for 8-kt winds in the morning, 6 by lunchtime, and calm by afternoon. What was with this 16G22 mess? Drat. To go or not to go?
Well, I'd at least go to the airport. The 9 am practice was probably not going to happen, but maybe the checkride still would. I got out there around 8:30 and fought the wind across the ramp to the Columbia to spend a minute soaking in the luxury. What a pretty plane! :) (No, it's nowhere near our price range, but the opportunity to try one on was there...)
Just before 9 I met up with Chuck and we agreed that, while crosswind conditions were perfect for practicing no-flap landings, winds this strong and gusty weren't good for learning that. So best case scenario turned into me going to my checkride without having done that particular maneuver (worst case being no checkride today).
We went up to the terminal and hung out for an hour. We went over my x-c plan, chatted about a few oral questions that might come up that would pose a challenge, and then just wandered through topics like kids and planes and whatnot, all the while staring out the window at the erratic wind sock and shivering bushes. Every few minutes I called AWOS to get the bad news. Here's what the METARs said for that period:
KJGG 241521Z AUTO 31012G18KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241502Z AUTO 30011G15KT 10SM CLR 03/M15 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241441Z AUTO 32012G19KT 10SM CLR 03/M15 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241421Z AUTO 32009G20KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
KJGG 241401Z AUTO 33015G22KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
KJGG 241341Z AUTO 34011G22KT 10SM CLR 01/M16 A3026 RMK AO1
At 10:30, the AWOS report came out that said steady at 8 kts. Bitchin. That's what I wanted to hear. The wind sock was less squirrelly, so that felt better, too. Even so, I was cautiously reserved, still expecting to hear it turn gusty again, but at least I'd go preflight and keep an ear on the reports.
And then, finally, as I did the in-cockpit preflight checklist and tuned in the AWOS much to my delight. The nearest METAR said:
KJGG 241541Z AUTO 30007KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO1
Ok, a quick call to the AKQ ASOS gave their winds as 6kts (no gusts), so I decided it was a go! With a wave goodbye to Chuck, I taxiied out to 31 and left, on my way to AKQ FOR MY CHECKRIDE!!!!
It was a bumpy ride. All the way down. I was having second thoughts. If I did the flight exam, it might be stressful with all the chop, and the possibility of busting altitude would not be entirely up to my skill. Oh, sheesh, what to do?!?! I tuned AKQ ASOS and it didn't help -- variable 10G16. Ugh.
Well, I decided to check it out in the pattern for AKQ and if I didn't feel good about it I'd abort the landing and head back to JGG, hopefully to conditions that would let me land and try again another day. It was actually a tad better down low, and on final for runway 2 I felt I could handle the winds I had at the time, so I landed. Not a beautiful landing, a little too firm, but safe with no bounce.
A small victory to change the course of the day! :)
I taxiied back up 2 to the terminal, parked and shut down. I walked into the AKQ terminal right at 11, which kinda sucked because I wanted to be early to have that organization time, but I'd take what I had. Linda met me at the door, and she was super nice, with a nice smile and she started in on the wind conditions we had right then. She'd done another checkride earlier in the morning (the poor bastard!) and I don't know whether he passed or not but apparently it was a very rough ride. We agreed to do the oral and decide afterwards whether the conditions had improved and whether we'd go.
She chatted with me just about general stuff for a few minutes, giving me a chance to unpack my bag and get situated, of course after the obligatory la pregnanto bio-break. You probably didn't need to know that. :)
So, finally, on to the oral exam!
We spent about 2 hours talking about stuff. We started with my logbook, application and medical.
Linda: "Technically, you shouldn't have flown down here today."
Me (to myself, breathless): "Oh, crap. Not only is she going to cancel the checkride, but she's not going to let me get myself back home!" (Driving to AKQ is about an hour's effort, thanks to the river.)
Linda: "Your student license isn't endorsed for solo cross-country."
Me: "Oh? It has a current 90-day solo endorsement, and my logbook is endorsed for solo flights to AKQ."
Linda: "But the license isn't endorsed."
Me (to myself, no pulse, trying to maintain the calm exterior of a well-trained pilot): "AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Linda: "We'll overlook that for now, but let your instructor know that he needs to do this for his students."
Me (relieved!): "Will do."
She double-checked my logbook entries against her checklist for the prerequisite training and solo hours. That all checked out. Next we were on to the aircraft logbooks, and that all checked out as well. I had put sticky notes in the logbook and binder of ADs/W&B updates/other documentation so I could quickly flip to items like the last annual and the latest ELT battery change.
The rest of the oral exam is mostly a blur. Almost everything she asked was routine or common sense or a matter of knowing where to look, pretty much what you'd expect if you had used a study guide or listened to anyone who had been through it before! A few things do stand out to me:
Anyway, eventually we wrapped up and she asked me to take her for a flight. Yay! The oral part went well enough that she wasn't stopping the exam right there! Other than the forward-slip landing, I was confident about passing the flight portion, so this was looking good! Except for those doggone winds...
I called 1-800-WX-BRIEF to get an update on the winds aloft, hoping they had calmed down for our x-c portion. They had -- down to an estimated ~12 kts at 4500'. And the ASOS at AKQ was giving better news, too -- still variable in direction but only 6kts with no reported gusts (right then, anyway).
After another bathroom break and a pause for some baby-factory refueling, it was time to go! Details about the flight in the next post...
This past Wednesday I had lunch with John, one of our partners in 388 and a friend who did his checkride a few weeks back with the same examiner I was going to, Linda. Over the course of two ham biscuits each from his wife's restaurant (website coming soon courtesy of Husband), a slice of homemade chocolate pie for me and cherry pie for John, and three hours, he divulged all the details of his oral, his flight test, her methods and the items to which she seemed particularly sensitive.
Everything seemed ok, with two exceptions: (1) In the oral, she asked him a lot of engine and system mechanics questions, and I'm not too good with that stuff -- tell me symptoms and I can tell you what's likely the problem and how to troubleshoot, but it's not because I know how everything works. (2) She asked for a no-flap, forward-slip landing, which I've never actually done -- I'd done forward slips as part of forced landing practice out over the fields of Virgina, but of course we do go-arounds there, and I'd never used that technique to land.
Needless to say, that night I boned up on the mechanics. Husband quizzed me, and I learned a lot.
The forward-slips were worrisome, though. Everything else I was comfortable doing (or else I wouldn't have scheduled my checkride!), and really it's my fault for not seeing that red flag when going through the PTS. Husband and I had been planning to go up on Friday afternoon, so I'd plan to try it out then under his supervision.
Unfortunately, as the week went on, the light winds became more extreme, with base winds in the mid-20s and gusts into the 40-kt range. Friday's practice was cancelled, and so I asked Chuck to go up with me at 9 am on Saturday to stay in the pattern a few times to do forward slips to landings, knowing that I'd like to leave at 10 to do the 15-minute flight to AKQ and have time to stow 388, settle in and get organized for the 11 am appointment.
Surprisingly, Friday night I felt quite tranquil. I had largely stuck to my plan of finishing all studying and x-c prep (sans wind-based calculations) before Friday evening so I could have that time to get on the elliptical, have a nice dinner, take a bath and read a (non-flying) book, and just unwind. It was nice.
Saturday morning was a different story. I got up at 6, expecting to do the usual morning routine, get the winds aloft, finish the x-c plan, and get to JGG at 8 with Husband to check out the Columbia 350 that he and John would be test flying while I was out on the checkride. It seemed, though, that for every minute I spent doing something, three minutes went by on the clock, and before I knew it, Husband was ready to go to the airport! Stressed out at being behind schedule and angry about it, I told him he'd have to go drool on the Columbia without me. I still intended to meet Chuck at 9 for no-flap landing practice.
On top of that, the winds were unfavorable. Winds aloft were 40-kts at my cruise altitude of 4500'. Surface winds were gusty. The forecast had been for 8-kt winds in the morning, 6 by lunchtime, and calm by afternoon. What was with this 16G22 mess? Drat. To go or not to go?
Well, I'd at least go to the airport. The 9 am practice was probably not going to happen, but maybe the checkride still would. I got out there around 8:30 and fought the wind across the ramp to the Columbia to spend a minute soaking in the luxury. What a pretty plane! :) (No, it's nowhere near our price range, but the opportunity to try one on was there...)
Just before 9 I met up with Chuck and we agreed that, while crosswind conditions were perfect for practicing no-flap landings, winds this strong and gusty weren't good for learning that. So best case scenario turned into me going to my checkride without having done that particular maneuver (worst case being no checkride today).
We went up to the terminal and hung out for an hour. We went over my x-c plan, chatted about a few oral questions that might come up that would pose a challenge, and then just wandered through topics like kids and planes and whatnot, all the while staring out the window at the erratic wind sock and shivering bushes. Every few minutes I called AWOS to get the bad news. Here's what the METARs said for that period:
KJGG 241521Z AUTO 31012G18KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241502Z AUTO 30011G15KT 10SM CLR 03/M15 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241441Z AUTO 32012G19KT 10SM CLR 03/M15 A3026 RMK AO1
KJGG 241421Z AUTO 32009G20KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
KJGG 241401Z AUTO 33015G22KT 10SM CLR 02/M16 A3027 RMK AO1
KJGG 241341Z AUTO 34011G22KT 10SM CLR 01/M16 A3026 RMK AO1
At 10:30, the AWOS report came out that said steady at 8 kts. Bitchin. That's what I wanted to hear. The wind sock was less squirrelly, so that felt better, too. Even so, I was cautiously reserved, still expecting to hear it turn gusty again, but at least I'd go preflight and keep an ear on the reports.
And then, finally, as I did the in-cockpit preflight checklist and tuned in the AWOS much to my delight. The nearest METAR said:
KJGG 241541Z AUTO 30007KT 10SM CLR 04/M14 A3026 RMK AO1
Ok, a quick call to the AKQ ASOS gave their winds as 6kts (no gusts), so I decided it was a go! With a wave goodbye to Chuck, I taxiied out to 31 and left, on my way to AKQ FOR MY CHECKRIDE!!!!
It was a bumpy ride. All the way down. I was having second thoughts. If I did the flight exam, it might be stressful with all the chop, and the possibility of busting altitude would not be entirely up to my skill. Oh, sheesh, what to do?!?! I tuned AKQ ASOS and it didn't help -- variable 10G16. Ugh.
Well, I decided to check it out in the pattern for AKQ and if I didn't feel good about it I'd abort the landing and head back to JGG, hopefully to conditions that would let me land and try again another day. It was actually a tad better down low, and on final for runway 2 I felt I could handle the winds I had at the time, so I landed. Not a beautiful landing, a little too firm, but safe with no bounce.
A small victory to change the course of the day! :)
I taxiied back up 2 to the terminal, parked and shut down. I walked into the AKQ terminal right at 11, which kinda sucked because I wanted to be early to have that organization time, but I'd take what I had. Linda met me at the door, and she was super nice, with a nice smile and she started in on the wind conditions we had right then. She'd done another checkride earlier in the morning (the poor bastard!) and I don't know whether he passed or not but apparently it was a very rough ride. We agreed to do the oral and decide afterwards whether the conditions had improved and whether we'd go.
She chatted with me just about general stuff for a few minutes, giving me a chance to unpack my bag and get situated, of course after the obligatory la pregnanto bio-break. You probably didn't need to know that. :)
So, finally, on to the oral exam!
We spent about 2 hours talking about stuff. We started with my logbook, application and medical.
Linda: "Technically, you shouldn't have flown down here today."
Me (to myself, breathless): "Oh, crap. Not only is she going to cancel the checkride, but she's not going to let me get myself back home!" (Driving to AKQ is about an hour's effort, thanks to the river.)
Linda: "Your student license isn't endorsed for solo cross-country."
Me: "Oh? It has a current 90-day solo endorsement, and my logbook is endorsed for solo flights to AKQ."
Linda: "But the license isn't endorsed."
Me (to myself, no pulse, trying to maintain the calm exterior of a well-trained pilot): "AAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Linda: "We'll overlook that for now, but let your instructor know that he needs to do this for his students."
Me (relieved!): "Will do."
She double-checked my logbook entries against her checklist for the prerequisite training and solo hours. That all checked out. Next we were on to the aircraft logbooks, and that all checked out as well. I had put sticky notes in the logbook and binder of ADs/W&B updates/other documentation so I could quickly flip to items like the last annual and the latest ELT battery change.
The rest of the oral exam is mostly a blur. Almost everything she asked was routine or common sense or a matter of knowing where to look, pretty much what you'd expect if you had used a study guide or listened to anyone who had been through it before! A few things do stand out to me:
- When asked about the vacuum system, I was happy to be able to divulge all the new information and understanding that I had about it. I had a little internal giggle (or was that the baby? :) ) at feeling almost like I had cheated since John tipped me off that this particular area of weakness for me might be one that I should brush up on.
However, I was an honorary blonde for a few moments during this segment of the exam... She asked which instruments were vacuum-driven. Reflexively I said the heading indicator, the turn coordinator, and the.... the.... oh no! I totally drew a blank. I felt like such a doof! I asked for a moment to go through the instrument panel in my head and I STILL couldn't come up with it!
So she said we'd move on and if I thought of it to say so. Her next question was what the consequences of losing suction are. Again, reflexively, I said 'You lose your attitude indicator.... THAT'S IT! The attitude indicator!" Duh! Bonehead. She smiled and scratched out the little "come back to this" note on her question list. Phew! - She asked if 388 has a strobe or beacon. I was confused for a second because we have a beacon on top of the tail and strobe lights on the wingtips, so I said we had both. She then asked whether, if during preflight I found the strobe to be not working, I would take the flight. I thought out loud for a moment about the requirements, saying I believed the beacon to be required equipment but the strobe lights to be optional, but that I'd want to consult the FAR/AIM to confirm. She said go ahead, and I flipped to the part 91 index, found the appropriate paragraph (205, 213, something like that) and read through the required equipment list for VFR day. Beacon, required; strobes, not required. That was apparently satisfactory; I figure the exercise was really geared towards determining whether I could find stuff in the FAR.
- We had talked also about what to do if weather conditions change in-flight. If things deteriorate ahead, you do a 180 and stay VFR. This I know, this I said, this we talked about. Later on, we were talking about flying westward over the Appalachian Mountains and suddenly realizing that we were developing some structural ice. Since I had already demonstrated that a 180 is a good thing to do when presented with an unexpected meteorological situation, I chose to answer with next steps for what I as an inexperienced PIC would do: If the plane was still behaving well, I'd try to find the nearest airport, land and assess both the existing ice and the conditions to see whether the trip could be continued. If the plane wasn't behaving, then I'd execute an emergency off-airport landing. That seemed like a good, conservative approach to me since all I've heard is bad stuff about ice and I know it alters the lift and flying capabilities of the wings, not to mention possibly freezing up the flight controls. In our post-flight debrief, she told me I first needed to turn back. Well, yeah! I thought that was understood!!! The lesson there is to give complete answers.
Anyway, eventually we wrapped up and she asked me to take her for a flight. Yay! The oral part went well enough that she wasn't stopping the exam right there! Other than the forward-slip landing, I was confident about passing the flight portion, so this was looking good! Except for those doggone winds...
I called 1-800-WX-BRIEF to get an update on the winds aloft, hoping they had calmed down for our x-c portion. They had -- down to an estimated ~12 kts at 4500'. And the ASOS at AKQ was giving better news, too -- still variable in direction but only 6kts with no reported gusts (right then, anyway).
After another bathroom break and a pause for some baby-factory refueling, it was time to go! Details about the flight in the next post...
Saturday, February 24, 2007
PPL'd, ppl*lol!
Look out birds, here I come!
Details tomorrow... tonight it's celebration with rest and relaxation. :)
Details tomorrow... tonight it's celebration with rest and relaxation. :)
Friday, February 23, 2007
Blowhard
It has been extremely windy here the past few days. And gusty. Husband and I were planning to go up this afternoon for one last pre-checkride flight, but alas, 13 gusting to 24 isn't good for me.
But check this out. Emporia, an airport a little farther inland southwest of JGG, is reporting something that looks pretty unbelievable to me:
KEMV 232035Z AUTO 22014G96KT 10SM CLR 11/M02 A3007 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT E
22014G96KT!
(For what it's worth, there are no radar returns in the area...)
But check this out. Emporia, an airport a little farther inland southwest of JGG, is reporting something that looks pretty unbelievable to me:
KEMV 232035Z AUTO 22014G96KT 10SM CLR 11/M02 A3007 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT E
22014G96KT!
(For what it's worth, there are no radar returns in the area...)
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Updated status - sanity check
Gotta be sure I'm all set with the requirements! There'll be another 0.3-0.5 solo time getting to the airport where the examiner is.
- Aeronautical knowledge
- Passed the written on 1/19/07.
- Aeronautical experience (61.109a): For an airplane single-engine rating. Except as provided in paragraph (k) of this section, a person who applies for a private pilot certificate with an airplane category and single-engine class rating must log at least 40 hours of flight time that includes at least 20 hours (31.7) of flight training from an authorized instructor and 10 hours (14.7) of solo flight training in the areas of operation listed in §61.107(b)(1) of this part, and the training must include at least—
- (1) 3 hours (4.8) of cross-country flight training in a single-engine airplane;
- (2) Except as provided in §61.110 of this part, 3 hours (3.5) of night flight training in a single-engine airplane that includes—
- (i) One cross-country flight (done) of over 100 nautical miles total distance; and
- (ii) 10 takeoffs and 10 landings (10) to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport.
- (3) 3 hours (3) of flight training in a single-engine airplane on the control and maneuvering of an airplane solely by reference to instruments, including straight and level flight, constant airspeed climbs and descents, turns to a heading, recovery from unusual flight attitudes, radio communications, and the use of navigation systems/facilities and radar services appropriate to instrument flight;
- (4) 3 hours (3.4, done this week) of flight training in preparation for the practical test in a single-engine airplane, which must have been performed within 60 days preceding the date of the test; and
- (5) 10 hours (14.7) of solo flight time in a single-engine airplane, consisting of at least—
- (i) 5 hours (5.2) of solo cross-country time;
- (ii) One solo cross-country flight of at least 150 nautical miles total distance, with full-stop landings at a minimum of three points, and one segment of the flight consisting of a straight-line distance of at least 50 nautical miles between the takeoff and landing locations (Done); and
- (iii) Three takeoffs and three landings (3) to a full stop (with each landing involving a flight in the traffic pattern) at an airport with an operating control tower.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Checkride scheduled!
I'm scheduled to be at AKQ (~15 minutes flight time from JGG) at 11 am to meet the DPE for my checkride!
Monday, February 19, 2007
JEP FIII-24: Checkride prep #1
Goals:
Flight:
Today we went up for 1.6 of the 3 required hours of checkride prep flights. Normal preflight, and for takeoff we rolled into a 12-kt headwind with rotation and climb-out at Vy to push through the expected mechanical turbulence as we rose above the trees. We turned out west and rose through the bumpiness to 2000', where the foggles came on.
We did a full half-hour of hood work, starting with turns to a heading in both directions, cruise climbs and descents while turning to headings, and slow flight maneuvers. The chop was challenging, especially the updrafts that would knock me around right as I was reaching a target altitude, but I did what I could do -- correct as quickly as possible. The chop was also challenging, and a little nerve-wracking, as we dangled off the prop during slow flight, but again, I just managed as best as possible with power and pitch.
Next we practiced stalls -- Chuck had read my post about how rusty my stall recoveries were -- again and again and again! It was good, and it was easy enough. We did power off stalls both straight-ahead and while turning, clean and with 20 degrees of flaps. My one goof was starting to pull in the flaps before I established a positive rate of climb, but the stalls with flaps after that one I did correctly.
We then headed down toward the intersection of the James and Chickahominy to do ground reference maneuvers. Remember me complaining (or revelling, depending on the day!) that there were never winds when I was learning turns around a point and S-turns? Well, today we got good noticable winds and the practice was very useful! We started with a right-hand turn around a point, but I was in too close to the landmark and grew frustrated as I lost sight of it -- not a good feeling when doing the maneuver for the first time in a long time and with winds for which I'd actually need to compensate! I asked to do a left-hand turn first, and Chuck assented, so I picked a point and headed for it. We estimated the winds to be from 280, and so the maneuver would start from 100 (after a false-start heading into the wind), and overall it went pretty well. I could see the point the whole time, and at the end I got in a little tighter, but not too bad. Then we did a loop to the right around a pair of very close cell towers, and it went a lot better. I did two loops here, the first being a little oblong and the second being much closer to round.
Next we did S-turns. My first attempt at an S-turn was pretty crappy. I did enter downwind as appropriate, but I started with waaaaay to much left bank, so instead of being a nice deep round half-circle, it was as shallow as a parenthesis! We didn't even bother with the second half, but instead did a big rectangle to get back into position for a restart at the same point over the railroad tracks. This time, Chuck advised me on a better target to keep in mind for the mid-point crossing of the tracks, and I did a much better job. Even the second half to the right to complete the S was pretty decent. As I concluded the first full S, Chuck instructed me to keep going for another S to get us back to our start. I did so, and did mostly good, but got straightened out approaching the last crossing of the tracks a little early (banked too aggressively entering that last downwind portion). So, that became a figure-8. I wish I had taken the GPS! :)
By this time, I was feeling a little icky. Be it from not flying much recently or from the pregnancy hormones, I don't have the endurance I used to have, at least not when higher G's and unusual attitudes are the bulk of the flight. Oh, that reminds me, sometime in there we did recovery from unusual attitudes by instrument reference.
It didn't take long to get back to the airport. I entered crosswind for 31 and had a good pattern and landing. The wind had died down quite a bit, only 5 kts from 290. There was the usual chop over the approach end of 31, but not horrible. We did two more times through the pattern for short-field takeoffs and landings. The takeoffs were fine. On the first landing, I was a little low turning final and on final the full 40 degrees of flaps come out for short field, so I had to throttle up to ensure we'd make the field and ended up dragging it in and floating a little before touchdown; we still stopped well short enough to make the first turnout, so it was satisfactory for the exercise. On the second one, I was more focused on my altitude and let my airspeed get a little too high, so when I flared we ballooned and then landed firmly (no bounce); had I kept braking we would have stopped just past the first turnout, but since it was obvious we'd need to roll to mid-field I let it go. Chuck said that would also count as satisfactory, but obviously I need to keep all of those factors under control!
Chuck is happy with my status. He believes I'm ready for the checkride now. We've got 1.4 hours of checkride prep and that 0.8 of instrument to finish up to meet the requirements, and I've got to finish the oral prep.
Discussion:
Self-Assessment: Feeling better about coming off a long stint. For 1.6 hours of flight time today, we sure did a lot of stuff! The practice was really good. Overall, I'm feeling mostly confident. I haven't done emergency procedures in a while, so next time we're going to do several of those; then I'll feel prepared.
Next: Wednesday morning we'll go for the next (and possibly final) prep flight. If that is the final one, I'll probably go up with Husband on Friday. Checkride is scheduled for Saturday at 11 am. Woo!
Hours logged this flight: 1.6
Hours logged total: 51.3 (44.2 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.5
Instrument Hours logged total: 2.2
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: 110
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7
- Checkride prep flight #1!
- Practice maneuvers, keeping to standards.
- Get more of the remaining required instrument time in.
Flight:
Today we went up for 1.6 of the 3 required hours of checkride prep flights. Normal preflight, and for takeoff we rolled into a 12-kt headwind with rotation and climb-out at Vy to push through the expected mechanical turbulence as we rose above the trees. We turned out west and rose through the bumpiness to 2000', where the foggles came on.
We did a full half-hour of hood work, starting with turns to a heading in both directions, cruise climbs and descents while turning to headings, and slow flight maneuvers. The chop was challenging, especially the updrafts that would knock me around right as I was reaching a target altitude, but I did what I could do -- correct as quickly as possible. The chop was also challenging, and a little nerve-wracking, as we dangled off the prop during slow flight, but again, I just managed as best as possible with power and pitch.
Next we practiced stalls -- Chuck had read my post about how rusty my stall recoveries were -- again and again and again! It was good, and it was easy enough. We did power off stalls both straight-ahead and while turning, clean and with 20 degrees of flaps. My one goof was starting to pull in the flaps before I established a positive rate of climb, but the stalls with flaps after that one I did correctly.
We then headed down toward the intersection of the James and Chickahominy to do ground reference maneuvers. Remember me complaining (or revelling, depending on the day!) that there were never winds when I was learning turns around a point and S-turns? Well, today we got good noticable winds and the practice was very useful! We started with a right-hand turn around a point, but I was in too close to the landmark and grew frustrated as I lost sight of it -- not a good feeling when doing the maneuver for the first time in a long time and with winds for which I'd actually need to compensate! I asked to do a left-hand turn first, and Chuck assented, so I picked a point and headed for it. We estimated the winds to be from 280, and so the maneuver would start from 100 (after a false-start heading into the wind), and overall it went pretty well. I could see the point the whole time, and at the end I got in a little tighter, but not too bad. Then we did a loop to the right around a pair of very close cell towers, and it went a lot better. I did two loops here, the first being a little oblong and the second being much closer to round.
Next we did S-turns. My first attempt at an S-turn was pretty crappy. I did enter downwind as appropriate, but I started with waaaaay to much left bank, so instead of being a nice deep round half-circle, it was as shallow as a parenthesis! We didn't even bother with the second half, but instead did a big rectangle to get back into position for a restart at the same point over the railroad tracks. This time, Chuck advised me on a better target to keep in mind for the mid-point crossing of the tracks, and I did a much better job. Even the second half to the right to complete the S was pretty decent. As I concluded the first full S, Chuck instructed me to keep going for another S to get us back to our start. I did so, and did mostly good, but got straightened out approaching the last crossing of the tracks a little early (banked too aggressively entering that last downwind portion). So, that became a figure-8. I wish I had taken the GPS! :)
By this time, I was feeling a little icky. Be it from not flying much recently or from the pregnancy hormones, I don't have the endurance I used to have, at least not when higher G's and unusual attitudes are the bulk of the flight. Oh, that reminds me, sometime in there we did recovery from unusual attitudes by instrument reference.
It didn't take long to get back to the airport. I entered crosswind for 31 and had a good pattern and landing. The wind had died down quite a bit, only 5 kts from 290. There was the usual chop over the approach end of 31, but not horrible. We did two more times through the pattern for short-field takeoffs and landings. The takeoffs were fine. On the first landing, I was a little low turning final and on final the full 40 degrees of flaps come out for short field, so I had to throttle up to ensure we'd make the field and ended up dragging it in and floating a little before touchdown; we still stopped well short enough to make the first turnout, so it was satisfactory for the exercise. On the second one, I was more focused on my altitude and let my airspeed get a little too high, so when I flared we ballooned and then landed firmly (no bounce); had I kept braking we would have stopped just past the first turnout, but since it was obvious we'd need to roll to mid-field I let it go. Chuck said that would also count as satisfactory, but obviously I need to keep all of those factors under control!
Chuck is happy with my status. He believes I'm ready for the checkride now. We've got 1.4 hours of checkride prep and that 0.8 of instrument to finish up to meet the requirements, and I've got to finish the oral prep.
Discussion:
- Instrument time: I've still got 0.8 hours to get in! We haven't worked on it much because I don't have a problem with it. I'm an engineer, it's easy for me to trust the instruments and do what they tell me! So in our next flight, we'll have a stretch of hood time to wrap that up.
- Right-hand turns around a point: From the left seat, it's harder to keep an eye on a landmark out the right window. It's better for the right-hand maneuver to pick a landmark a little farther out and to make a wider turn (thus a longer (duration) turn) because it's easier to keep it in sight. For me, at least, that's the case.
Self-Assessment: Feeling better about coming off a long stint. For 1.6 hours of flight time today, we sure did a lot of stuff! The practice was really good. Overall, I'm feeling mostly confident. I haven't done emergency procedures in a while, so next time we're going to do several of those; then I'll feel prepared.
- Flying
- Preflight, taxiing, normal takeoff, short/soft-field takeoff: Good.
- Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
- Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Good.
- Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
- Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
- Pattern, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
- Crosswind landing: Decent.
- Radio work: Good.
- Short/soft-field landings: Good, need to practice hitting the aim point.
- Night operations: Decent.
- Navigating
- ADF: Haven't used it since the intro, needs practice.
- VOR: Good, will get more practice.
- Dead reckoning: Improving but needs practice.
Next: Wednesday morning we'll go for the next (and possibly final) prep flight. If that is the final one, I'll probably go up with Husband on Friday. Checkride is scheduled for Saturday at 11 am. Woo!
Hours logged this flight: 1.6
Hours logged total: 51.3 (44.2 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.5
Instrument Hours logged total: 2.2
Take-offs and landings this flight: 3
Take-offs and landings total: 110
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Refresher flight
Goals:
Flight:
One month to the day since my last time in the cockpit. Sad, eh?
Husband was kind enough to go up with me today (his much more succinct account of the flight is here). On account of the hidden passenger and it being my first time going through these, shall we say, state changes, I'm disinclined to fly solo right now, just to be on the overly-cautious safe side. Since I've got all the solo time in that is required, and the rest of the requirements are with an instructor, it should be all good.
Like it's hard to convince Husband to go flying... sheesh! :)
The winds were forecast(ed?) to pick up throughout the day, so we hit the airport ~9:15. No frost on the wings, despite a 15-degree night and 31-degree morning so far. Everything outside looked good. It was cold, so I gave 388 4 1/2 shots of primer to get started. Not enough. Another 1 1/2. Not enough. 3 more. Not enough. After 12 pumps, the engine wanted to catch, but I may have messed up with adjusting the throttle because it conked out. 3 more pumps and stable throttle so almost had it, but as I added some throttle it conked out again. 3 more, for a total of 18, stable throttle, and it rolled over like our familiar trusty ol' happy plane.
Winds were 240@4, so we'd use 31. Altimeter, set. Radio check, check. Lights and coms, as desired. Seats and seat belts, taxi, brake check, run-up, all good. Thank goodness for checklists.
Husband DPE (HDPE) asked for a short-field takeoff. I think he planned to ask for that anyway, but that would give us a chance to run the engine full out and check gauges with time to change our minds about leaving. I pulled out the trusty maneuver flip-book and read through the process before moving onto the runway (after announcing, of course) and lining up with as little pavement behind us as possible.
Brakes on, throttle up, check gauges, release brakes, right rudder, all felt normal. Airspeed alive. Vx, time to rotate and climb out. I wasn't compensating for the crosswind so we drifted a little right of centerline, which HDPE pointed out. I corrected, and before long we were at 400', time to turn west for noise abatement. We continued the climb to 2000', then HDPE asked me to track to HCM. The VOR was dialed in, I spun the indicator knob to find the "direct to" heading of 015, then tipped the right wing up and turned us to that heading.
Again I wasn't compensating for the winds, which seemed to be stronger at 2000'. The needle was persistently left of center, and at first I didn't recognize that the wind was the problem. First I realized that I hadn't set my DG once we got airborne, so I flew straight-and-level, correct the DG (which was only slightly off), redialed for the direct-to heading and set up on that. After not more than 30 seconds, the needle was off again. I looked down and saw that I wasn't dead-on my desired heading, so I chalked it up to sloppy out-of-practice-ness, dialed again for the direct-to heading and vowed to pay closer attention. Another 30 seconds later, the needle was off again, and as I thought about what my problem could be, I was checking for traffic and saw the smoke from the West Point factory -- blowing completely parallel to the ground -- and that's when it hit me.
So I took one final desired-heading reading from the VOR indicator, and pointed myself left of that by about 10 degrees. That turned out to be too much, but at least I was on the right track and could feel it out for an appropriate correction after that. HDPE critiqued my choice to re-set the VOR indicator to new headings, and said that instead I should have corrected myself onto the original heading. I knew when I was off course that I had two choices: get on the original heading or update to a new direct-to heading. Since I was trying to limit the variables and minimize the time spent chasing it while doing so, I opted to update. But I can see that it could (or would) be viewed as weak that for something as simple as tracking a VOR radial that the pilot picked a newer, more convenient radial instead of correcting onto the desired one.
Once I was established, I think HDPE realized that I was not as busy and so he started chitchatting. I grinned at his distraction attempts. It killed some time as we got to, over, and past the VOR. The test here was to maintain the same direction coming out the other side, and using the VOR in "from" mode to assure that. With that reasonably accomplished, Husband had me turn to 060 and climb to 3000'. We were heading for a cluster of fields over which we'd do steep turns.
As we got there, I did clearing turns left and right, then entered a left steep turn. Using all of the controls, including power, I did a fairly good job and maintained altitude pretty well. HDPE asked for more bank at one point in the turn, and so I banked harder, pulled back harder and throttled up. I forget now what heading we were on when we entered, but I rolled out perfectly on it, reduced power and kept at 3000'.
I felt good about that! Husband complimented the maneuver and pointed out that when you bank more in the middle of the turn, it takes noticeably more back pressure (and throttle) to maintain altitude. A few nights ago a question came up in the oral review questions about how you compensate for the loss of vertical lift in a turn, so it was theory in practice... :)
We were getting up toward the Tappahanock River by this time, so I chose to point us southwest to get back safely over land and near a nice patch of fields. Once there, I went into the right steep turn. It did not go well. I think I overbanked and overcompensated at first, because we were climbing and that sight picture was moving awfully fast. I tried to rectify the maneuver, but then we were descending too much and still turning very tightly. We were maybe 2/3 of the way through it when I called it off. After that nice left one, I was a little shaken and disappointed to have done so badly on this one. But I stabilized, got my head back in it, and tried again. This time around it went much better, but I rolled out about 10 degrees too early. HDPE reminded me to shoot for at most 30 degrees leading to start the rollout.
Since we knew we were limited on time, we pointed back to JGG. Whilst over the upper peninsula still, HDPE had me slow to slow flight, maintaining 3000', with 20 degrees of flaps. I didn't anticipate well enough the power and pitch changes that were needed as the flaps came out, but I did correct quickly enough to not bust altitude. With the stall horn complaining and us drifting along at about 60 mph airspeed, I performed the requested 90-degree left- and right-hand turns, overshooting the left-hand target heading by a few degrees. HDPE asked me to accelerate to 70, maintain 3000', and milk in the flaps, which I did and which required constant tweaks of pitch and power. Then he asked for a power-on stall. I know how to do that, and I certainly know the recovery, but since it has a checklist in the flip-book, I thought I'd just take a look to show the DPE another instance of using checklists. HDPE didn't really like that for this particular maneuver, and absolutely for the recovery a checklist MUST not be consulted(!) but for setting it up I figured it was ok.
Anyway, that aside, I powered up, pitched up, and we climbed a bit and we got slower and slower, then I pulled back that last inch on the yoke and it broke cleanly. And my recovery totally sucked, and that was so scary because the suck was mental. Nosing over is not a problem; the plane does that pretty much by itself. But when I checked the instrument panel, my eyes didn't go to the airspeed, they went to the VSI, and it wasn't showing a positive rate of climb and I got confused. I didn't spend any time on the confusion, but rather looked back outside and pulled the nose up to the horizon. I glanced at the VSI again and still not a positive rate of climb. Well, duh, I had just leveled off. I started to raise the nose, but Husband said we were high enough (from the pre-stall climb) and to just get stabilized at 3000' again.
Man, that totally bit. I'm just appalled at how bad such a critical thing became after a month off. I'll have to look back through my training logs and see when the last time actually was that I did a stall; it's been a while. That's so scary, though, because while I figured it was something I'd practice periodically after getting my license, now it seems like it needs to be practiced frequently!
Anyway, next HDPE had me don the foggles and he punched JGG into the GPS and use that instrument to get back home. I corrected the DG again, then turned to 190, the desired track announced by the GPS. Not long, again, and the destination was to the right of my track. Dumb, dumb, dumb! When would I learn! I have to correct for wind! The VOR and GPS headings don't do that for me! As we got back over the middle peninsula, we hit a lot of turbulence. That was ok for a little while, but I started to get kinda icky feeling and elected to take off the foggles so I could see the horizon.
HDPE vocalized our position, told me to descend to 2000' and then to do what I would normally do when approaching an airport to land. I appreciated the cue, since I was still trying to get my physiology back on track and wasn't keeping track of our distance to the airport. It was still more than 10 nm at this point, but that's ok. I tuned in AWOS and heard 270@7, so we'd land 31. HDPE asked me to cross midfield to enter the pattern.
At about 5 miles out, in between the chatty jerks at another nearby airport, I was able to announce my location and intention. I slowly descended to 1200' just before the airport, and then just as we got over the field they shut up long enough for another announcement. I turned left downwind, descended to pattern altitude of 900', and began to drop airspeed as quickly as possible, seeing as we were still going about 110 and I wanted 80. When we were abeam the numbers, I was still dropping speed, but felt it was under control and we were in the flaps-ok range, so I put out 10 degrees and kept pulling out the throttle. Upon the next glance at the runway, I saw that yet again I had failed to compensate for the wind, and we were being blown in tight. I told my HDPE what was up, that I was going to crab to prevent further deviation and would extend my downwind since we'd have a short base.
By the time we got around on final, I was set up exactly the way I wanted to be. A little higher than usual since we were longer than usual, airspeed at 80, power (and carb heat) out, and 10 degrees of flaps. For the typical landing I'd do 20, but what with the wind and upcoming swamp monster and all...
HDPE instructed me to land long to avoid the swamp monster. I did as requested since I gotta be able to hit the DPE's target. Setting up for this, however, I kept a little too much altitude and then suddenly wished I had the extra 20 degrees of flaps because I was carrying a little extra speed anyway and now needed to descend faster. We weren't in danger of running out of runway, so I just rode it down. Being fast, I floated a good deal after the flare, and we touched down a little harder than I would have liked, but no bounce.
After that, it was a normal rollout, turn off, announce clear, checklist for post-landing, and taxi back through the empty parking lot for our spot. I called for a fuel refill, and we buttoned up our worthy old flying mobile.
Later in the day I would file a POREP -- not a PIREP for the turbulence, but a police report for the identity theft. What jerks there are out there!
Discussion:
Self-Assessment: Oh, geez. Man do I need the upcoming practice with instructors!
Next: I'm due for that phase check with Dan, then three hours of checkride prep, two of which will be with Chuck and the third should be with the chief pilot at the flight school, Mark. I really need to practice engine-outs again, in addition to freakin' everything else.
Hours logged this flight: 1.2
Hours logged total: 49.7 (42.8 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 1
Take-offs and landings total: 107
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7
- Knock the dust off.
- Practice maneuvers again.
- Flying with a pseudo-DPE and being critiqued.
Flight:
One month to the day since my last time in the cockpit. Sad, eh?
Husband was kind enough to go up with me today (his much more succinct account of the flight is here). On account of the hidden passenger and it being my first time going through these, shall we say, state changes, I'm disinclined to fly solo right now, just to be on the overly-cautious safe side. Since I've got all the solo time in that is required, and the rest of the requirements are with an instructor, it should be all good.
Like it's hard to convince Husband to go flying... sheesh! :)
The winds were forecast(ed?) to pick up throughout the day, so we hit the airport ~9:15. No frost on the wings, despite a 15-degree night and 31-degree morning so far. Everything outside looked good. It was cold, so I gave 388 4 1/2 shots of primer to get started. Not enough. Another 1 1/2. Not enough. 3 more. Not enough. After 12 pumps, the engine wanted to catch, but I may have messed up with adjusting the throttle because it conked out. 3 more pumps and stable throttle so almost had it, but as I added some throttle it conked out again. 3 more, for a total of 18, stable throttle, and it rolled over like our familiar trusty ol' happy plane.
Winds were 240@4, so we'd use 31. Altimeter, set. Radio check, check. Lights and coms, as desired. Seats and seat belts, taxi, brake check, run-up, all good. Thank goodness for checklists.
Husband DPE (HDPE) asked for a short-field takeoff. I think he planned to ask for that anyway, but that would give us a chance to run the engine full out and check gauges with time to change our minds about leaving. I pulled out the trusty maneuver flip-book and read through the process before moving onto the runway (after announcing, of course) and lining up with as little pavement behind us as possible.
Brakes on, throttle up, check gauges, release brakes, right rudder, all felt normal. Airspeed alive. Vx, time to rotate and climb out. I wasn't compensating for the crosswind so we drifted a little right of centerline, which HDPE pointed out. I corrected, and before long we were at 400', time to turn west for noise abatement. We continued the climb to 2000', then HDPE asked me to track to HCM. The VOR was dialed in, I spun the indicator knob to find the "direct to" heading of 015, then tipped the right wing up and turned us to that heading.
Again I wasn't compensating for the winds, which seemed to be stronger at 2000'. The needle was persistently left of center, and at first I didn't recognize that the wind was the problem. First I realized that I hadn't set my DG once we got airborne, so I flew straight-and-level, correct the DG (which was only slightly off), redialed for the direct-to heading and set up on that. After not more than 30 seconds, the needle was off again. I looked down and saw that I wasn't dead-on my desired heading, so I chalked it up to sloppy out-of-practice-ness, dialed again for the direct-to heading and vowed to pay closer attention. Another 30 seconds later, the needle was off again, and as I thought about what my problem could be, I was checking for traffic and saw the smoke from the West Point factory -- blowing completely parallel to the ground -- and that's when it hit me.
So I took one final desired-heading reading from the VOR indicator, and pointed myself left of that by about 10 degrees. That turned out to be too much, but at least I was on the right track and could feel it out for an appropriate correction after that. HDPE critiqued my choice to re-set the VOR indicator to new headings, and said that instead I should have corrected myself onto the original heading. I knew when I was off course that I had two choices: get on the original heading or update to a new direct-to heading. Since I was trying to limit the variables and minimize the time spent chasing it while doing so, I opted to update. But I can see that it could (or would) be viewed as weak that for something as simple as tracking a VOR radial that the pilot picked a newer, more convenient radial instead of correcting onto the desired one.
Once I was established, I think HDPE realized that I was not as busy and so he started chitchatting. I grinned at his distraction attempts. It killed some time as we got to, over, and past the VOR. The test here was to maintain the same direction coming out the other side, and using the VOR in "from" mode to assure that. With that reasonably accomplished, Husband had me turn to 060 and climb to 3000'. We were heading for a cluster of fields over which we'd do steep turns.
As we got there, I did clearing turns left and right, then entered a left steep turn. Using all of the controls, including power, I did a fairly good job and maintained altitude pretty well. HDPE asked for more bank at one point in the turn, and so I banked harder, pulled back harder and throttled up. I forget now what heading we were on when we entered, but I rolled out perfectly on it, reduced power and kept at 3000'.
I felt good about that! Husband complimented the maneuver and pointed out that when you bank more in the middle of the turn, it takes noticeably more back pressure (and throttle) to maintain altitude. A few nights ago a question came up in the oral review questions about how you compensate for the loss of vertical lift in a turn, so it was theory in practice... :)
We were getting up toward the Tappahanock River by this time, so I chose to point us southwest to get back safely over land and near a nice patch of fields. Once there, I went into the right steep turn. It did not go well. I think I overbanked and overcompensated at first, because we were climbing and that sight picture was moving awfully fast. I tried to rectify the maneuver, but then we were descending too much and still turning very tightly. We were maybe 2/3 of the way through it when I called it off. After that nice left one, I was a little shaken and disappointed to have done so badly on this one. But I stabilized, got my head back in it, and tried again. This time around it went much better, but I rolled out about 10 degrees too early. HDPE reminded me to shoot for at most 30 degrees leading to start the rollout.
Since we knew we were limited on time, we pointed back to JGG. Whilst over the upper peninsula still, HDPE had me slow to slow flight, maintaining 3000', with 20 degrees of flaps. I didn't anticipate well enough the power and pitch changes that were needed as the flaps came out, but I did correct quickly enough to not bust altitude. With the stall horn complaining and us drifting along at about 60 mph airspeed, I performed the requested 90-degree left- and right-hand turns, overshooting the left-hand target heading by a few degrees. HDPE asked me to accelerate to 70, maintain 3000', and milk in the flaps, which I did and which required constant tweaks of pitch and power. Then he asked for a power-on stall. I know how to do that, and I certainly know the recovery, but since it has a checklist in the flip-book, I thought I'd just take a look to show the DPE another instance of using checklists. HDPE didn't really like that for this particular maneuver, and absolutely for the recovery a checklist MUST not be consulted(!) but for setting it up I figured it was ok.
Anyway, that aside, I powered up, pitched up, and we climbed a bit and we got slower and slower, then I pulled back that last inch on the yoke and it broke cleanly. And my recovery totally sucked, and that was so scary because the suck was mental. Nosing over is not a problem; the plane does that pretty much by itself. But when I checked the instrument panel, my eyes didn't go to the airspeed, they went to the VSI, and it wasn't showing a positive rate of climb and I got confused. I didn't spend any time on the confusion, but rather looked back outside and pulled the nose up to the horizon. I glanced at the VSI again and still not a positive rate of climb. Well, duh, I had just leveled off. I started to raise the nose, but Husband said we were high enough (from the pre-stall climb) and to just get stabilized at 3000' again.
Man, that totally bit. I'm just appalled at how bad such a critical thing became after a month off. I'll have to look back through my training logs and see when the last time actually was that I did a stall; it's been a while. That's so scary, though, because while I figured it was something I'd practice periodically after getting my license, now it seems like it needs to be practiced frequently!
Anyway, next HDPE had me don the foggles and he punched JGG into the GPS and use that instrument to get back home. I corrected the DG again, then turned to 190, the desired track announced by the GPS. Not long, again, and the destination was to the right of my track. Dumb, dumb, dumb! When would I learn! I have to correct for wind! The VOR and GPS headings don't do that for me! As we got back over the middle peninsula, we hit a lot of turbulence. That was ok for a little while, but I started to get kinda icky feeling and elected to take off the foggles so I could see the horizon.
HDPE vocalized our position, told me to descend to 2000' and then to do what I would normally do when approaching an airport to land. I appreciated the cue, since I was still trying to get my physiology back on track and wasn't keeping track of our distance to the airport. It was still more than 10 nm at this point, but that's ok. I tuned in AWOS and heard 270@7, so we'd land 31. HDPE asked me to cross midfield to enter the pattern.
At about 5 miles out, in between the chatty jerks at another nearby airport, I was able to announce my location and intention. I slowly descended to 1200' just before the airport, and then just as we got over the field they shut up long enough for another announcement. I turned left downwind, descended to pattern altitude of 900', and began to drop airspeed as quickly as possible, seeing as we were still going about 110 and I wanted 80. When we were abeam the numbers, I was still dropping speed, but felt it was under control and we were in the flaps-ok range, so I put out 10 degrees and kept pulling out the throttle. Upon the next glance at the runway, I saw that yet again I had failed to compensate for the wind, and we were being blown in tight. I told my HDPE what was up, that I was going to crab to prevent further deviation and would extend my downwind since we'd have a short base.
By the time we got around on final, I was set up exactly the way I wanted to be. A little higher than usual since we were longer than usual, airspeed at 80, power (and carb heat) out, and 10 degrees of flaps. For the typical landing I'd do 20, but what with the wind and upcoming swamp monster and all...
HDPE instructed me to land long to avoid the swamp monster. I did as requested since I gotta be able to hit the DPE's target. Setting up for this, however, I kept a little too much altitude and then suddenly wished I had the extra 20 degrees of flaps because I was carrying a little extra speed anyway and now needed to descend faster. We weren't in danger of running out of runway, so I just rode it down. Being fast, I floated a good deal after the flare, and we touched down a little harder than I would have liked, but no bounce.
After that, it was a normal rollout, turn off, announce clear, checklist for post-landing, and taxi back through the empty parking lot for our spot. I called for a fuel refill, and we buttoned up our worthy old flying mobile.
Later in the day I would file a POREP -- not a PIREP for the turbulence, but a police report for the identity theft. What jerks there are out there!
Discussion:
- The good and the bad: I'm obviously a little rusty on these flight logs, too, since I did so much analyzing up above in the narrative! The main point that I take away from all of this is that I surprised myself in good and bad ways today. Going a full month with no flying, and more than that since the last time I practiced any maneuvers, really left me lacking. Lots of pilots say it, and I'm living proof: Today I was current but not proficient. On the other hand, the everyday stuff -- using checklists, taking off, pattern and landing -- all of that was just like it ever was.
But I wonder, and I put this to you, dear reader: In the time that you've been licensed, how often do you practice the things you learned while training? Steep turns and S-turns aren't something you use very often, but they're obviously something that takes practice to keep sharp. How about more important items like stalls? I'd like to hear from you. - Husband: I'm so thankful to have him, and that he's so supportive and helpful! :)
Self-Assessment: Oh, geez. Man do I need the upcoming practice with instructors!
- Flying
- Preflight, taxiing, normal takeoff, short/soft-field takeoff: Good.
- Maintaining airspeed, stalls, slow flight (VR/IR), maintain/change attitude/altitude/heading by instruments: Good.
- Recover attitude, altitude, heading by instruments: Acceptable.
- Forced landing: Good, need more practice.
- Forward slip:: Dunno, needs more practice.
- Pattern, normal landing, directional control after landing: Good.
- Crosswind landing: Decent.
- Radio work: Good.
- Short/soft-field landings: Good, need to practice hitting the aim point.
- Night operations: Decent.
- Navigating
- ADF: Haven't used it since the intro, needs practice.
- VOR: Good, will get more practice.
- Dead reckoning: Improving but needs practice.
Next: I'm due for that phase check with Dan, then three hours of checkride prep, two of which will be with Chuck and the third should be with the chief pilot at the flight school, Mark. I really need to practice engine-outs again, in addition to freakin' everything else.
Hours logged this flight: 1.2
Hours logged total: 49.7 (42.8 counts toward reqs)
Instrument hours logged this lesson: 0.0
Instrument Hours logged total: 1.7
Take-offs and landings this flight: 1
Take-offs and landings total: 107
PIC (solo) hours total:: 14.7
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
First of the last steps
Today I talked to Linda, the nearby DPE who did John's checkride a few weeks back and also Husband's IFR checkride a few years back.
She'll be out of town for the last week of February and first few days of March, unfortunately -- the timeframe I had in mind to do the checkride. But that's alright. She expressed flexibility, so if I find that this last training push goes quickly over the next week and a half, I can call her and we might be able to get up and go then. Otherwise, we'll do it soon after she gets back and I'll have extra time to polish my manuevers and answers.
And I'll have to put the baby books aside and hit the textbooks and test-prep books again...
C'mon, weather!
She'll be out of town for the last week of February and first few days of March, unfortunately -- the timeframe I had in mind to do the checkride. But that's alright. She expressed flexibility, so if I find that this last training push goes quickly over the next week and a half, I can call her and we might be able to get up and go then. Otherwise, we'll do it soon after she gets back and I'll have extra time to polish my manuevers and answers.
And I'll have to put the baby books aside and hit the textbooks and test-prep books again...
C'mon, weather!
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Flying for two...
So, I hope this doesn't count as carrying a passenger, else I'm in trouble!
Tiny Baby Cargo is due August 19!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Thanks, folks!
My parents sent me a few books for my upcoming birthday (thanks, Mom and Dad!). They look like good reads...
101 Things to do with your Private Pilot's License by Leroy Cook
The Killing Zone: How and Why Pilots Die by Paul Craig.
I gotta say, I was a bit taken aback by the killing zone book when I first saw it. I don't think the dust jacket has a sentence on it that's not about doom. If their intention was to get you to read it based on fear, they got their marketing right. But it does look like a good book, and it appears to instruct based on anecdotal lessons -- this went wrong, this is what the pilot did, this is what happened, this is what the pilot should have done -- and I learn very well from that type of instruction. It's broken down into ~20 chapters that focus on accidents caused by different factors or during different stages/types of flight: pilot attitudes, ice, runway incursions, takeoff and climb out, night flying, etc.
Husband is looking forward to reading both books, too.
101 Things to do with your Private Pilot's License by Leroy Cook
The Killing Zone: How and Why Pilots Die by Paul Craig.
I gotta say, I was a bit taken aback by the killing zone book when I first saw it. I don't think the dust jacket has a sentence on it that's not about doom. If their intention was to get you to read it based on fear, they got their marketing right. But it does look like a good book, and it appears to instruct based on anecdotal lessons -- this went wrong, this is what the pilot did, this is what happened, this is what the pilot should have done -- and I learn very well from that type of instruction. It's broken down into ~20 chapters that focus on accidents caused by different factors or during different stages/types of flight: pilot attitudes, ice, runway incursions, takeoff and climb out, night flying, etc.
Husband is looking forward to reading both books, too.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Oh crap
After nearly 40 years of running our beloved JGG, the Waltrips want to sell it.
In the words of every Star Wars character, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
In the words of every Star Wars character, "I've got a bad feeling about this."
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Odds and ends
Sorry for the hiatus, folks! It was expected, given interceding plans, but there it is and it feels like it's been going on for ever and that it's never going to end.
L'aero is planning to leave tomorrow for two weeks. It was to leave today, but a wintry mix postponed the departure.
I've just returned from a five-day visit to a dear college friend in Florida, and now it's time to crank up the oral test practice. I expect that part of the pre-checkride prep flights with Chuck will include some oral questions, and Husband is helping me to get through the practice book. I'm also looking at possibly getting together with another local instructor who took newly-certificated-388-co-owner John through his training. The more practice, the more knowledge, the better, I figure.
Coming back from Florida, I was on a 737 cruising along at FL370. Perhaps you peeps can tell me if I'm tricking myself about this: So we're hovering in the blue, and below us is a nice, soft-looking cloud layer. A little ways off to the side I see a dark gray line that appears to be sitting right on top, contrasting with the bright white of the clouds. I follow with my eye to the "end" of that gray line and find a lil' plane. Hmm. Contrails through clear skies are white. Are contrails through clouds gray? (Or maybe this phenomenon can't be called a "contrail," but it left similar enough evidence that that's what I thought of...)
L'aero is planning to leave tomorrow for two weeks. It was to leave today, but a wintry mix postponed the departure.
I've just returned from a five-day visit to a dear college friend in Florida, and now it's time to crank up the oral test practice. I expect that part of the pre-checkride prep flights with Chuck will include some oral questions, and Husband is helping me to get through the practice book. I'm also looking at possibly getting together with another local instructor who took newly-certificated-388-co-owner John through his training. The more practice, the more knowledge, the better, I figure.
Coming back from Florida, I was on a 737 cruising along at FL370. Perhaps you peeps can tell me if I'm tricking myself about this: So we're hovering in the blue, and below us is a nice, soft-looking cloud layer. A little ways off to the side I see a dark gray line that appears to be sitting right on top, contrasting with the bright white of the clouds. I follow with my eye to the "end" of that gray line and find a lil' plane. Hmm. Contrails through clear skies are white. Are contrails through clouds gray? (Or maybe this phenomenon can't be called a "contrail," but it left similar enough evidence that that's what I thought of...)
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