falconkidding
Line Up and Wait
So in Nov took a bit of a crash course for my CFI and after almost 2 months of delayed checkrides finally got to take it. Going into it I was a bit intimidated had heard about so many long orals and that this guy was an engineer and really got into the weeds on aerodynamics and systems.
Day before checkride flew to knock some rust off wasn't great but its been 2 months so lets go for it. Met my cfi at the airport at 7am preflighted and took off to the dpes home field. Met him and he ended up being very nice. Went through all the paper work for the aircraft for airworthiness all the written test and endorsements. Everything checked out so time to start the oral.
It did end up being close to 6 hours but it didn't feel like it. FOI stuff he just hit the points he found important which was all the more common sense stuff on motivation, levels of learning. Then he spent time going through a scenario of someone walking through the doors to their checkride. So talked about endorsements what you can let the student do, some FOI questions scattered around at various points on the students scenario he set up.
Now onto the technical subject areas. The section I dreaded this guys an engineer heard he gets deep into certain subjects. Turns out he does but more in a teaching manner. Of course like my other dpe's he'd say. "im not providing instruction i'm providing feedback" lol. So on a question about Va and you talk about it, mention it changing with weight. He'd then point out here's the formula for that now draw this graph.
The whole checkride was kind of like that it wasn't 6 hours of drill and kill questioning. Just questions followed by "feedback" of another way to do something. So 6 hours actually didn't feel that long and I learned a lot.
Time to fly. Teach the preflight, hmm its a bit windy 13 g19 at 60degree xwind and windshear advisory at 1kft. Off we go. I think we did every maneuver except steep spirals and turns about a point. I attached the flight aware track. its a bunch of squiggles but if you look close you can see my 8s on pylons. Maneuvers went well ended a little high on my last loop of lazy 8s and my steep turn to the left ended up being more like 45 degrees instead of 50. Landings we did soft short normal and power off 180s. On the power off 180 abeam the point i make the radiocall and turn we were barely even going to make the runway even at best glide and not squaring the turn any. So go around. He mentions that with the winds and our glide characteristics power off 180s might not work so we did our other landings. Last time around he pulls the power and just says make the runway. Its looking better, actually looking too good winds must have died a bit temporarily, full flaps and a slip. He says hit the markers I do but bounce it a bit. I'm thinking to myself o man i just busted this ride 1 go around and 1 ugly poweroff 180. Rolling out he says on both those 180s you were verbalising what I was thinking, you were in control of the aircraft, recognized what was happening and made a good decisions, that last one we bounced but you you hit the point and we can check that box so if you can taxi back to the fbo without us hitting anything congrats.
So 2.1 on the hobs and checkride is done. Debrief and I have my instructor fly us back. $1160.00(plane and checkride) dollars later and almost 11 hours after the day began the one checkride i've been dreading is done.
Kind of weird going from getting taught to suddenly having that responsibility needless to say I feel unprepared lol.
So anybody know whos hiring? The school i did it at in middle tn is hiring but they pay their cfis 15$ an hour and charge 55hr for instruction which rubs me the wrong way. I'd be busy and get hours but 15$ is kinda insulting. I live in knoxville already checked here and nothing really available except cirrus and if their requirements online are accurate i'm not qualified yet.
Would like to find something within 8 hours away wifes fine with me doing a 5 on 2 off schedule and commuting so less distance the better. Don't wanna do a big 141 school at like PDK(will if i have to though) yeah i'll get more hours than I can handle but part 61 seems to be more my speed. So if anybody knows of a more family owned operation thats still kinda busy within 8 or less hours of knoxville looking for CFI's hit me up.
Day before checkride flew to knock some rust off wasn't great but its been 2 months so lets go for it. Met my cfi at the airport at 7am preflighted and took off to the dpes home field. Met him and he ended up being very nice. Went through all the paper work for the aircraft for airworthiness all the written test and endorsements. Everything checked out so time to start the oral.
It did end up being close to 6 hours but it didn't feel like it. FOI stuff he just hit the points he found important which was all the more common sense stuff on motivation, levels of learning. Then he spent time going through a scenario of someone walking through the doors to their checkride. So talked about endorsements what you can let the student do, some FOI questions scattered around at various points on the students scenario he set up.
Now onto the technical subject areas. The section I dreaded this guys an engineer heard he gets deep into certain subjects. Turns out he does but more in a teaching manner. Of course like my other dpe's he'd say. "im not providing instruction i'm providing feedback" lol. So on a question about Va and you talk about it, mention it changing with weight. He'd then point out here's the formula for that now draw this graph.
The whole checkride was kind of like that it wasn't 6 hours of drill and kill questioning. Just questions followed by "feedback" of another way to do something. So 6 hours actually didn't feel that long and I learned a lot.
Time to fly. Teach the preflight, hmm its a bit windy 13 g19 at 60degree xwind and windshear advisory at 1kft. Off we go. I think we did every maneuver except steep spirals and turns about a point. I attached the flight aware track. its a bunch of squiggles but if you look close you can see my 8s on pylons. Maneuvers went well ended a little high on my last loop of lazy 8s and my steep turn to the left ended up being more like 45 degrees instead of 50. Landings we did soft short normal and power off 180s. On the power off 180 abeam the point i make the radiocall and turn we were barely even going to make the runway even at best glide and not squaring the turn any. So go around. He mentions that with the winds and our glide characteristics power off 180s might not work so we did our other landings. Last time around he pulls the power and just says make the runway. Its looking better, actually looking too good winds must have died a bit temporarily, full flaps and a slip. He says hit the markers I do but bounce it a bit. I'm thinking to myself o man i just busted this ride 1 go around and 1 ugly poweroff 180. Rolling out he says on both those 180s you were verbalising what I was thinking, you were in control of the aircraft, recognized what was happening and made a good decisions, that last one we bounced but you you hit the point and we can check that box so if you can taxi back to the fbo without us hitting anything congrats.
So 2.1 on the hobs and checkride is done. Debrief and I have my instructor fly us back. $1160.00(plane and checkride) dollars later and almost 11 hours after the day began the one checkride i've been dreading is done.
Kind of weird going from getting taught to suddenly having that responsibility needless to say I feel unprepared lol.
So anybody know whos hiring? The school i did it at in middle tn is hiring but they pay their cfis 15$ an hour and charge 55hr for instruction which rubs me the wrong way. I'd be busy and get hours but 15$ is kinda insulting. I live in knoxville already checked here and nothing really available except cirrus and if their requirements online are accurate i'm not qualified yet.
Would like to find something within 8 hours away wifes fine with me doing a 5 on 2 off schedule and commuting so less distance the better. Don't wanna do a big 141 school at like PDK(will if i have to though) yeah i'll get more hours than I can handle but part 61 seems to be more my speed. So if anybody knows of a more family owned operation thats still kinda busy within 8 or less hours of knoxville looking for CFI's hit me up.
