Eblo

I Am a Private Pilot!

I guess the third time's the charm.

If you've been following along, you know that I've been frustrated lately by the weather keeping me from taking my practical exam for my pilot's license. Well on Saturday, June 5, 2004, all the stars aligned, and I was finally able to take my test. The examiner (DE) was available, a plane was available, and the weather, despite looking to turn sketchy the night before, was in the clear.

Although I was initially annoyed by all of my delays, in the end, it turned out for the best. With the extra time I had, I was able to do some extra preparations that really seemed to impress the DE. In addition to flagging my logbook with post-it notes to make it easier to verify I had gotten all of the training and experience that is required, I summarized it all on a spreadsheet. I also put together a list of the areas I missed questions on when I took the Knowledge Exam (The Written) and wrote in what I think I got wrong and why (the FAA doesn't tell you which specific questions you miss, just what categories they are in). I had my weight and balance and aircraft logbook summary nicely typed up as well. Without the extra time the weather delays afforded me, I never would have been that prepared. All of the extra effort paid off, too, because more than once, she complimented me on my attention to detail and preparation. Another thing she liked to see was that I had printed off just about every weather chart I could find while planning our flight. I had used both DUATS and http://aviationweather.gov/std_brief/.

After getting a full briefing for our fictional cross county from Campbell Airport (C81) to Eastern Iowa Airport/Cedar Rapids (CID), I called the DE and confirmed that the weather looked good and we were on for a 2:00p.m. meeting. I left the house a little later than I wanted to after packing up, triple checking that I had everything, and kissing my wife and dog good bye. I ended up getting to C81 a little after 2:00, but it was OK because the DE wasn't there yet anyway.

A few people asked if I was "the checkride guy" and confirmed that they had not yet seen the examiner. So I went to the classroom at the back of the hangar and laid out all of my paperwork and planning, then went back up to the office and paced around a bit. This was actually the height of my nervousness. I think the feeling was that at that point everything was completely out of my control - if she got in a car accident and couldn't make the test, if I'd forgotten an important piece of documentation or planning at home, if something was wrong with the aircraft, I was hosed for another day.

Once she showed up and I saw she was a normal person, not a three-headed student-eating monster, I settled down pretty quickly. She didn't even ask for her fee right away, so that also helped keep the mood tame. All kidding aside, she was a very easy-going soothing person. At that point I realized that this wasn't going to be so bad.

The first thing she did was explain how the exam would run. She said that she wasn't there to trick me, fail me, or make my life miserable. Her job was simply to assess my skills and knowledge and ensure that I would be a safe pilot. That sounded fair enough to me.

She then looked at my official application for my Private Pilot certificate, checked my ID, and started looking at my logbook. Once she was satisfied all of that was in order, she asked me for her fee. She then asked me what I could tell her about the aircraft I'd be flying. At this point I realized I hadn't gotten the aircraft logbooks from the FBO office. I ran out to get those really quickly and while I was out, she checked over the performance charts I had marked up for the takeoff and landing distances and speeds we'd need, stall speeds, weight and balance, etc. When I came back with the logs we went over those really quickly aided by the summary I had prepared. I had a hard time finding the recent Airworthiness Directive (AD) information for the aircraft so the first official question of the oral portion of the exam was, "What is an AD?"

Other questions she asked were about visibility and ceiling requirements in various airspace. We went over lost communications procedures, light signals, and runway incursions. We then looked at my cross country planning and discussed information available on the navigation charts. I had to recalculate my wind corrections because I still had the old info in there from when I was going to take the exam earlier. She left me for a few minutes while I did the calculations.

We then went over the performance charts and weather briefing information. There was some general discussion of density and pressure altitudes, but nothing specific. She had me do a few quick E6B calculations for ground speed and fuel burn. We talked about reserve requirements, etc. We finished up with a discussion of emergency procedures and she asked me about aeromedical factors including carbon monoxide poisoning and hypoxia.

The oral portion took about two hours, but that included the delays to get the logbooks and to redo my wind corrections. It sounds like a long, grueling time, but it wasn't bad. Much of it felt as much like a lesson as an exam. The weather was still beautiful and an abbreviated briefing said it should stay that way, so I was off to the plane to preflight. I also called my wife really quickly to let her know I was done with the oral and about to fly.

After a passenger briefing, I started up and taxied out to Runway 9. There was a slight headwind, but it was pretty calm. After the runup, she asked me to do a short-field takeoff and we were on our way. I rotated a little bit too soon, so we almost settled back down, but 2378U chugged along and saved my bacon. I flew the pattern and headed out to the southwest heading for my first cross country checkpoint. After I was established at 2,800' I simulated a call to Kankakee Radio to open my flight plan. I hit my checkpoints pretty much on time after making my turn over Lake in the Hills, I ended up a bit north of course, but was able to correct before my third checkpoint.

As we crossed I-90, the DE asked where I could divert to if I needed to. I said that DeKalb was fairly close to the south. She asked how I'd get there. I estimated a heading of 185 degrees and made the turn.

At this point, I identified where DeKalb was and that was as far as the diversion went. She next had me set up for slow flight. I asked if she wanted me to do clearing turns and she said that our turn for the diversion cleared us. I slowed down to 60 KIAS, which is what she specified, and I made a 180 degree turn to the north. From the slow flight, she had me do a power-off stall to the buffet. After recovery, from the stall, she told me the JVL VOR was tuned in and identified and asked me to track to the station. I dialed in a bearing of 300 on the OBS and made the turn. After keeping the needle centered for a minute or so, she took the plane and had me put my hood on.

Under the hood, I did one turn to 090 degrees, then a climb to 3,600', a descending turn back to 360, and then a 180 degree turn to the south. At this point, she set me up for two unusual attitudes. On the first one, a nose high, I blanked on what to do with the power. At first I pulled it, but then added it back in admitting that I'd messed up. I had gotten the wings level pretty quickly, though. She just reminded me, if the airspeed is low, add power. The next was a nose-down attitude. I pulled power, leveled the wings, and resumed level flight with the power back in without hesitation this time. She took the aircraft again, said everything was so far, so good, and had me take off the hood. In all, I had about 12 minutes of hood time.

After I got the hood off and took a breather, she gave the controls back and asked me to perform steep turns in both directions, whenever I was ready. I told her I wanted to head north first to get away from some congested areas we were heading towards. After a turn and a trim adjustment I went into my turns. The first was to the right, and I nailed it pretty much dead on. The altitude didn't waver more than 25 feet and the bank was 45 degrees. As I rolled back to the left, I mentioned that for some reason, my turns to the left usually ended up getting a little shallow, but that I was going to try to avoid that. She asked if I was afraid I was going to fall out the window. I don't think that's the case, but sure enough, about halfway through the turn, I was down to about 30 degrees. I let out an 'oops,' and corrected back to 45 degrees. The altitude wasn't as stable this time, but was well within 100'.

We turned back to the south, honestly, I don't remember why. Shortly after that, she pulled the power and indicated the power was out. Up until this point, I was so at ease that I just felt like I had been flying with a friend. My first thought was, "Hey, I told you not to touch anything!" But I quickly got back into examinee mode and went through the engine out checklist etched in my brain. Now recently, I had been warned that this DE liked to pull power near grass strips, the idea being that a pilot should know where s/he is at all times and should opt for the strip given an emergency. So I started looking all over for an airstrip. I was taking a while to pick a landing spot, so eventually she asked if I saw anything good. I asked her if she had anything good out her side and she said yes, there were a whole lot to choose from. So I dipped the right wing and saw nothing but fields. So a field it would be. I picked a nice long one, circled once to the right to get over it, and then once to the left on a base and final. I was ready to slip down towards it when she said I had it made and to demonstrate a go-around.

As we climbed out, she asked me which I was better at, S-Turns, or turns around a point. I joked that she was going to make me do the opposite of what I said. She said that, no, this was something she had instituted recently - let the candidate decide which to do. I told her that, honestly, I was pretty comfortable with both, but that I would do turns around a point because there was a pretty good point north of us. I set up to enter on the downwind and held a pretty steady track around the point. After a full trip around the circle she asked if I knew where I was. I said yes and she said, "Good, take us back to Campbell and let's see if you can land this thing as well as you can fly it." I took that as an encouraging compliment.

On the cruise back to C81, we started chatting a bit more than we had been. As we came up to Wonder Lake, she mentioned that 'back in the day' she jumped into Wonder Lake under a round army surplus canopy. She asked if I knew that they used to jump out of C81. I didn't. I did mention, though, that I had taken my wife skydiving for her birthday a few years previous. She asked why we haven't been back to it and started recommending dropzones to check out. She was really a cool lady. We also ended up talking about motorcycles, another mutual interest.

Somewhere along the way, she noticed something I had missed - the carb. heat was still on from the simulated engine out. I had missed it in my go-around procedure - doh! She didn't bust me on it, though, she just said, "Hey, why don't we turn this off?" I agreed that it was a good idea.

As we got back towards the pattern she said she wanted me to slip in for a soft-field landing. She was kind enough to remind me that there was a BBQ going on at the airport and that I'd have an audience. Great, no pressure! To add to it, she mentioned that an applicant the day before had dropped them in from about 20' off the runway. She asked not to be scared like that again. I said I'd try my best.

I kind of botched my 45 entry, which was more of a 90, but entered downwind at midfield and settled into the pattern, making position reports along the way. I forgot about the peanut gallery, lined up with Runway 9, slipped in nicely, flared back, goosed the power, and THUNKED down on the tarmac. She commented wryly that it was a bit firm for a soft-field landing. I agreed and took up her offer to try it again.

She also wanted to see a soft-field takeoff. She reminded me to let the speed build and not sink like on the first takeoff. For some reason, after I go the nose up, I started drifting off the centerline to the left. My brain locked a second, but eventually it registered and I straightened things out.

The second landing was softer, but still not what I'd like to call 'soft.' As we were still rolling out the rest of the runway she started making excuses for me, "Well, there really isn't much wind today, so these are tough - you really have to help yourself out with a bit more power at the end."

This was the first moment that I had a doubt about passing. I was bracing myself for the, "Call me when you get these landings worked out." But the next thing she said as I was clearing the runway was, "I'm going to give you your license, you're obviously a safe and knowledgeable blah blah blah" For a minute, I really couldn't tell what she was saying. I had earned my license! That's all I needed to hear.

As I pulled up to the ramp, the gathered assemblage of now-fellow pilots were eagerly looking towards us for the outcome. The DE extended a big thumb up, and the crowd roared. Well, cheered, anyway. After I secured the plane and called my wife, I was introduced as the newest private pilot of the Campbell Airport Family.

The checkride was 1.6 hours. I currently have 162 landings in 54.6 hours, 15.2 of those as PIC. Full stats are here.