joycem137
Pre-takeoff checklist
I took my checkride yesterday, and passed! I am now a certified PP-ASEL, ready to take to the skies with passengers and all that lovely jazz.
Here's how it went.
Prior to the checkride:
A couple weeks before my checkride, I was flying in a 172N model airplane that started having engine problems. (Exhaust valve issues) Anyways, they were slow to diagnose the issue, as its a pretty unusual problem for that plane, and my instructor and I decided, wisely, to avoid the plane for my checkride. As a result, we wound up having to switch to the nicer, but more expensive 172SP planes in our club.
Honestly, one of those two SPs is just so nice. I love it, and was hoping to do my checkride in it anyways. So it was nice to actually do it.
So we did a ton of practice leading up to it, to the point that my friends were starting to wonder what had happened to me. I was either flying or studying for my flying test, all the time. (I did my start to PPL in a little over 4 months, so I was flying and studying A LOT.)
On the night before the checkride, the DPE called me up and gave me a scenario to plan out. He wanted to have a cross country trip planned in our airplane, and in addition to him, he wanted 2 other folks to come along with 100 pounds of luggage. Being a pretty heavy person myself, I knew from the get go that this wasn’t going to work, but he wanted to see the weight and balance for the trip based on whatever decisions I made on what passengers we could bring. He also wanted a flight plan and nav logs for all of it. After doing the W&B correctly, it was clear we couldn’t bring anyone else.
While I was able to plan this out quickly in Foreflight, the requirement to do it on paper for such a long trip was pretty daunting, particularly because I was determined to have plenty of visual checkpoints along the route, as that’s how I would really fly it at this stage of the game. So things took quite a while. On top of that, my instructor and I had to do some last minute scrambling to get the airplane engine/Mx logs, as well as some last minute work from Mx to make sure everything was airworthy. (OMG, THANK YOU for staying until 9pm to make sure I was ready to go, Mx peoples!) We also had some other issues to work out with IACRA and other stuff, so I wound up being up REALLY late working on the XC. So late, in fact, that I passed out on my couch just minutes after finishing the last page of all of it around 1am. I never even made it to my bed.
The Day of the Checkride:
Woke up at 8:15am, and got to the airport around 9:20am. Preflighted, fueld up, talked about the XC and other stuff, then headed out. On our way there, we stopped in an uncontrolled airport (The same one I wound up doing my checkride in!) for some normal, short, and soft field takeoffs and landings. The day before that, I had done about 12 of these by myself, solo, so I was improved on all of them, but they all still felt off a little. Each one had a little thing wrong with it. I was certain that despite my instructor’s confidence in me, I was bound to fail. We finished up by doing some sim-instrument, straight and turning stalls, and steep turns. Then we flew to to the DPE’s airport and were done.
In many ways, what my CFI and I had done almost perfectly mimicked the checkride that was to come. Things were in a different order, and there were some extra/missing things, but for the most part, I actually wound up flying the majority of my checkride before the ride.
We landed, I saw a vending machine and grabbed an energy ar, and we sat down at the DPE’s office to wait for him to get back from another checkride.
The Checkride:
At first, we looked over the airplane logbooks, IACRA, my logbook, etc. to make sure everything was nice, happy, hunky dory, etc. Once it all looked good, we kicked my instructor out and dove into the oral.
The oral began with the DPE just basically telling me about his history. We basically just chatted about our lives and his career and stuff. It was a great way to sort of relax and just get to know one another, avoiding the awful stress that kept threatening to build up in my stomach.
With a brilliant segue, the DPE began asking questions of me directly from the PTS. I’ve studied the hell out of the Jeppsen guide, read through two different textbooks, and have been quizzed and prepped by two different CFIs for the oral. Suffice to say, I passed that with flying colors. While we were talking about how to get weather, the DPE even stopped, looked at me and said, “I can tell by your confidence and the detail in what you’re saying that you really know this stuff. With this level of knowledge, you could pass the oral for a commerical rating.” We covered a whole bunch of stuff. How to decide if a plane is airworthy if a piece of equipment is inoperative. How often I have to get reviewed to be legal to fly. How to get weather for the fake cross country. Where I got the weight of the airplane for the W&B sheets. What a few things on the charts meant. Stuff like that. I flew through it, and the DPE was very pleased. He told me that he loves to see good knowledge, because it’s just fun and fast to get through it all and get to the important part: FLYING!
So we went out to the airplane, and the DPE was amazing. He had this incredible ability to put me at ease. Particularly, he was really good at distracting me from the fact that this was an evaluation, and often commented that he “knew” that I already knew something, but that he had to see it anyways. It made me feel more confident in myself, and went a long way towards reducing my fear and anxiety.
After the preflight, I gave him a quick minimal passenger briefing to make sure he knew that I knew that legal requirements of what to tell passengers. I have a longer briefing for real non-pilot passengers, but I didn’t want to bore him with minutia. Then we taxiied to the runup, did that, and took a normal takeoff to straight out departure for my fake cross-country trip. Of course, a few minutes into the planned 4 hour trip to Palm Springs, magic imaginary thunderclouds appeared instantaneously over the entire area, blocking our flight and forcing us to divert.
We then went into the various maneuvers. Steep turns. Power on and off stalls, turning and straight. emergency descents. Slow flight. Sim engine out (all the way down to where we started to put down flaps!). and so on. Before each maneuver, I made sure to very carefully stabilize the airplane and think about what I needed to do to accomplish the task. I didn’t even start doing clearing turns or pre-maneuver checks until I had the whole thing in my head, the plane was stabilized, and I felt clear headed and calm. I think it really helped.
After doing our sim engine out, I had to navigate VFR to the uncontrolled airport and we did some performance landings. My first short-field landing was amazing. Like seriously, it was the best one I have ever done, and it even surprised the DPE. I think he later said that it was one of the best short-field landings he’s ever seen in a checkride. Which blows my mind, too. I have NO idea where that came from. I just nailed it. Then we did soft-field takeoff and landing, which he was happy with. Then a short-field takeoff over an imaginary obstacle. (He told me when were were over the obstacle) He told me that we were going to go back around to do a forward slip to landing, but as we were climbing to TPA on upwind, he suddenly pulled the engine.
Seriously? I nearly had a heart attack over that. We’re below TPA, very very low, and he’s pulled my engine for a *second* sim engine out. The thing that was going through my head was that if we don’t get that engine back when we do our go-around, this “sim” engine out is going to become very very real. I wasn't thinking of this as a simulation, but as a potentially real threat that had the potential to hurt me, so I was very very keen on doing everything right, not just for the checkride, but also in case it became real. I waited anxiously for the DPE to give me the okay to go around. I was very relieved when I finally was able to do so, but I was rattled for the rest of the checkride.
Luckily, there wasn’t much left. We did a slip to landing, then headed back to the airport. And based on how everything went and how *I* felt about things, as well what clues I picked up from the DPE, I figured I had passed the test so far. I was trying to fight a grin as I reminded myself several times that I wasn’t done yet. I still had to do the final landing back at his home airport and taxi to parking safely without screwing anything up.
But once we *were* on the ground, safe, etc. and everything was finished up, the DPE turned to me and said, “Well, you did very well on the maneuvers that I saw today, and it was all within the guidelines of the PTS, and based on what I saw during the oral earlier, I have to say that you definitely deserve your private pilot certificate. Congratulations!”
Then we went in, printed out my temporary private pilot certificate, shook hands all around, and flew home for my first flight as a private pilot.
Now to look forward to my first flight with real passengers! ACK!
Here's how it went.
Prior to the checkride:
A couple weeks before my checkride, I was flying in a 172N model airplane that started having engine problems. (Exhaust valve issues) Anyways, they were slow to diagnose the issue, as its a pretty unusual problem for that plane, and my instructor and I decided, wisely, to avoid the plane for my checkride. As a result, we wound up having to switch to the nicer, but more expensive 172SP planes in our club.
Honestly, one of those two SPs is just so nice. I love it, and was hoping to do my checkride in it anyways. So it was nice to actually do it.
So we did a ton of practice leading up to it, to the point that my friends were starting to wonder what had happened to me. I was either flying or studying for my flying test, all the time. (I did my start to PPL in a little over 4 months, so I was flying and studying A LOT.)
On the night before the checkride, the DPE called me up and gave me a scenario to plan out. He wanted to have a cross country trip planned in our airplane, and in addition to him, he wanted 2 other folks to come along with 100 pounds of luggage. Being a pretty heavy person myself, I knew from the get go that this wasn’t going to work, but he wanted to see the weight and balance for the trip based on whatever decisions I made on what passengers we could bring. He also wanted a flight plan and nav logs for all of it. After doing the W&B correctly, it was clear we couldn’t bring anyone else.
While I was able to plan this out quickly in Foreflight, the requirement to do it on paper for such a long trip was pretty daunting, particularly because I was determined to have plenty of visual checkpoints along the route, as that’s how I would really fly it at this stage of the game. So things took quite a while. On top of that, my instructor and I had to do some last minute scrambling to get the airplane engine/Mx logs, as well as some last minute work from Mx to make sure everything was airworthy. (OMG, THANK YOU for staying until 9pm to make sure I was ready to go, Mx peoples!) We also had some other issues to work out with IACRA and other stuff, so I wound up being up REALLY late working on the XC. So late, in fact, that I passed out on my couch just minutes after finishing the last page of all of it around 1am. I never even made it to my bed.
The Day of the Checkride:
Woke up at 8:15am, and got to the airport around 9:20am. Preflighted, fueld up, talked about the XC and other stuff, then headed out. On our way there, we stopped in an uncontrolled airport (The same one I wound up doing my checkride in!) for some normal, short, and soft field takeoffs and landings. The day before that, I had done about 12 of these by myself, solo, so I was improved on all of them, but they all still felt off a little. Each one had a little thing wrong with it. I was certain that despite my instructor’s confidence in me, I was bound to fail. We finished up by doing some sim-instrument, straight and turning stalls, and steep turns. Then we flew to to the DPE’s airport and were done.
In many ways, what my CFI and I had done almost perfectly mimicked the checkride that was to come. Things were in a different order, and there were some extra/missing things, but for the most part, I actually wound up flying the majority of my checkride before the ride.
We landed, I saw a vending machine and grabbed an energy ar, and we sat down at the DPE’s office to wait for him to get back from another checkride.
The Checkride:
At first, we looked over the airplane logbooks, IACRA, my logbook, etc. to make sure everything was nice, happy, hunky dory, etc. Once it all looked good, we kicked my instructor out and dove into the oral.
The oral began with the DPE just basically telling me about his history. We basically just chatted about our lives and his career and stuff. It was a great way to sort of relax and just get to know one another, avoiding the awful stress that kept threatening to build up in my stomach.
With a brilliant segue, the DPE began asking questions of me directly from the PTS. I’ve studied the hell out of the Jeppsen guide, read through two different textbooks, and have been quizzed and prepped by two different CFIs for the oral. Suffice to say, I passed that with flying colors. While we were talking about how to get weather, the DPE even stopped, looked at me and said, “I can tell by your confidence and the detail in what you’re saying that you really know this stuff. With this level of knowledge, you could pass the oral for a commerical rating.” We covered a whole bunch of stuff. How to decide if a plane is airworthy if a piece of equipment is inoperative. How often I have to get reviewed to be legal to fly. How to get weather for the fake cross country. Where I got the weight of the airplane for the W&B sheets. What a few things on the charts meant. Stuff like that. I flew through it, and the DPE was very pleased. He told me that he loves to see good knowledge, because it’s just fun and fast to get through it all and get to the important part: FLYING!
So we went out to the airplane, and the DPE was amazing. He had this incredible ability to put me at ease. Particularly, he was really good at distracting me from the fact that this was an evaluation, and often commented that he “knew” that I already knew something, but that he had to see it anyways. It made me feel more confident in myself, and went a long way towards reducing my fear and anxiety.
After the preflight, I gave him a quick minimal passenger briefing to make sure he knew that I knew that legal requirements of what to tell passengers. I have a longer briefing for real non-pilot passengers, but I didn’t want to bore him with minutia. Then we taxiied to the runup, did that, and took a normal takeoff to straight out departure for my fake cross-country trip. Of course, a few minutes into the planned 4 hour trip to Palm Springs, magic imaginary thunderclouds appeared instantaneously over the entire area, blocking our flight and forcing us to divert.
We then went into the various maneuvers. Steep turns. Power on and off stalls, turning and straight. emergency descents. Slow flight. Sim engine out (all the way down to where we started to put down flaps!). and so on. Before each maneuver, I made sure to very carefully stabilize the airplane and think about what I needed to do to accomplish the task. I didn’t even start doing clearing turns or pre-maneuver checks until I had the whole thing in my head, the plane was stabilized, and I felt clear headed and calm. I think it really helped.
After doing our sim engine out, I had to navigate VFR to the uncontrolled airport and we did some performance landings. My first short-field landing was amazing. Like seriously, it was the best one I have ever done, and it even surprised the DPE. I think he later said that it was one of the best short-field landings he’s ever seen in a checkride. Which blows my mind, too. I have NO idea where that came from. I just nailed it. Then we did soft-field takeoff and landing, which he was happy with. Then a short-field takeoff over an imaginary obstacle. (He told me when were were over the obstacle) He told me that we were going to go back around to do a forward slip to landing, but as we were climbing to TPA on upwind, he suddenly pulled the engine.
Seriously? I nearly had a heart attack over that. We’re below TPA, very very low, and he’s pulled my engine for a *second* sim engine out. The thing that was going through my head was that if we don’t get that engine back when we do our go-around, this “sim” engine out is going to become very very real. I wasn't thinking of this as a simulation, but as a potentially real threat that had the potential to hurt me, so I was very very keen on doing everything right, not just for the checkride, but also in case it became real. I waited anxiously for the DPE to give me the okay to go around. I was very relieved when I finally was able to do so, but I was rattled for the rest of the checkride.
Luckily, there wasn’t much left. We did a slip to landing, then headed back to the airport. And based on how everything went and how *I* felt about things, as well what clues I picked up from the DPE, I figured I had passed the test so far. I was trying to fight a grin as I reminded myself several times that I wasn’t done yet. I still had to do the final landing back at his home airport and taxi to parking safely without screwing anything up.
But once we *were* on the ground, safe, etc. and everything was finished up, the DPE turned to me and said, “Well, you did very well on the maneuvers that I saw today, and it was all within the guidelines of the PTS, and based on what I saw during the oral earlier, I have to say that you definitely deserve your private pilot certificate. Congratulations!”
Then we went in, printed out my temporary private pilot certificate, shook hands all around, and flew home for my first flight as a private pilot.
Now to look forward to my first flight with real passengers! ACK!
