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...
Finally, we get half the story! Again, congratulations and welcome to the club!
ReplyDeleteJDW