Practice Checkride

My CFI suggested I take a practice checkride with another club instructor. So I went flying with CFI2 today. I prepared for it as I would the real checkride. And I realized if it had been an actual checkride, the DE would have me plot a trip somewhere before the checkride. So I called the CFI2 and mentioned that. He asked where I had been before, and said to plot a trip to Lufkin.

So I reserved last night to cram and plot the trip. I decided to use Trinity VOR and then head up north to Daisetta VOR and on up to LFK. I can't fly straight to it because of the big-ass class B airspace in my way over HOU. But my route was even more out of the way because I had grown accustomed to using VORs, and due to inexperience with towered airfields, chose not to fly over Ellington airfield. In retrospect, I could have done that fine because I have already solo'd to other controlled fields. But still... I tended to avoid them. Also, if I was sticking to VORs, Daisetta was about 60 nm away. I wasn't sure I could pick it up right off, so I thought using Trinity (which was about 23 nm away) was a good backup. I planned an altitude of 1500 ft because I have seen daily cumulus clouds and cumulonimbus clouds everywhere, and I doubted I could fly much higher than that. Also he mentioned his weight, so I was sure to work out a weight & balance table for the C150.

Today I went to the airport early to continue cramming, and to get the plane ready. At noon the CFI2 arrived and some small talk we got to it. He first looked at my flight plan. And right away, questioned my out-of-the-way jog over to the Trinity VOR, saying I should have flown over Ellington with their permission, then fly to Baytown, which would have been easy to spot, and then pick up the Daisetta VOR. This would save me a lot of time and gas. He says my route is fine, but you want to take the straight path whenever you can, and the DE would point that out as well. Lesson learned... Then he asked why I was flying at 1500 ft. After checking the weather previously, I said "because the ceiling is at 3000 ft, and I need to be at least 1000 ft below them". Huh? He said. After telling him the 500-1000-2000ft cloud clearances he realized I had it bass-ackwards. I interpreted what I read wrong. I need to be 500 ft BELOW the clouds or 1000 ft above. Duh! So I could fly the route at 2500'. Those were the only 2 gotchas on the oral. The rest of what he asked I did well on. Overall the oral seemed pretty short. I hope the DE does it like that.

Then we went to go fly the flight plan. Or at least he said so before we took off. In the pre-take off I was to set up my radios. He asked what the Trinity VOR frequency was. I said 113.6 from memory, and set it on the nav. I taxied to the run-up area, and he wanted me to point the plane into the wind while I finalized my pre-takeoff procedures. I had never heard of this. I couldn't see people doing this at a busy airport. I could see the reason for this if there were significant winds, but we only had 5 knots. Doing this for the DE would feel strange since I've never heard of it, but what if he expects it? Safety wise, it's probably the thing to do, and that's what he's going to be most concerned with.

So then I turned back towards the runway made my take-off radio call, and took off. "What airspeed do you need to climb out at?" "75". "Good". At 500 ft he put the hood on me. I expected him to have me go towards Trinity, but going over the flight plan and dialing the nav to 113.6 was the extent of my cross country flight. We did some instrument maneuvers under the hood. He didn't want me banking at more than 15 degrees with the hood on. My other CFI had me doing 45 degree banks with the foggles. He said my instrument flying was very good, and we went off to the practice area. We started off with slow flight. I used a procedure that I just sorta came up with when my CFI asked me to do them before. Pull back the throttle, and raise the nose. I balance the two actions as the plane slowed to slow-flight speed while maintaining altitude. He said that was ok, but here's how you really do it: Pull out the carb heat. Pull back the throttle. Roll back the trim. Pull the nose up. Add power back in as necessary to maintain altitude. It's a more pro-active method and works very well. You can let go of the yoke and the plane will happily putt along at 49 knots maintaining altitude and attitude. Then we did some stalls. I did fine on those, except for a powered stall. My CFI never asked me to do those before. So I got a quick lesson in those. The main thing with those are to steer and control roll with the rudder NOT the aileron. I had tried using rudder to do this, but my ingrained training took over when the plane started to roll to the right. I corrected with ailerons and the plane banked way left very quickly. CFI2 helped me out of that predicament reminding me to use only rudders. I tried again and did fine.

Then... uh oh.. I lost power (with CFI2's help). "What do you do?" "Set up for ideal glide at 70 mph, and look for a landing spot". I looked out my left window and saw good ol' Wolfe Airfield. The grass strip I landed at a couple times before. "No that's too easy pick another" LOL. So I picked a field. He reminded me once I make a choice to stick with it. So I spiraled down and used flaps to get my altitude down enough and about 25 ft from actually landing there, he said ok. I put the throttle back in (need to remember to just shove it in, and not be slow about it), and milked the flaps back up. He said well done, but to make it great, find a spot near a road (to save us walking time and make the plane more accessible) and land in the direction of the furrows in the field.

Then I did some ground reference maneuvers, S-turns, and turns around a point. They went well. We headed back to the airport and did short & soft field landings, and short field takeoffs. And then... Uh oh... lost power again. This time on down wind in the pattern. I shortened my downwind, turned base, added about 20 degrees of flaps and landed on the runway. This concluded the flight portion. He said we went through probably more than a DE would and that I did fine. There wasn't anything I did that would have blown it. But even though I flew ok, he had plenty of helpful advice throughout the flight to help me do better. I consider this lesson very beneficial. CFI2's assessment of my performance and the extra advice he gave gives me more confidence as I go do my checkride.

Due to DE availability, I have at least 7 days before I can get with one. I will fly again this coming week (maybe solo, maybe with my CFI, we'll see...) to make sure all these new tricks are ingrained in my head. Till next time...