Checkride was set for 8am this morning at an airport 25 minutes from home base. I woke up at 5:30 which normally would not be too bad (usually awake by 6:30 on a work week) except the time change really killed me this morning. I feel like a zombie right now.
Got to my home airport which is 30 minutes from my house, double checked I had all of my logs and crap together and went to pre-flight the airplane. It was frosty. 32 degrees at the airport. I doused the wings with lukewarm water and got things rolling. On climbout, when I hit about 500 AGL the inside of the airplane fogged up almost instantly. I could only see through two small patches on the windscreen made by the defrost vents. I switched on the OAT gauge and it was over 50 degrees at 500 agl! and humid too - the air was thick.
The airplane dried out as I climbed up a bit and I made it to burlington airport to meet the examiner just in the nick of time - 8:02 AM. The frost removal and my sluggishness getting out of bed this morning destroyed my plans of getting there early.
Like a dummy I forgot my IACRA password and had to reset it. This did not take long however and the examiner was only mildly annoyed.
Next was the review of required flight time and the collection of examiner's fee. I brought cash and I think this made up for my stupid IACRA trick. One friend of mine who is a corporate pilot and CFII told me to dress nice and bring cash. Good advice
Review of flight logs went fine - the examiner was a little surprised that my airplane has over 10,000 hours and was a careful going through the logs. I have reviewed them previously and was able to show that the annual, and all AD's had been complied with, as well as finding the latest weight and balance stuff etc...
Next was the oral. Started out with my "planned" flight from KBUY to KCVG. I explained that we needed a fuel stop - explained why we did not need an alternate, and she asked a few questions about the route - I had to explain MEA, OROCA, what arrows indicate DME fixes and radial intersection fixes. Went over some weather stuff, looked at a radar summary chart, some icing stuff. SIGMETS, AIRMETS. The oral went well overall - she only noted 3 things that I missed. One of them was a METAR code "NSW" which I had no clue. It means no significant weather.
I was given the approaches up front - the first was a VOR approach - circle to land at a nearby podunk airport. The next two were a LOC and an ILS into burlington.
I fired up, went through the checklist and then took off for the VOR which I was cleared. I was instructed to climb to 3000, level off and then we'd put the hood on and do unusual attitudes. No sweat there. As we approached the VOR she told me this was going to be a partial panel approach and covered my AI and DG. I nailed the partial panel approach. Don't think I could have done it much better with the gyros.
I set up for a circle to land, and when I was on base and looking good for a landing she told me to go fly the published miss.
Hood went back on, I climbed to 3000 and was back on the correct radial for the missed, which includes a hold over a VOR. As I was about 5-6 miles out from the VOR, tracking the radial nicely she asked a few pointed questions about the hold. "What type of entry?" "How are you going to accomplish that?" she asked. I responded "Direct entry, when I get to the VOR I am going to make a standard rate turn to the right, heading 056" She asked if I was sure. At this point I was thinking oh **** - but I glanced down at my plate and told her I was sure. She said "ok, you've just completed the holding requirement".
She gave me vectors to the localizer and I got on course. I made a big boo boo here - got about 120feet below assigned altitude before I realized it. She was talking to me about some old lady who runs a store or something - and I got distracted. I noticed before she said anything, gave it some throttle and said "i'm a bit low, climbing back to 2800 feet". She didn't say anything or write anything down, so I breathed a sigh of relief.
The approach went well, and I got vectors back out to run down the same approach but this time using it as an ILS. I am the king of ILS's and at this point I am realizing I just might pass. I start grinning like an idiot - I probably looked like one too with foggles on. I had to tell myself I was not out of the woods yet when I started drifting off course from a vector I was given. The ILS was okay - I've flown better ones but this was definitely acceptable. I landed with an 8kt quartering tailwind (long rwy - she instructed me to do this instead of circle) which kinda sucks in a 152 - but it worked out just fine.
After I shut down I got a handshake and she told me to let my instructor know that I did an excellent job! Then we went inside and she made me look up some of the questions I missed while she did the paperwork.
Thanks for all the kind words guys. I am REALLY glad to have this rating! It took a lot of hard work - and I still have a lot to experience. I am hoping to fly with my lear captain friend some more in the coming weeks.
