Checkride- PASSED

TennVolsPilot39

TennVolsPilot39

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TennVolsPilot39
Well after 16 years with several long term inactive periods, I passed my checkride yesterday. The ground went better than I expected. That flight was the longest 1.5 hours of my life. Lol. My examiner was very thorough but equally fair. It still hasn’t really sank in to me yet. The strangest part for me is that I still feel like I need to be studying!!

In one hand I want to just enjoy it for awhile but at the same time it’s hard to not want to start studying IFR stuff. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my flight training and truly love aviation and learning all I can about it.
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
In one hand I want to just enjoy it for awhile but at the same time it’s hard to not want to start studying IFR stuff. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my flight training and truly love aviation and learning all I can about it.
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Hi.
Keep studying, your PP is just a small step, and in this type of environment you will never know enough.
It's one of those things, the more you learn, the more you find out how Little you know.
 
kath said:
Who's your first passenger going to be??
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Id promised my mom a looonnng time ago that she was going to be. My fiancé has been kind enough to be a good sport about it. Gonna let my wallet recover for a week or 2 and take mom up.
 
Congratulations!!! I still say private is the hardest check ride. Just because you don't know what to expect.
 
Now that you passed your check ride there's a few things you should know:
1. Epaulets on your shirt don't mean anything
2. Mirrored sun glasses are not required
3. CFI's aren't always right
4. The FAA is not out to get you
5. Yes, we are better then everyone else and chicks like us better
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
In one hand I want to just enjoy it for awhile but at the same time it’s hard to not want to start studying IFR stuff. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my flight training and truly love aviation and learning all I can about it.
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Congratulations on the PPL.

I jumped straight into the IR training, and should not have. Only if you are planning a flying career, should you go straight into it. I use flying as a hobby to escape work ... the IR training doesn't feel like flying to me with the foggles (maybe in actual which we don't get here). I have all the requirements completed except the long XC ... will knock it out eventually, but is virtually nearly useless in my area.
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
In one hand I want to just enjoy it for awhile but at the same time it’s hard to not want to start studying IFR stuff. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my flight training and truly love aviation and learning all I can about it.
Click to expand...

Congrats! It's a great feeling to know the sky is your oyster. Yes, do the instrument but before you start in on it make sure you enjoy your new wings. Do some cross countries and just enjoy looking down at the world for some flights. Use flight following as you're going to need the X/C PIC time anyway.
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
Well after 16 years with several long term inactive periods, I passed my checkride yesterday. The ground went better than I expected. That flight was the longest 1.5 hours of my life. Lol. My examiner was very thorough but equally fair. It still hasn’t really sank in to me yet. The strangest part for me is that I still feel like I need to be studying!!

In one hand I want to just enjoy it for awhile but at the same time it’s hard to not want to start studying IFR stuff. I’ve enjoyed every minute of my flight training and truly love aviation and learning all I can about it.
Click to expand...

Great job! I'm coming up on my 9th year of similar circumstances. Life sure does get in the way doesn't it? I'm currently studying for my checkride that I'll be taking within the next 6-8 weeks. Very much looking forward to the day I can hold that certificate in my hand. Congrats again!
 
P51P28 said:
Great job! I'm coming up on my 9th year of similar circumstances. Life sure does get in the way doesn't it? I'm currently studying for my checkride that I'll be taking within the next 6-8 weeks. Very much looking forward to the day I can hold that certificate in my hand. Congrats again!
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Thanks man. And your right about life getting in the way. Congrats to you for sticking with it.
 
danhagan said:
Congratulations on the PPL.

I jumped straight into the IR training, and should not have. Only if you are planning a flying career, should you go straight into it. I use flying as a hobby to escape work ... the IR training doesn't feel like flying to me with the foggles (maybe in actual which we don't get here).
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I second this. I enjoyed instrument training quite a bit. But I flew for a year or two VFR before I started working on it. Unless you're on a career path, take some time and get some VFR cross country time under your belt before you jump back into training mode.
 
Congrats and fly like you've never flown before. Suggest you do a bunch of cross countries with flight following before jumping into ifr training.
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
The strangest part for me is that I still feel like I need to be studying!!

In one hand I want to just enjoy it for awhile but at the same time it’s hard to not want to start studying IFR stuff.
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Hahah this is EXACTLY how I felt after I passed my practical last month! That night, after passing, I felt like I had nothing to do.... So strange. But go have fun now - pick some fun places to go that are +50 nm and just explore. Have breakfast/lunch at a new airport restaurant. Try not to go to the same place twice for bit. I have been doing that every weekend and it's great!!

I just now started reading the Instrument Flying Handbook as very early prep for when I start IR training. But I am not going to rush into the actual training until later this year or early next.

Just have fun flying and exploring. And congratulations!!! Feels amazing, right?
 
Now that it has sank in for a few days and I’ve been able to kind of reflect on the checkride experience it actually went very well. The ground portion went really well in my opinion. I studied the asa oral test prep book for weeks but he really didn’t ask anything even remotely from that book. Pretty much every question he asked was scenario based. I felt like I was doing ok with everything but when the conversation on weather started I feel like my explanation of everything may have actually impressed him because it seemed like things got much easier from there. Weather has been one of my strong subjects throughout my training and I put an emphasis on it from the very beginning. I feel like it paid off on the ground portion of the ride. The only question I absolutely did not know the answer to was “how long do you have to wait before you can take someone up who has been scuba diving” I didn’t know it.. and he knew I didn’t know it. It was one of the last things he asked.

I was nervous about the flying portion because I hadn’t flown in a month. But it went really well. He didn’t grill me much during my preflight surprisingly. We took off and once he could see that I could find my first checkpoint we headed south and did the steep turns the one to the right was perfect, the one to the left I nearly busted on airspeed but corrected and survived. Emergency procedures and turns around a point went fine. He wanted the stalls to be done while in a standard rate turn ( I had never stalled in a turn) I just kept the ball centered and they ended up really well. Probably a couple of the best stall recoveries I’ve done. We came back and done the short and soft t/o and landings. The first landing was a short field and I got a little overboard with braking and he wasn’t pleased about it. “ the ACS has no provision for braking on the short field landing. Don’t do that again” the rest of the landings went ok I chose to go around on the soft field at about 20 feet above the runway because It just didn’t feel right. Finished it ip and got the handshake and congratulations when the engine stopped. The debrief was my favorite part of the entire thing.

I have to say that becoming a pilot has been the best thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve wanted to be one ever since I knew there was such thing. My mom has told stories about me sitting in big cardboard boxes when I was 3 or 4 and drawing “instruments” on the insides and pretending I was flying. I love aviation and learning about aviation and plan on flying every minute my wallet can handle. Best of luck to all of my fellow students on here, regardless of where your at in the process or what rating you are working on. Fly safe!
 

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His name is Dave Thompson. He lives close to KTRI but I’m sure he’s done checkrides at KDKX He was thorough but fair.
 
I think I know who you are talking about. My CFI used to use him a lot. I’m pretty sure from what I remember he retired.
 
Congrats! Now the learning really starts. If you can find a club or partnership (if not already in one) and fly sorta kinda cheaply! Personally I always like making missions out of XC trips. Find cool reasons to go wherever. I did the PnPaws thing for a while. A two hour flight with the wife to deliver a dim sum dinner to her Asian friend living in a non-asian friendly town, etc. There’s a reason everyone upthread advocates getting XC time in. You learn so much it’s ridiculous. Have fun, fly often, be safe!
 
TennVolsPilot39 said:
... the one to the left I nearly busted on airspeed but corrected and survived.
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I don't understand this, unless you were slow starting the procedure ....

TennVolsPilot39 said:
He wanted the stalls to be done while in a standard rate turn ( I had never stalled in a turn) I just kept the ball centered and they ended up really well.
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Mine did the same back in 2007 (20* bank) ... had never done one in a bank prior to checkride.
 
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