caliginousface
Frank N. Beans
Hi all,
Been a long time since I've posted anything meaningful, but I figured I could at least pass on some recent checkride experience.
First, I am not blaming anyone but myself for accidentally let my CFI cert expire. I have been out of the game for the most part for about 3-4 years, but had renewed twice before using American Flyers. Never received anything from AF or from FAA about expiration, so I figured ah must be next year...wrong.
I missed renewal by a week by the time I figured it out, so had to go with reinstatement, and figured sooner was better than later to get refreshed and reinstated. Since I had my -II and MEI, I decided to use the II as the reinstatement checkride to get inst current and competent again. I was given about 6 hours of dual in a C172 with a GTN650 with which I had little experience compared to the 430/530, but it was straight forward after playing with it, and reading up.
Checkride
Arrived at the checkride airport after a really pleasant departure and sunrise flight. We got through intro's, how stupid I was for letting expiry happen, and then discussed how the ride would go, ACS vs PTS, plan of action etc. Got into a/c MX and then continued through the applicable PTS items for the II ride.
Most of the questions were scenario based, but bringing up 91.175, 91.185 and others during the questions on charts, symbology, etc. Some of oral became discussion, with him asking how I could do things differently, and me asking some feedback on how to be more effective. It was fairly relaxed, but not necessarily filled with soft questions.
Toward the end of the oral, we talked about what we would be doing in flight, so I needed to teach these items now on the ground before we left, which was an unpublished 10 DME arc onto the ILS. This went fairly well, drawing out radials, talking about wind and how it affect the arc and headings required to stay on the arc.
Once in the plane, we took off, performed steep turns and unusual attitudes, then navigated for the arc while getting set up for the ILS. The arc went great as well as the rest of the approach, obviously lots of talking to avoid any issues. We went missed for the published hold with a couple turns talking about timing, then proceeded to the RNAV approach back to the departure airport that would be a circle to land. This went fine, I didn't brief the turn at the FAF, so he mentioned not all new inst pilots will know that this can happen, and that it should it have been briefed out loud. In an effort not blow minimums on this ride, I gave myself 50-100ft buffer (without briefing him), he pointed out after landing that I was pushing my PTS limits by doing so.
In the end I passed and was obviously extremely relieved. I thought my time away from flying would have put me way further behind than I was, so that was awesome to see that I haven't degraded too terribly yet.
No idea what I'll be doing with flying now, besides some very very part time instruction, ~1900 TT, ATP-ME.
Been a long time since I've posted anything meaningful, but I figured I could at least pass on some recent checkride experience.
First, I am not blaming anyone but myself for accidentally let my CFI cert expire. I have been out of the game for the most part for about 3-4 years, but had renewed twice before using American Flyers. Never received anything from AF or from FAA about expiration, so I figured ah must be next year...wrong.
I missed renewal by a week by the time I figured it out, so had to go with reinstatement, and figured sooner was better than later to get refreshed and reinstated. Since I had my -II and MEI, I decided to use the II as the reinstatement checkride to get inst current and competent again. I was given about 6 hours of dual in a C172 with a GTN650 with which I had little experience compared to the 430/530, but it was straight forward after playing with it, and reading up.
Checkride
Arrived at the checkride airport after a really pleasant departure and sunrise flight. We got through intro's, how stupid I was for letting expiry happen, and then discussed how the ride would go, ACS vs PTS, plan of action etc. Got into a/c MX and then continued through the applicable PTS items for the II ride.
Most of the questions were scenario based, but bringing up 91.175, 91.185 and others during the questions on charts, symbology, etc. Some of oral became discussion, with him asking how I could do things differently, and me asking some feedback on how to be more effective. It was fairly relaxed, but not necessarily filled with soft questions.
Toward the end of the oral, we talked about what we would be doing in flight, so I needed to teach these items now on the ground before we left, which was an unpublished 10 DME arc onto the ILS. This went fairly well, drawing out radials, talking about wind and how it affect the arc and headings required to stay on the arc.
Once in the plane, we took off, performed steep turns and unusual attitudes, then navigated for the arc while getting set up for the ILS. The arc went great as well as the rest of the approach, obviously lots of talking to avoid any issues. We went missed for the published hold with a couple turns talking about timing, then proceeded to the RNAV approach back to the departure airport that would be a circle to land. This went fine, I didn't brief the turn at the FAF, so he mentioned not all new inst pilots will know that this can happen, and that it should it have been briefed out loud. In an effort not blow minimums on this ride, I gave myself 50-100ft buffer (without briefing him), he pointed out after landing that I was pushing my PTS limits by doing so.
In the end I passed and was obviously extremely relieved. I thought my time away from flying would have put me way further behind than I was, so that was awesome to see that I haven't degraded too terribly yet.
No idea what I'll be doing with flying now, besides some very very part time instruction, ~1900 TT, ATP-ME.
