gitmo234
Line Up and Wait
So a lot of people chimed in on my busted check ride. Thanks to all who did. I wanted to post an update here on flying out in Colorado.
I was very apprehensive to fly out here after my busted check ride. I have a tight schedule due to academics. Writing papers, learning physics and engineering, rocket propulsion, etc. All interesting stuff but it's my first exposure so I spend a good bit of time studying. Plus it's not my airplane so I need to re-familiarize with their model, and I've never even flow above 5k feet. Here we're at 6500 or so.
I was apprehensive enough that I actually cancelled one flight. Today I said forget it and decided I was flying.
The school had me set up with their head instructor and owner. That's good because this place has a ton of airplanes and they're are virtually all booked solid all the time but given the circumstances they decided it was best to go with the head instructor.
We met, he sat me down and had me talk through the check ride I had, where I went wrong, what I felt wasnt right, etc. Based on that he didn't say much yet and just said he would validate with a mock check ride. We went up, I performed some maneuvers. Did a handful of landings and went in to have a chat.
His words paraphrased were "Everything was satisfactory, sounds like to me there was a personality conflict or you may have been jerked around. I see where you said you felt like you needed to tighten up the steep turns, we'll work on that, but I'm going to schedule you a check ride for early next week. Lets fly another time or two before then and I'll have a talk with the examiner and let her know what's going on, you'll do just fine".
My opinion on it.... well I was glad i was validated a bit.. I can fly an airplane. Second, this guy is really, really good. I did the maneuvers to PTS standard, but he showed me a few things to refine things to way beyond PTS.
I did a steep turn, he said "good but let me help you clean it up" and demonstrated it flawlessly. But in a manner that almost made me say "duh". Everything I did he refined to make it that much better.
I was nervous, he relaxed me quite a bit. I felt like my flying improved greatly in just 1.3 hours.
That being said: he swore up and down there was virtually no difference (other than ground roll) in flying at this altitude. I swear it felt different on final. That may just be an illusion because I'm used to flying with a huge sight picture in my 172 and this newer model has a smaller windshield.
I was very apprehensive to fly out here after my busted check ride. I have a tight schedule due to academics. Writing papers, learning physics and engineering, rocket propulsion, etc. All interesting stuff but it's my first exposure so I spend a good bit of time studying. Plus it's not my airplane so I need to re-familiarize with their model, and I've never even flow above 5k feet. Here we're at 6500 or so.
I was apprehensive enough that I actually cancelled one flight. Today I said forget it and decided I was flying.
The school had me set up with their head instructor and owner. That's good because this place has a ton of airplanes and they're are virtually all booked solid all the time but given the circumstances they decided it was best to go with the head instructor.
We met, he sat me down and had me talk through the check ride I had, where I went wrong, what I felt wasnt right, etc. Based on that he didn't say much yet and just said he would validate with a mock check ride. We went up, I performed some maneuvers. Did a handful of landings and went in to have a chat.
His words paraphrased were "Everything was satisfactory, sounds like to me there was a personality conflict or you may have been jerked around. I see where you said you felt like you needed to tighten up the steep turns, we'll work on that, but I'm going to schedule you a check ride for early next week. Lets fly another time or two before then and I'll have a talk with the examiner and let her know what's going on, you'll do just fine".
My opinion on it.... well I was glad i was validated a bit.. I can fly an airplane. Second, this guy is really, really good. I did the maneuvers to PTS standard, but he showed me a few things to refine things to way beyond PTS.
I did a steep turn, he said "good but let me help you clean it up" and demonstrated it flawlessly. But in a manner that almost made me say "duh". Everything I did he refined to make it that much better.
I was nervous, he relaxed me quite a bit. I felt like my flying improved greatly in just 1.3 hours.
That being said: he swore up and down there was virtually no difference (other than ground roll) in flying at this altitude. I swear it felt different on final. That may just be an illusion because I'm used to flying with a huge sight picture in my 172 and this newer model has a smaller windshield.
