The Checkride

Yesterday I went to take my checkride. I went and picked up the logbooks, prepped the plane, and flew the short trip to Laporte. I was a couple hours early to allow me time to get there, get relaxed and do some more studying. The time finally came, and I met the DE - a very impressive woman who is the current national champion in the U.S. Unlimited aerobatics contest, an airline pilot, and a flight school owner. Talk about immersing yourself into flying!

After some snafus with the IACRA system on the FAA website we started the oral and started talking about the cross country flight. That all went well including all the question & answers about airspaces and other map features to which she said "It looks like you know all this", and moved on. We also talked about weather, requirements for the airplane & the pilot, airplane logbooks, FAA regs, and airplane systems. She was nice and if I didn't get something right away, she rephrased the question. The part that stumped me were the specific systems of the C150 I was flying. I wound up getting a lesson in alternators and magnetos. The oral lasted about an hour (though I heard later that her orals usually last at least 2... whew!).

Then came the flying part. I gave her the passenger briefing, and we took off and started the cross country. I was supposed to fly NE for about 3 miles and intercept the Galveston VOR to fly NNW. I should have practiced the start of this cross country... I had the VOR set up for the bearing I was looking for, but I wasn't prepared for how fast I would get there, and as I then remembered, the Galveston VOR often seems to be off. What's up with that!!? So I backtracked and tried to find the VOR again. Looking at the map, I could see that I was over the ground track I was looking for, but the VOR wasn't showing that I was. I played with it, and found that it was about 15 degrees off. Piece of crap. So I used pilotage to continue on my cross country. After about 5-10 mins she said ok, divert to RWJ. I knew where it was on the map, so I pointed the plane to that direction. Then I entered RWJ in my GPS. It couldn't find it. So I tried KRWJ. Still couldn't find it. What the hell? So, again I had to use pilotage to find the airport. Turns out the ID for the is 54T, and the name is actually RWJ. What kind of name for an airport is that? I thought it was the ID.

After that things went much better. We went on to stalls and flight maneuvers. She asked for a 'Power On Stall'. Ahhh it's so nice to have a DE who's familiar with the PTS. Just to make sure, I asked if she wanted me to slow down to departure speed first? "However you want to do it" she said. Sweet! So I slowed down to departure speed (like I had been practicing recently) and did the power on stall and recovery fine. Then did the power off stall in a turn. And... uh oh... lost my engine. Dang thing keeps going out. I set up for glide speed, found a landing spot which was about half dirt, half weeds or something, went through the procedures to restart the engine, and set up for a landing. She said ok before I got below 200', and we were on to ground reference maneuvers, and instrument flying. With her being an aerobatics pilot I was wondering if I would learn a whole new definition of 'unusual attitudes'. I closed my eyes while she screwed around with the plane. It wasn't all that unusual though. About 30 degrees down & banked to the left. I backed off the throttle, righted the wings and raised the nose. Then we went back to Laporte for soft/short field takeoffs & landings. On the way over she asked me how I thought I was doing. "Fine" I hoped. It did seem to be going well except for that initial part of the cross country, but I recovered from that. She smiled & nodded. I did the landings, and before a no-flaps landing she said I could stop after that.

Drum roll....

I passed!!!!

I'm a frickin PILOT!!!!

We talked a little more, and then she handed me my temporary license. The real deal should come within 90 days. I made all my calls to tell my wife, parents and CFI that I passed, and then took a leisurely flight back to my airport which included flyovers of Nasa, my house and Galveston Bay. This weekend I will celebrate by going to the Wings Over Houston airshow.

Perma-grin time :D

p.s.
Total Flying Time (including 19 year break): 59 hrs
Dual Time: 41 hrs