Tristar
Pattern Altitude
I can't believe it!! After all of this time I'm finally a step in the door as a corporate pilot!! This is what I've been working towards my entire life! So here's the story...
For months I had been hearing rumors that the local FBO was thinking about hiring SICs to fly right seat in their King Air 90s. Yes, I know, 90s don't require an SIC. They've gotten a lot of complaints and even threats to take their business elsewhere unless they had another pilot on board. So finally they broke down, changed company requirements, and started looking around for pilots. I was proud to be told I was on the list and even some of the pilots were pulling for me. I asked the company manager the other day why he chose me among all the other pilots out there. He told me, "I've watched you over the past year and I like the professionalism and personality you show to your clients. That's what I want in my company. Anyone can fly a plane." (Guys and gals, it’s not all about flight time!) So as of these last two months through the cobweb of scheduling time with them along with my students, we were able to find enough flight time and personal study time to devote to King Air training. The paperwork was done yesterday and checkride scheduled for today...welp, here goes nothing!
This morning I was naturally a little nervous, there are so many things I still felt like I wanted to learn. I have 7 hours in the King Air and feel like I've only scratched the surface. Going from turns around a point in a Cessna 172 to shooting ILS approaches in a King Air and trying not to over-torque the thing on takeoff was the biggest hill to overcome.
I arrived at the airport this morning and talked with the chief pilot who would "technically" be the PIC but my back up and checklist reader for the day. I stared at the sky....sigh, wx: 1400 OVC and 2.5 mile vis with light mist/showers. I called the tower to see where the tops were and an aircraft reported tops at 5,000. Okay, maybe we can climb on top to do the VFR (hood) work. I'm already nervous but to add questionable and dropping weather conditions just added to it but for some reason, I wasn't nervous enough to out rule the flight. I went ahead and preflight trusty 5AA and would talk to my examiner when he got here.
He showed up at 8:30 and all three of us talked about the weather situation. Basically what it came down to was, "Are you comfortable shooting an ILS in the soup with a simulated engine failure?" "Welp might as well give it a shot, sounds like fun!" Okay then! The oral commenced.
The examiner asked me about how the fuel system works such as what happens if you have a high press pump failure, how the electrical system works, gear system, pressurization system, and from there we told a bunch of war stories. We were done in about 45 minutes. He told me I did really well on the oral. In my opinion it was incredibly easy...or as the other guys put it, "naa you were just prepared!" ...I'll go with the second! After that, we headed to the airplane!
I sat down across from the examiner in the cabin and gave him a briefing about the oxygen system, how the door works, where the emergency exit is, seatbelts, and chairs. He was happy with that, "yep, I'm briefed! I won’t open doors unless I need to!" LOL I appreciate that..
The examiner gave my pilot a list of things he wanted to do to me...err with me. We talked about that briefly. We were going to file for a local IFR block practice area on top for our air work and then 3 approaches including a normal VOR, and ILS to a full stop, and a single engine ILS. We started up and taxied getting our clearance, commenced a run up with everything looking normal and I took off heading north. We were in the soup in a matter of seconds but quickly popped out on top at 6,000. My first objective was unusual attitudes. Those went great but I do those with my students. The next thing was partial panel. My attitude was covered up and asked to do a 360 degree turn. My nerves finally caught up with me and I lost a ton of altitude. I knew I messed up and asked to try that one more time. (I learned later the examiner didn’t even realize until I said something because he had his head down in the back doing paperwork. Me and my big mouth!) The second one went perfect though. Just a little tap with fingertips when your nervous and the plane takes you around. I also had a simulated engine failure which, other than a momentary concentration on the situation instead of my heading, I passed. Fly the plane!...got it...lesson learned...didn't happen again. "Okay, let’s go do some approaches." It will be vectors to all of the approaches which makes it easier and really that’s what you'll do the majority of the time in real life too. My VOR 17 approach went pretty well. I was even able to call for checklists and ask to have the approach briefed in a timely manner. The only glitch was mother nature decided to throw in a strong crosswind but I tackled it and found the runway. We went missed with vectors to an ILS 36. That went equally as well and I followed the needles down to a full stop on the runway. After that we taxied back for takeoff. During takeoff, I lost my left engine at 500 AGL. I simultaneously secured it, turned to my assigned heading and when we had a break in the radio calls, asked for the emergency checklist and I set up the approach with the GPS once again as a situational awareness aid as well as confirming all the radios were still set for the same ILS. Departure gave us a very tight vector with such a strong crosswind so when they said to keep it tight, they weren't kidding! Thankfully my rate of turn worked out perfectly and needles lined up. I think that was a little bit of luck along with skill. I once again followed the needles down and got the checklists and gear down as well as called for flaps at just the right moments. "Airport in sight, you can take your hood off." I'm telling you...you've never seen a prettier sight than a runway on your last approach on a checkride! All I had to do was land it!! I went to pull back the throttles and one thing you have to remember is one of two things, subtract rudder trim that you added because of the "dead" engine or just add rudder with your foot. The second sounded easier. So as I pulled power back on my "good" engine, I added rudder pressure as well. The mains squeaked...and then the nose on centerline...put it in reverse thrust..and we were on the ground!! The only thing I could think as we were taxiing back is, "well there were a few little things that I want to work on, but my approaches went okay...we are on the ground on the right runway in one piece, I think I did okay!
We shut down and I turned around and talked with the examiner. "Well, there are a few little things we'll talk about but I'm satisfied." What a huge sigh of relief! We walked inside and he briefed me over the things to improve on which are things I knew I needed but I agreed with him with the fact I think I did pretty well over all especially considering my first IFR experience in the King air was on a checkride. He said I handled the plane very well, shook my hand and said, "Congratulations!"
So now I'm a very happy right seat King Air 90 driver! My first trip is on Monday to Lexington, NE and Cambridge, NE to drop a heart doctor off for the afternoon. ETD 7:45 am.
So tonight I'm celebrating by...not studying!
For months I had been hearing rumors that the local FBO was thinking about hiring SICs to fly right seat in their King Air 90s. Yes, I know, 90s don't require an SIC. They've gotten a lot of complaints and even threats to take their business elsewhere unless they had another pilot on board. So finally they broke down, changed company requirements, and started looking around for pilots. I was proud to be told I was on the list and even some of the pilots were pulling for me. I asked the company manager the other day why he chose me among all the other pilots out there. He told me, "I've watched you over the past year and I like the professionalism and personality you show to your clients. That's what I want in my company. Anyone can fly a plane." (Guys and gals, it’s not all about flight time!) So as of these last two months through the cobweb of scheduling time with them along with my students, we were able to find enough flight time and personal study time to devote to King Air training. The paperwork was done yesterday and checkride scheduled for today...welp, here goes nothing!
This morning I was naturally a little nervous, there are so many things I still felt like I wanted to learn. I have 7 hours in the King Air and feel like I've only scratched the surface. Going from turns around a point in a Cessna 172 to shooting ILS approaches in a King Air and trying not to over-torque the thing on takeoff was the biggest hill to overcome.
I arrived at the airport this morning and talked with the chief pilot who would "technically" be the PIC but my back up and checklist reader for the day. I stared at the sky....sigh, wx: 1400 OVC and 2.5 mile vis with light mist/showers. I called the tower to see where the tops were and an aircraft reported tops at 5,000. Okay, maybe we can climb on top to do the VFR (hood) work. I'm already nervous but to add questionable and dropping weather conditions just added to it but for some reason, I wasn't nervous enough to out rule the flight. I went ahead and preflight trusty 5AA and would talk to my examiner when he got here.
He showed up at 8:30 and all three of us talked about the weather situation. Basically what it came down to was, "Are you comfortable shooting an ILS in the soup with a simulated engine failure?" "Welp might as well give it a shot, sounds like fun!" Okay then! The oral commenced.
The examiner asked me about how the fuel system works such as what happens if you have a high press pump failure, how the electrical system works, gear system, pressurization system, and from there we told a bunch of war stories. We were done in about 45 minutes. He told me I did really well on the oral. In my opinion it was incredibly easy...or as the other guys put it, "naa you were just prepared!" ...I'll go with the second! After that, we headed to the airplane!
I sat down across from the examiner in the cabin and gave him a briefing about the oxygen system, how the door works, where the emergency exit is, seatbelts, and chairs. He was happy with that, "yep, I'm briefed! I won’t open doors unless I need to!" LOL I appreciate that..
The examiner gave my pilot a list of things he wanted to do to me...err with me. We talked about that briefly. We were going to file for a local IFR block practice area on top for our air work and then 3 approaches including a normal VOR, and ILS to a full stop, and a single engine ILS. We started up and taxied getting our clearance, commenced a run up with everything looking normal and I took off heading north. We were in the soup in a matter of seconds but quickly popped out on top at 6,000. My first objective was unusual attitudes. Those went great but I do those with my students. The next thing was partial panel. My attitude was covered up and asked to do a 360 degree turn. My nerves finally caught up with me and I lost a ton of altitude. I knew I messed up and asked to try that one more time. (I learned later the examiner didn’t even realize until I said something because he had his head down in the back doing paperwork. Me and my big mouth!) The second one went perfect though. Just a little tap with fingertips when your nervous and the plane takes you around. I also had a simulated engine failure which, other than a momentary concentration on the situation instead of my heading, I passed. Fly the plane!...got it...lesson learned...didn't happen again. "Okay, let’s go do some approaches." It will be vectors to all of the approaches which makes it easier and really that’s what you'll do the majority of the time in real life too. My VOR 17 approach went pretty well. I was even able to call for checklists and ask to have the approach briefed in a timely manner. The only glitch was mother nature decided to throw in a strong crosswind but I tackled it and found the runway. We went missed with vectors to an ILS 36. That went equally as well and I followed the needles down to a full stop on the runway. After that we taxied back for takeoff. During takeoff, I lost my left engine at 500 AGL. I simultaneously secured it, turned to my assigned heading and when we had a break in the radio calls, asked for the emergency checklist and I set up the approach with the GPS once again as a situational awareness aid as well as confirming all the radios were still set for the same ILS. Departure gave us a very tight vector with such a strong crosswind so when they said to keep it tight, they weren't kidding! Thankfully my rate of turn worked out perfectly and needles lined up. I think that was a little bit of luck along with skill. I once again followed the needles down and got the checklists and gear down as well as called for flaps at just the right moments. "Airport in sight, you can take your hood off." I'm telling you...you've never seen a prettier sight than a runway on your last approach on a checkride! All I had to do was land it!! I went to pull back the throttles and one thing you have to remember is one of two things, subtract rudder trim that you added because of the "dead" engine or just add rudder with your foot. The second sounded easier. So as I pulled power back on my "good" engine, I added rudder pressure as well. The mains squeaked...and then the nose on centerline...put it in reverse thrust..and we were on the ground!! The only thing I could think as we were taxiing back is, "well there were a few little things that I want to work on, but my approaches went okay...we are on the ground on the right runway in one piece, I think I did okay!
We shut down and I turned around and talked with the examiner. "Well, there are a few little things we'll talk about but I'm satisfied." What a huge sigh of relief! We walked inside and he briefed me over the things to improve on which are things I knew I needed but I agreed with him with the fact I think I did pretty well over all especially considering my first IFR experience in the King air was on a checkride. He said I handled the plane very well, shook my hand and said, "Congratulations!"
So now I'm a very happy right seat King Air 90 driver! My first trip is on Monday to Lexington, NE and Cambridge, NE to drop a heart doctor off for the afternoon. ETD 7:45 am.
So tonight I'm celebrating by...not studying!
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