Private pilot - airplane; written test passed!

AndyMac

AndyMac

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Mar 11, 2021
Messages
156
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West MI
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Display name:
Andy
Man is that a load off.

Anyone else find the plastic overlays annoying, and more than a little stressful after drawing on printouts?


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AndyMac said:
Man is that a load off.

Anyone else find the plastic overlays annoying, and more than a little stressful after drawing on printouts?


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Congratulations. What's this plastic overlay stuff? I did mine with hammer and chisel.
 
Ha! They don’t let you draw on the charts. They are supposed to give you a thick plastic sheet and a grease pen. They gave me a pretty cheap three ring binder protector sheet that had seen better day, making accuracy pretty challenging. In the end I think I got those questions right so I’ll work on trying to let it go. Lol.


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Congratulations! It’s definitely a load off.
 
Interesting.... I was provided tracing paper
 
Congratulations Andy! It is a big relief for sure!
 
Congrats, I just got mine done a week and a half/2 weeks ago. The plastic overlay, and every person before me having seemingly written in the book definitely tossed me. I was actually surprised by the questions that I got, and am wondering if anyone knows if they just pull them out of the pool randomly for everyone and create a different test every time? For instance, I didn’t have a single weight and balance question and I thought that was strange.
 
I’m no expert but I do believe there is a question pool, and the algorithm that is used is mysterious. I got a handful of questions about blood alcohol stuff (which I whiffed I believe) - hadn’t seen more than one or two on practice tests.

People had drawn in my book too - seemingly for a lot of the same questions. Was weird.

Also, congrats to you too! As a local PoA friend of mine told me today - now you can get on about forgetting 90% of it.


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Ok, glad I’m not the only one who though some of the questions were weird. I typed in the codes for the questions I got wrong and was at least able to see where I screwed up. Either way, what a relief! How many hours do you have, is your check ride in sight yet?
 
Well yeah, otherwise they’d be going through books like crazy!
 
Zeek said:
Ok, glad I’m not the only one who though some of the questions were weird. I typed in the codes for the questions I got wrong and was at least able to see where I screwed up. Either way, what a relief! How many hours do you have, is your check ride in sight yet?
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43.9 but who’s counting? I need a night xc and 1.4hr instruments. Then probably about 10 hours to clean up my ACS maneuvers before my check ride. Lol. Hoping to do it in May but I’ll take June too. You?


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Did mine yesterday got a little confused about the plastic overlay, but quickly figured it out, got 95%.

Glad is over, it's going to free a lot of time.
 
Juan Vallejo said:
Did mine yesterday got a little confused about the plastic overlay, but quickly figured it out, got 95%.

Glad is over, it's going to free a lot of time.
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Way to go! I missed a stupid question about blood alcohol level and the fricken emergency squak code. Stupid


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AndyMac said:
43.9 but who’s counting? I need a night xc and 1.4hr instruments. Then probably about 10 hours to clean up my ACS maneuvers before my check ride. Lol. Hoping to do it in May but I’ll take June too. You?


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Nice, sounds like we’re close to being in the same boat. I got 44.6......approximately lol. I have all my requirements done, except I need .7 more hours of solo. Tried finishing that up today, but a direct crosswind made sure that wasn’t going to happen. I have off next week, and even though it’s supposed to be windy the entire time, I am putting myself on the schedule everyday to try to clean up a couple maneuvers as well. I feel good about almost everything individually, but doing them confidently and consistently in succession is what I really want to work on. I want to feel like I’m 100% ready and I can’t honestly say that yet.


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Ha! I needed 0.2 solo hours before my last flight. Went to another local field for breakfast with another PoA pilot. It was nice to actually use GA for a thing.

I’m looking forward to getting the night xc done. The plan is to do some of it under the hood so afterwards I’ll know how much more time I need.

Plans for a checkride yet?


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AndyMac said:
Ha! I needed 0.2 solo hours before my last flight. Went to another local field for breakfast with another PoA pilot. It was nice to actually use GA for a thing.

I’m looking forward to getting the night xc done. The plan is to do some of it under the hood so afterwards I’ll know how much more time I need.

Plans for a checkride yet?


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That’s awesome. I don’t have any buddy’s that are into GA, so I’m kinda on my own for finding things to do. I hope to fly around my family when I feel comfortable and eventually meet some local guys. I’m really hoping to get signed off in the next couple weeks, but it has been so windy for the last week and a half with no end in sight, so we’ll see how it goes. I was obsessed with getting it done ASAP, but now that it’s getting close I feel a bit overwhelmed so I’ve kinda resigned myself to “it will happen when it happens”. Keep us posted on how it’s going, I’d be glad to hear when you get it done!


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Had a blowy lesson yesterday after 40 days away. I thought the maneuvers were pretty rough, approach was truly ugly but the landing worked out okay. My instructor must have been okay with it all because he renewed my solo endorsement, increased my wind limitations a little and added a 172 to it. (Was formerly only for a 150).

Can’t wait to get out again - flying is too dang much fun.

How are things going for you @Zeek?


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AndyMac, the week I was hoping to get everything done and checked off really turned out to be a bummer. Whether it was rain, IFR or just windy, it wasn’t very productive. Following that, I had 2 flights in around 15knot winds where my maneuvers (while technically in spec) were all over the place, I had trouble maintaining altitude and overall got pretty discouraged. I started second guessing everything and my confidence kind of went to sh*t. Finally last week I dusted myself off and went back at it with a new attitude, flew with the instructor and did some solo work, and I felt ok again. Yesterday I had a mock check ride with the head flight instructor at our school, and even though I was nervous, everything went great and he said I passed with flying colors. Filled out my IACRA application yesterday afternoon and my instructor called the DPE last night. We are hoping to get my check ride in this week (weather permitting). Of course, as this was happening I am now crazy busy at work and will have to juggle that as well, but I’m going to do whatever it takes to be ready to go when the examiner tells me what day we are set for. Sounded like Wednesday at 8am is a possibility but we’ll see. I’ll keep you posted, hopefully I didn’t use all my magic on the mock check ride!


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Fantastic news! Your description of your 15kt day sounds a lot like my lesson Friday. Hoping for a night xc tonight but the wind may be too much.

Getting close! Hope wed am works out and you knock it out of the park.


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Well, Wednesday was canceled due to IFR/MVFR so we are rescheduling. Only problem is that this DPE is very busy (understandable with the weather we’ve been having) and more than a week out right now. Just kind of concerned that on the day of the reschedule the weather won’t cooperate again. Oh well, just have to go with the flow. Side note, I am in Southeast Wisconsin, and he wants me to fly over to Muskegon MI. I know he’s trying to tempt me with an over the lake flight, but naturally I will be planning a route in and around Chicago airspace down around the bottom. Why couldn’t my route be to Sheboygan lol?


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That’s great Zeek. It’s possible to plan the xc over the lake as long as you calculate the risk exposure (how many minutes beyond glide of the shore etc) and identify anything you’d need to do it safely (e.g. life vests, life boat if applicable), however if he wants you to start the xc after takeoff, the first leg south will make more sense than east.

I’m now 0.6hr of instrument away from meeting all the requirements. Very anxious to get the checkride scheduled and done. I’ve got flying to do!


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I just got mine done a couple weeks ago as well. The clear overhead sheets they have you use do suck... but most seemed to have already written in the book. Oddly enough, on one of the questions, a prior person had circled the speed as it was written in mph in one of the performance charts, and it should have been in knots - so they definitely missed that one. Made me really go back and study the question again though - haha. I've got about one more review flight and it's check ride time. Mid-Late May is my guess. My DPE is having eye surgery this Thursday, so that'll give him time to recover and me time to study/do some of my own solo work, etc.

Good luck, finish strong!!
 
AndyMac so close man, you got a better idea yet when you’re gonna try to get it scheduled? My instructor is going out of town Wednesday, so if my ride were to go down this Thursday, I will be going in without her being there. We are meeting up tomorrow for a ground session to go over my flight plan, and going to try to fly Tuesday if the winds aren’t crazy. Really want to get this over with! Good luck 1000rr, hope you get your check ride done soon!


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No plan yet. My instructor is booked up this week but I’ll be watching his schedule for cancelations. I figure it’s probably prudent to wait until I’m actually qualified for it to schedule the checkride but I’m just crossing fingers the DPE isn’t too busy. Hard telling, not knowing.


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Canceled again. Lol, this is getting old.


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Shooting for this weekend. Weather is looking decent, plane is in for maintenance, but I’d like to get some flying in, so I’m going to do a dual flight on Thursday after work in a different 152 I’m reasonably comfortable in. My normal plane is supposed to be out of maintenance at 5pm on Friday so I’m going to schedule some solo time from 5-7 Friday. Hoping I can actually get a crack at it this weekend, I am sick of redoing my 2 page flight plan over and over again haha.


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Zeek said:
Shooting for this weekend. Weather is looking decent, plane is in for maintenance, but I’d like to get some flying in, so I’m going to do a dual flight on Thursday after work in a different 152 I’m reasonably comfortable in. My normal plane is supposed to be out of maintenance at 5pm on Friday so I’m going to schedule some solo time from 5-7 Friday. Hoping I can actually get a crack at it this weekend, I am sick of redoing my 2 page flight plan over and over again haha.


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Yeah. That sounds really annoying. Hope you get some good flying in Thursday and Friday!


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AndyMac said:
Yeah. That sounds really annoying. Hope you get some good flying in Thursday and Friday!


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Thanks man, if it happens I’ll let you know how it went, good bad or ugly.


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I’ll be honest, this checkride process has been really discouraging me. I was scheduled for this morning at 8am. The forecast looked good all week and yesterday it started showing dropping ceilings and increasing winds. It looked as though I would be delaying and redoing my flight plan for a 4th time. I talked to the DPE last night at 7, and we decided to try to go for it. He was coming from Madison, so he wasn’t thrilled with the idea of driving his car (his plane is down) 2 hours on back roads to give an oral.

When I woke up at 5, the TAF showed the ceilings would indeed be dropping and going to marginal VFR late this morning/early in the afternoon, the winds would pick up and there were showers in the area. The oral section started off fine, I was prepared with the maintenance logs and my personal documentation, so things were going according to plan as far as I was concerned. That all came to and end when he started asking me some hypothetical questions that got me so twisted up I was unsure of my own name. At one point, sensing my confusion, and tired of having me stumble on questions that I had already answered correctly earlier, he excused himself for a cup of coffee in an attempt to allow me to regather my composure. Just the break I needed!

We finished the oral and he asked me what the weather was doing, and if I would be comfortable attempting the flight portion if it was even possible to get up. At this point, I was ready to fly into the eye of a hurricane if it meant getting this thing done and over with. Feeling I had nothing to lose after my underwhelming oral portion, I said “let’s do it”.

There was a direct 10+ knot crosswind on the paved runways, and it began raining shortly after we started our flight. I was pretty dialed in, nailed my soft field takeoff and landings, made steep turns my b*tch, turned around thy point and felt like Sully during my simulated engine out. Nothing could stop me. And then it happened.

I came in for a landing and and bounced us off centerline in a rough, sloppy landing. He told me to drive the plane over to the tie downs. I taxied back in silence with my tail between my legs, shocked that after nailing my maneuvers, I had just blown it in the final stretch. I sheepishly parked the plane and killed the engine. The cockpit was silent. The DPE then turned to me, shook my hand and congratulated me on achieving my private pilot certificate! I couldn’t believe it. The day was finally here! He explained that while the last landing was not my best, it was still safe, he was satisfied with my overall performance, and I had earned my certificate. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to finally have this checkride in the rear view mirror.


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What a fricken story man, congratulations!! Nothing feels quite as good as nailing it in dodgy conditions, after (at least for me) feeling completely unable to keep the plane in the air in those conditions just 10hrs ago. I had a similar experience (without a DPE watching of course) just a few days ago - stuck the steep turns in gusty winds aloft, stuck the gusty direct crosswind landing with 6 other pilots in the pattern watching. NICE work.

I’m just starting down that road. I’ve just finished my requirements (finally, last week!) and am working on mock check rides this week. Should have a date for a first attempt for next week (in 8-14 days) this Friday. Enter the drama, however.

The plane I’ve been training on (a C150) is due for its 100hr in 7.3 tach hours. There are 4 CFIs that use it so it won’t make it through this week. So we were going to take it in last week until we found it needed a top overhaul and was supposed to take 6 weeks.

No problem - 1/3rd of my hours were in a c172 so i booked a handful of times this week in it to get reacquainted with it.

Well, today I got to cancel those reservations. Someone moved heaven and earth, got all the parts ready and have committed to having it ready by this Friday. So I’m ferrying it out tomorrow ($0!) and back on Friday. We also have two CFIs with their own 150s so I’m doing mock checkrides with them this week. All told, I’m pretty excited.


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Zeek said:
I’ll be honest, this checkride process has been really discouraging me.

I came in for a landing and and bounced us off centerline in a rough, sloppy landing. He told me to drive the plane over to the tie downs. I taxied back in silence with my tail between my legs, shocked that after nailing my maneuvers, I had just blown it in the final stretch. I sheepishly parked the plane and killed the engine. The cockpit was silent. The DPE then turned to me, shook my hand and congratulated me on achieving my private pilot certificate! I couldn’t believe it. The day was finally here! He explained that while the last landing was not my best, it was still safe, he was satisfied with my overall performance, and I had earned my certificate. I can’t tell you what a relief it is to finally have this checkride in the rear view mirror.


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Your DPE sounds like my CFI DPE last month. If he asked me a question, and I wasn't sure what he was asking, he'd rephrase it, just like you would for a student. I really had fun though with my examiner, we got along great.
 
Marshall Alexander said:
Your DPE sounds like my CFI DPE last month. If he asked me a question, and I wasn't sure what he was asking, he'd rephrase it, just like you would for a student. I really had fun though with my examiner, we got along great.
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That’s sounds like the best outcome. Hope I’m as lucky as you guys.


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Marshall Alexander said:
Your DPE sounds like my CFI DPE last month. If he asked me a question, and I wasn't sure what he was asking, he'd rephrase it, just like you would for a student. I really had fun though with my examiner, we got along great.
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I’ve heard that they aren’t out to fail you, but I really didn’t expect him to be as helpful as he was. I genuinely felt like he wanted me to pass. I was nervous and my brain completely short circuited. At that point I was thinking “just get me to the plane and I can make this happen, just got to get through this portion”.


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AndyMac said:
What a fricken story man, congratulations!! Nothing feels quite as good as nailing it in dodgy conditions, after (at least for me) feeling completely unable to keep the plane in the air in those conditions just 10hrs ago. I had a similar experience (without a DPE watching of course) just a few days ago - stuck the steep turns in gusty winds aloft, stuck the gusty direct crosswind landing with 6 other pilots in the pattern watching. NICE work.

I’m just starting down that road. I’ve just finished my requirements (finally, last week!) and am working on mock check rides this week. Should have a date for a first attempt for next week (in 8-14 days) this Friday. Enter the drama, however.

The plane I’ve been training on (a C150) is due for its 100hr in 7.3 tach hours. There are 4 CFIs that use it so it won’t make it through this week. So we were going to take it in last week until we found it needed a top overhaul and was supposed to take 6 weeks.

No problem - 1/3rd of my hours were in a c172 so i booked a handful of times this week in it to get reacquainted with it.

Well, today I got to cancel those reservations. Someone moved heaven and earth, got all the parts ready and have committed to having it ready by this Friday. So I’m ferrying it out tomorrow ($0!) and back on Friday. We also have two CFIs with their own 150s so I’m doing mock checkrides with them this week. All told, I’m pretty excited.


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That’s a lucky break! I didn’t know if my normal plane was going to get get out of annual until 12 hours before my ride. It was just another stressor that I didn’t want to focus on. I felt I could pull it off in the other one, but I’m glad it worked out the way it did. That’s awesome you are in the zone, confidence is everything. Just don’t get too hung up on it if you have a bad flight or two. A couple weeks ago I felt unstoppable, and had a couple of the best flights I’ve ever had. The last couple that I had with my CFI after having the other checkride dates canceled went much worse (relatively speaking) and my confidence was in the can. I questioned everything and thought I was in a slump. I’ve been told that it isn’t uncommon to have a less than perfect flight before the checkride so if it happens to you, don’t let it get in your head. If anything, I think those couple flights kept me on my toes, humbled me and made me hyper focus on the details. You’re going to crush it! Keep us informed, we’re all rooting for you!


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Zeek said:
Keep us informed, we’re all rooting for you!
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Thanks a lot Zeek. I have a date! June 1st, 9am. I ferried the plane back from maintenance yesterday at the end of the day and it’s running great. Top end overhaul, new magnetos, new mixture control, new exhaust stack, plus a fresh annual.

We’ll be ready lol. IMG_6017.jpg
IMG_6023.jpg
IMG_6016.jpg
IMG_6015.jpg


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