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June 02, 2008

18:51

Checkride, whew....

Well, today was the day. I started out at my normal time, 6:00 am, with a dog walk down in Oaks Bottom with the Orbit. Then back home to load up and get myself out to the airport for a 9:30 am start. When I got here I finished the flight plan by plugging in the numbers from the weather and looking over my practical test standards (PTS) one more time. The examiner showed up around 9:45 am and we headed up to the room. After several formalities he began by asking me what is a safe taxi speed. I responded with a non-standard answer but he agreed with my assessment yet corrected me with the "98%" answer, at the speed you can walk. The rest of the oral was moving along swimmingly until I got hung on an airspace question. The examiner helped me to tie myself into a knot then just pulled on the ends until impossibly to unravel. After some time spinning around the airspace questions we adjourned and took a lunch break. After lunch I preflighted and we went flying. He asked me a couple of questions about the airplane, what was the hatch door on the ft left of the cowling. I flailed and admitted I couldn't remember what was under it. He nailed me on that, saying I should know this airplane inside and out. Then he asked if you could take-off with no air in the ft wheel shock. Uh... I reasoned out that you could but landing would be problematic. He said you couldn't due to the risk of damaging the airframe, to which the ft wheel assembly is connected via the firewall. The rest of the flight went so-so, I had some problems, admitted that I screwed up and moved on. I am hard on myself so was fairly convinced that I blew it and started mentally preparing for the pink slip that I was sure I was going to be handed after we got back to the FBO. The FE de-briefed me and had me go over all the things I thought I screwed up. I listed them off as we went through them and for all but a couple he said I was within tolerances and showed that I understood that by admitting my issues as they happened. He also acknowledged how nervous I was and that he understood how difficult the process can be under pressure. He had a few words of wisdom and said I did very well on my oral and began filling out a white slip... I passed. I am now a FAA certified Private Pilot.

-- it is all relative

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Checkride, whew....

Tags: private Pilot certificate [edit]