Checkride #11
This morning I got a call from the DE, Terry, asking me to meet him at the Brookings airport at 9 a.m. I drove up there since the plane was already there. I had flown there yesterday and done the oral, but the weather had gotten too poor for us to fly or for me to fly home.

I got there and greeted Terry. He told me he had considered calling me back yesterday evening, but he figured I had gone home and settled in, so he'd let me rest up and we'd fly today, if the weather stayed nice. He told me to do a preflight, I asked if he'd gotten the keys from Lee, another CFI who kept them yesterday when I was picked up and brought home. Terry didn't have them, but just then the A&P from my own FBO arrived and told me to call Lee's cell phone. I got Lee and he gave me the combination to the club hangar where the Tomahawk's keys were. I got them and started preflighting.

Terry put his things in the plane and wandered off to talk to another pilot while I did the preflight. He was nearby but didn't watch me or quiz me during the preflight. Once I was done we got in the plane together. He told me I 'd made a nice short field takeoff yesterday (we'd gone around the pattern once to check the weather) but we wouldn't discuss the landing, which was supposed to be short field too. I said I was grateful because it wasn't very good. Terry said it was a fine normal landing. He was very easy going and funny. He made me comfortable right away. I explained that I wasn't too comfortable in Brookings and tended to be high because of the surrounding terrain (hills, trees, deep canyons on either end of the runway, which effectively stretches between two cliffs on a mesa of land). He said I could make a soft-field takeoff and we'd head for Crescent City. He asked me to have my chart ready for a diversion. And he warned me that since we'd be flying on my familiar grounds, he'd have high expectations for my performance takeoffs and landings. I felt pretty good. A pep talk last night from my CFI had helped my mindset, and he'd given me some visualization exercises to do (visualizing the performance takeoffs and landings I was so worried about)

I knew that on yesterday's short flight I had badly over-controlled the airplane, so for the last 15 minutes of the drive to the airport, I did a relaxation exercise (promise not to laugh) I love to sing in the car, and Bette Midler and I have a similar range, so I put The Rose on the CD player and sang to it over and over. It is a calm, gentle song, and it put me in a very mellow mood.

We lifted off Brookings with a decent, not good, soft field takeoff. I identified and tuned in the VOR for Crescent City, then explained to Terry that I was not going to track directly to the VOR from here because it would take us out over the Pacific quite a ways, and I wasn't going to take the Tomahawk that far off shore. Terry agreed and said I could follow the coastline. After a few minutes he asked me to get out my chart and tell him where we were.

It was easy, we were over Harbor, a small town I was quite familiar with. Terry noted the fact that this was all familiar to me and that he wished he could see how I did using pilotage up near Portland where he is from. I admitted that I had gotten lost on my cross country to a towered airport and didn't realize that VOR frequencies had 2 digits after the decimal point so I dialed in 112.05 rather than 112.50 so I couldn't track the VOR. I explained that I had really used pilotage then to get me to Medford. I think Terry appreciated my frankness and honesty. I think I had also made a lot of points yesterday refusing to go on with the checkride due to the weather, then having someone come and pick me up.

Next, Terry had me divert to Gasquet (Ward). I had to give him a heading and time to get there. I gave him the direct heading, then explained that we'd go through a pass in the hill to get there, so I'd not fly that heading. Then I miscalculated the time putting the distance on the inner dial of the E6B and reading the time on the outer dial. As soon as I said it I knew I was wrong (25 minutes to fly 15 nautical miles at 90 knots per minute) I made the correction and he accepted it. At this point I had made several small mistakes, but corrected them quickly and Terry had been very helpful and instructive during the portions that I needed help or redirection on. I was still feeling and getting the impression from Terry that I still had a shot at it.

We were setting up for the stalls when a friend of mine announced intentions to take off and head our way at our altitude. I made a radio call to let him know I was in the same area maneuvering at his intended altitude. Jon asked if I was done or if I was still working. I told him I was working hard. Terry laughed and Jon said he'd fly up the beach and at a lower altitude to give us room to work. Terry laughed again and said that the local pilots all seemed to know me. I laughed to and said that they were cheating for me. Terry told me he appreciated the camaraderie developed at a small airfield.

We did a power-on stall, he allowed that I could announce an imminent stall. I did and recovered at the point of mushiness in the controls. Next was a power-off stall. This time he asked me to wait for buffeting, which I did. Whenever he felt I was forgetting something (whether I was missing something or I was doing things in a different order) or when I'd start to lose my heading or altitude, he'd point it out and say, " you are supposed to maintain 2,500" or "do you need the flaps?"

On to slow flight. He asked me at what speed I'd been practicing, and he allowed me to use it rather than 1.2 Vso. It was uneventful. Then on to Crescent City to do a short field landing. He asked me to pull off the power for a simulated emergency engine out. I did, really liking that he had me pull power, rather than reach over and pull it himself. I went through the checklist quickly, having visualized it frequently the last few weeks. We were lined up for a nice emergency landing site and he asked me to slip to get us down to it. I did. at about 500' he said to go around. So I climbed back to pattern altitude and headed for Crescent City again. I checked AWOS for the weather, set up for an crosswind GW??entry into the pattern. That set up puts us on long final for a second runway and he asked if that was what I was going to do. I explained that for the runway I was going to use, a 45 degree entry would put us too far out over the ocean. I made my announcements, flew the pattern and gave him my stopping point for the short field landing while on downwind. It looked just fine and he had me go around at about 30 or 50 feet. We went around and did a soft field landing. It was passable, barely. The mains touched down a little more firmly than I'd have liked, but I kept the nosewheel off.

We took off again and went back to the practice area for some work under the hood. I got stabilized and he took the plane while I put on my hood. We spent just a few minutes under the hood doing climbing and descending turns. Terry asked me if I had done any unusual attitudes and how did I feel about them. I told him that I had done a few, but my tummy didn't like them much. I told him I was willing to give it a try and I warn him before things got ugly. He put me into a climbing turn and I got the nose down and the power on full, but was having trouble leveling the wings. Terry just said gently, "get the wings level too." I finally got it under control and he had me remove the hood. He explained that he was going to have me fly under the hood back to Brookings, but we needed to do some ground reference maneuvers. I started looking for a point to do turns around at his request when a perfect little pump-house appeared off my left wing. He asked me where we enter turns around a point from. I told him from downwind and told him where that would be. I then pointed out the pump-house and he said go ahead and start now. Once around and he told me to take him back to Brookings. I looked over and he was smiling. I grinned and said, "is that it?" Terry told me that I had good control of the plane and we could go back now. I flew back to Brookings as we chatted. I entered the pattern and managed to make my best landing at Brookings yet. Terry congratulated me and filled out my temporary pilot certificate. I flew home on a cloud of happiness and called the folks to come take a ride with me. I got congratulations from nearly everyone I saw

Checkride #12
WOW..what a day!
Started out early in the morning with me on the internet getting all the weather and briefing info..and printing it out and putting it into the folder which held all my other papers for the grueling oral.

Got to the flight school and was ready to go when the DE got there. Everything was going fine until he checked my log book and saw that NONE of my PP info was signed off. I was shocked because my instructor and I went over everything with a fine tooth comb and I thought everything was completed. My instructor was not in today...so we had to get him on the phone and he rushed over to sign it. WHE

Oral I thought was pretty straight-forward and to the point. Some of the situational questions required applying the knowledge not just spitting out the answers. I was extremely well prepared for the oral and had been doing all sorts of work to try and predict questions, etc. and I was surprised at how much I learned when it was over. After answering a question the DE would go further and expand on things he had seen and what his experience had taught him. I think I learned more in this 3 hour oral than I have in any 10 hour flying or ground lesson. My examiner was very detailed in wanting answers and after I answered them he was like a fountain of aeronautical knowledge. Honestly, I know the FAA examiners are good, but this guy was sharp as a tack and didn't mind filling you in on his knowledge.

So far so good.
Next the practical flying. Everything went pretty well, but I got distracted by his conversation, missed my checkpoint, and trying oh so hard to maintain altitude & computations in the air that I missed ATC calling an airplane who was in contact with them at our 12o'clock and 1 mile ahead. I never saw the guy and the examiner said..."do you see any traffic?" Taking his hint I finally found it, but it had long since passed us going from left to right. The examiner said that ATC called the other plane to alert him of us, and that I missed it. I thought "Damn....now I blew it" Luckily he had seen me scanning and tipping the wings constantly and only told me to be more diligent on looking for forward traffic and they are very hard to see right on the horizon.

We went through all of the other stuff...diversions, hood work, stalls while turning, etc and did all of without much trouble at all. Went to a small airport and did the short and soft field work. First short was lousy so I decided to go around. He seemed impressed that I knew I was off and aborted the landing. The second short was better...but not by much. I had everything going great and was nice and slow when for some reason I got nervous that maybe we were going a little too slow and added some power and pitched the nose down a tad to increase airspeed. We floated a lot more than we should have, but I was still well within my landing point. He asked me why I added
power and I couldn't give him an answer, but he said...your still within the regs. Soft field was really good..and actually that should have been my short field..I had it stopped right away with no float. He chuckled and said..."Except for keeping the nose high, you should have made that one your short field. "

We finished up and tracked a VOR home...no prob. Final landing was a no flap slip to landing...aced it with just a little side drift, but got back on centerline right away.
Well now I am official..now I just gotta figure out where to go..ha ha ha OOOOOO HOOOOOOOO time for a beer.
Scott Thompson, PP-ASEL (that looks so cool!) out of SSF

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