Yeah Baby.

[jsstevens]

Where in central Florida are you? I fly out of KORL.

 

[TylerSC]

Well damn. Started out for my ppl check ride today. I was nervous about the oral portion of it. I know the ground part pretty well but I do have brain cramps from time to time,im sure like everyone else. But I let it get to me. Well my nervousness was all for not. I hammered the oral portion, as the DPE told me I did great, I asked him if he saw anything I can do better. He then looked at me and said you didn't see me take many notes did you? No sir I said, he then said all I can say is get the airspace levels down and I'll do great. No problems, so now on to the flight section. Thanks to Mother Nature I called it off today due to rather high and gusty winds a lowish broken cloud layer and couple rain storms in the area. The clouds I can deal with since they were bkn 035 and winds of 17g26. So the winds were gonna make landings with a 20 to 40 deg crosswind . Yeah I know I have to learn to fly in all weather and winds but at this stage I have my limits set a bit high, and especially for a check ride. I will not set myself up for failure.

Sounds like a good move.

 

[Crane Pilot]

Congrats, enjoy some flying for a while, then go get that IR. A nice treat that I did between PPL and IR was take an intro aerobatics course, it was great fun, and the upset/spin training is helpful.

nope, there won't be any rest for me as I'm going straight into the IR portion. I'm gonna use the valuable resource which is my mother, who used to be a CFII as my safety pilot. I am gonna combine my cross country time with the actual or simulated time I need, this way I kill 2 birds with one stone and save money in the process. That way she can show me what I need to know for a portion of the required time then do the rest with a CFII to get the sign off for the check ride. Time is not on my side as I am working towards a final career with an airline. The aerobatics course sounds like fun, I might just have to put that on the list of to do things, when I get to a time building phase, as well as maybe going for a glider rating.

 

[Crane Pilot]

Where in central Florida are you? I fly out of KORL.

I fly out of KDED. I actually started my flying there at KORL in like '85 on the west ramp.

 

[jsstevens]

I fly out of KDED. I actually started my flying there at KORL in like '85 on the west ramp.

Dodging the meat missiles, eh?

I flew into KDED for lunch once. When I flew out, there were jumpers landing in the grass by the runway and I passed more while still over the runway on climb out. Boy I had my head on a swivel that day! Nice airport though.

 

[Crane Pilot]

Well the day has finally came and went for my instrument check ride. After 2 discontinuance for weather conflicts, of which had expired due to schedule conflicts and the loss of my mom( oldcfi) towards the end of January. Wait let me start at the begining this might be a bit long but ill try and keep it reasonable.
So I have been working on the instrument rating for a little too long as I took a little time off to care for my mom (oldcfi). I finally got back into it and knocked out the rest of prerequisites for the rating. So I had scheduled my check ride with the same DPE I had used for my PPL ,and a date was set for Dec 28 since I will be on vacation. Ok so the faitfull day arrives and of course I'm nervous as everyone usually is even though my instructor said ill do great and that in more prepared than any student he has sent for a check ride. I did great on the oral only missed a couple things that I brain farted on so we go look out at the weather and see a lowish cloud deck( below 3000) and decided to discontinue for another day. The next day was predicted to be a bit better, not perfect but good enough to finish the ride. I get to airport early preflight and set up my stuff and wait for the examiner. He gets there and we start the practical, I go through all the normal briefings and such ,taxi out and depart. While we are up doing the prescribed maneuvers per the ACS and a couple broken cloud decks roll in, one above us and one below us so that ends the flight. I find a gap to get under the clouds and make it back to the airport. So this starts discontinuance number 2. January is now here and no luck with rescheduling with my DPE , which is kindof ok as I'm taking care of my mom who's health is rapidly degrading. As I posted when she passed towards the end of January , that really rocked my world and never felt right about flying, my head just wasn't there. Now were into Febuary and still no luck scheduling my DPE. The last discontinuance expires on the 26th of Febuarary ,and it figures I can't schedule with my DPE now for reasons that are all on him only to find out too close to get it done with someone else so I'm screwed for paying another examiner full price. Fast forward to March. I find another DPE who can work with my schedule and set a date. So I go up my instructor for the 3 hr prep needed for the ride AGAIN!!!!!! Here I am on March 30th taking my instrument checkride. I meet the DPE and we talk for a few mins off the record, and I give him a brief rundown of my trials and tribulations ,and we talk about the clouds he informs me clouds or no clouds we will fly and my immediate response is I LOVE YOU MAN . Now comes the fun the oral portion. I do ok on most of it except for a bit on weather charts. He was impressed with my prep work for the xcountry he had me plan from printing out the weather to the approach plates and assorted other things that I keep paper copies of in addition to my EFB. Thanks to my mom drilling it into my head that redundancy is key. When I go on xcountrys I always have back ups, usually 3 of them. So I pass the oral we take a few min break and I go out and prep the plane. Now were up in the air and working through the ACS I do the approaches, ILS 7L followed by the LOC 7l at KDAB then on to the RNAV 17 full approach ( hold in liew of procedure turn) at KOMN. Well the ILS went ok I got behind the airplane for a bit but gathered it up and kept the needles no more that one dot off ( which is 1/2 dot more than my mom allowed) but considering I was in steady light to moderate turbulence the whole approach ill take it . Now for the LOC approach, everything was going great till I realized I forgot to start the timer . I imeadiatly told the examiner what I had forgot and told him I'm going around. I guess that saved me. So now on to the RNAV. En route to the fix he takes away the AI, damn DPE'S Things always fail when they are in the airplane. Shortly after the AI failed the DG failed maintaining straight and level going to the fix I enter the hold, start the timer for a teardrop entry and turn 30 degs off my course fly out bound then make the turn inbound to intercept the final approach course( all just using the mag compass and turn cordinator and altimeter). I fly the approach ok but get off on the CDI and corrected, fly it down to circling mins to do the RNAV 17 circle to 9. Do the circle approach to a missed then get to take off the foggles and go VFR back to KDED. I make it back to Deland and almost blow the landing . The approach was ok but was fast on short final. I ended up touching down kindof flat at about 65+- kts. So I was light and a bit bouncy till I pulled up the flaps and was able to slow down. Wasn't my best or worst landing but the aircraft is still in good shape to fly again lol. So by now if your still reading this your wondering if I passed or failed. I PASSED..... The moral of my story is no matter how many times you get a gut check or how many distractions or even how many times things go wrong. NEVER GIVE UP..... I'm so glad this thing is over. Now I get to go up in actual and practice what I have been taught, never stop learning . my next step is private multi engine with instrument.

 

[flyingron]

The fact that my instructor had gotten out of the plane was not lost on ATC. Turning crosswind they asked if it didn't fly better without the fat guy in the right seat.

 

[Lachlan]

Congrats. Your mother will always be with you, every single time you fly. What an amazing gift she gave you. Cherish it, and burn up lots and lots of avgas in her honor.

 

[Crane Pilot]

A new update although a bit late. I did take the private multi. But yet again I had a discontinuance for a mechanical issue. There is really no bigger of a wake-up call then the aircraft making a right hand turn when full power is applied for take-off. I did pass the oral with flying colors and was even congratulated on my in-depth knowledge of the systems. He had asked me what my weakest one was and I told him I really didn't know. So he picked the electrical system. It wasn't till after it was over that I told him I did 3 years of electronics studies in high school and am a self-taught mechanic lol. Needless to say, he couldn't stump me no matter what he asked. So anyway we rescheduled the ride for the next weekend. Did all the prerequisite checking of the logbooks and w&b and such. Go out to the plane and find 1 more hiccup to deal with. An expired GPS program on the 530. Let the shop know and 10 min we were off. At first, everything is going like crap. I just can't settle down and not try and rush everything. Well, I finally did and all started to flow like butter until we did the precautionary shutdown and restart. That damn engine just did not want to restart. After about 10 minutes or so (seemed a lot longer) I finally got it restarted and continued on to the last part of the ride, the single-engine approach both under the hood and with both eyes. Oddly enough my approach under the hood was better than my normal approach. Lol go figure. So to finish I passed the checkride and I was so proud of myself. I just wish my mom (oldcfi) was there to see it. I did have her ATP certificate in my shirt pocket the whole time. So now i am a private ASEL, AMEL with instrument. Commercial single and multi next up.

 

[woodchucker]

Well just completed the x-country requirement for my ppl. For the last .2 remaining needed yes your seeing it right 2 tenths lol, i did 2.3 from KSFB- KSGJ-KSFB. So i count that as 2.1 towards my instrument requirement. It was a beautiful day to be up flying. calm winds and cool air , well at least at 3500' and 4500'. I shocked myself with my approach to rwy 31 at KSGJ and even more so on my greased landing with a bit of a cross wind, that i almost forgot what to do once on the ground lol. So now on to the last requirement of the hood work. I still lack 2 hrs there. Im almost there.

Lol. I remember missing my total XC time requirement by 0.1 and decided to just go back and requested a lap around the pattern.