aloft
New Member
Oral went very well, examiner went item-by-item down a checklist of some sort, much more detailed than the PTS. He hit basically everything in the PTS, asking a few questions from every area. He said he was impressed with how well-prepared I was, and that if the flying portion went like that, I was in great shape. It didn't.
We took off from Colorado Springs for the first leg of my planned cross-country, to the Pueblo VORTAC. He said I had to demonstrate computing my groundspeed, yet he let me use DME to measure the distance traveled while timing it on my watch, go figure. Guess he missed that the GPS was showing groundspeed too, I glanced at it and fudged the number by a few knots, and after reporting it to him, he gave me my divert, to the Air Force Academy's auxiliary field, "Bullseye"--which the PUB VOR rose conveniently pointed due North to, and which I dialed in on the HSI and flew straight to. He was all, "how'd you find that so easy?" All the while, I'm having a seriously difficult time maintaining altitude, which was to become the theme of the day.
Then we started the performance maneuvers. Chandelles went fine, no problems. So we moved on to stalls. Again, no problems. Then, on to Lazy 8's. This is where my day went awry.
Lesson Learned #1: sailplane pilots like hot days in mountainous areas for a reason, and that reason is thermal lift. When your task is to maintain altitude within 50 feet, hot days in mountainous areas are not your friend. Maintaining altitude within less than +/-150' was just not possible today.
Having practiced Lazy 8s quite a bit, I'm used to a 250-350 foot gain. On my first one, I glance at the altimeter at the first 90 degree point, and I've gained 600 feet. I'm thinking "WTF?!" No way I can descend that much without the airspeed going through the roof. I finish the first half of the maneuver about 250 ft high. On the 2nd half, performed exactly the same, I gain about 150 ft, and he complains that it's too flat. He lets me try it again, and I eek out a set he deems acceptable.
On to steep turns. I'm having a beetch of a time getting stabilized at maneuvering speed and on-altitude. I finally get it there, and roll into my first turn, only I've shot up 200 ft already, and he says he can't let that large of a deviation go, and that was that. I attempted to plead my case that maintaining +/- 50' just wasn't doable in those conditions, but he wasn't buying it. I asked if I attempt it once more, and he said he'd think about it, but I was to move on to slow flight and stalls. I slowed it down and again was seeing big, quick swings on the VSI and the second I passed 50 feet off altitude, he said "ok, we're done". I could continue or call it a day, but I was going home with a Notice of Disapproval instead of a temporary pilot certificate. I elect to continue, which turned out to be a mistake for reasons I'll explain later.
Went on to do power-off and power-on stalls, no problem. Steep spiral down to set up for a simulated forced landing, he said that was very good. Eights on pylons, my initial pylons were too far apart, he picked out a closer one for me, but no further problems there. So we head back to the airport for landings.
I had a tough time spotting the airport, had to rely on GPS to orient myself, and ended up on a dogleg-to-final for Runway 17L. Normal landing, no problem. Normal takeoff, again, no problem. Tower has me go right traffic, for a downwind between the parallel runways, right over the top of the terminal. Weird, I thought, but whatever. Just as I'm making my initial power reduction, they switch me to the other runway, so now I'm on a wide left downwind for 17R. Soft field landing followed by a soft field takeoff, again, no problemo. On downwind between runways again, tower switches me back to the other runway. Annoying, but whatever. Short field landing followed by short field takeoff, fine. First attempt at a power-off 180 doesn't happen, I initiate a go-around. On upwind, tower tells me to follow a Katana just entering the pattern. No problem, until they make an extended downwind and prevent me from attempting another 180. On downwind, surprise, tower switches me to the other runway once more (3rd time, for those counting). Again, I'm short and go around. Examiner says I've got one last chance at it, and I put it down at what he calls 250 feet long. By that point, I'm like, whatever, I'm so done with this. Oh, and the winds I was trying to do these in:
KCOS 161954Z 18007KT 130V220 10SM FEW100 33/00 A3017 RMK AO2 SLP105 T03280000
And did I mention the continual wind shear alerts from tower? Yeah....
Lesson Learned #2: widely shifting winds make for pretty tough power-off 180s.
So we taxi in, I get the plane fueled up and paid for, and meet him inside. He says everything was acceptable except for my steep turns, slow flight, and the power-off 180, and hands me my disapproved 8710 and IACRA-generated Notice of Disapproval. I'm thinking great, only three things to re-do. Then I look at the Notice. It says I am to be re-evaluated on:
IV. Takeoffs, landings and go-arounds
V. Performance Maneuvers
VIII. Slow flight and stalls
No credit for the soft/short fielders that went fine, no credit for the stalls that went fine, no credit for the Chandelles and Lazy 8s that went fine. In other words, I pretty much have to redo 80% of the checkride, even though only 3 elements were unsat. Shoulda ended the ride right when he said he couldn't let the steep turns go.
Lesson Learned #3: when it's clear you've busted the ride, end it. It's not salvageable, and in a demoralized state, your head's not going to be in it, so why waste the cash? Knock it off and come back fresh and ready to fight another day.
As you can tell, I'm still pretty pissed, but it's only been 6 hours. It sucks that it wasn't me just having an "off day"; I thought I flew pretty well, actually. Had the air just been a little smoother, I'm confident that I'd be celebrating right now. Yeah, I know that sounds like a cop-out but I just don't think that with that much thermal activity and general turbulence, that expecting adherence to +/- 50' is realistic--and the thing is, DPEs are supposed to be able to make a judgment call there, and he kept saying, "well, this is a commercial ride". DPEs should be honest enough to say "ya know, the air conditions are such that there's no way you'll pass today, let's reschedule." But when they have a financial stake, that's just not gonna happen.
Having thought about it, I won't be coming back to the same examiner for the re-check--and not because I'm not happy with today's outcome (and though he made it clear he's not a "big picture" type of DPE). I came over to Colo. Springs to do the ride because I had done most of my commercial training in a 182RG over in Salt Lake, but that airplane went down for maintenance just 4 days before I was to originally take this checkride back in May, and the owner elected to sell it rather than invest in the due engine overhaul. Being unable to find another Cessna retract for rent anywhere in Utah, I found this one here at COS and figured it'd be no problem to hop a flight over here and knock out the ride. Certainly, it'd be cheaper than getting checked out and proficient in an Arrow someplace...or so I thought. Even with buddy passes for the travel, after hotel and rental car expenses, it would've been a wash. So, I'm gonna go home and get checked out in an Arrow, and see if I can't get a re-check scheduled with a local examiner within the next few weeks.
We took off from Colorado Springs for the first leg of my planned cross-country, to the Pueblo VORTAC. He said I had to demonstrate computing my groundspeed, yet he let me use DME to measure the distance traveled while timing it on my watch, go figure. Guess he missed that the GPS was showing groundspeed too, I glanced at it and fudged the number by a few knots, and after reporting it to him, he gave me my divert, to the Air Force Academy's auxiliary field, "Bullseye"--which the PUB VOR rose conveniently pointed due North to, and which I dialed in on the HSI and flew straight to. He was all, "how'd you find that so easy?" All the while, I'm having a seriously difficult time maintaining altitude, which was to become the theme of the day.
Then we started the performance maneuvers. Chandelles went fine, no problems. So we moved on to stalls. Again, no problems. Then, on to Lazy 8's. This is where my day went awry.
Lesson Learned #1: sailplane pilots like hot days in mountainous areas for a reason, and that reason is thermal lift. When your task is to maintain altitude within 50 feet, hot days in mountainous areas are not your friend. Maintaining altitude within less than +/-150' was just not possible today.
Having practiced Lazy 8s quite a bit, I'm used to a 250-350 foot gain. On my first one, I glance at the altimeter at the first 90 degree point, and I've gained 600 feet. I'm thinking "WTF?!" No way I can descend that much without the airspeed going through the roof. I finish the first half of the maneuver about 250 ft high. On the 2nd half, performed exactly the same, I gain about 150 ft, and he complains that it's too flat. He lets me try it again, and I eek out a set he deems acceptable.
On to steep turns. I'm having a beetch of a time getting stabilized at maneuvering speed and on-altitude. I finally get it there, and roll into my first turn, only I've shot up 200 ft already, and he says he can't let that large of a deviation go, and that was that. I attempted to plead my case that maintaining +/- 50' just wasn't doable in those conditions, but he wasn't buying it. I asked if I attempt it once more, and he said he'd think about it, but I was to move on to slow flight and stalls. I slowed it down and again was seeing big, quick swings on the VSI and the second I passed 50 feet off altitude, he said "ok, we're done". I could continue or call it a day, but I was going home with a Notice of Disapproval instead of a temporary pilot certificate. I elect to continue, which turned out to be a mistake for reasons I'll explain later.
Went on to do power-off and power-on stalls, no problem. Steep spiral down to set up for a simulated forced landing, he said that was very good. Eights on pylons, my initial pylons were too far apart, he picked out a closer one for me, but no further problems there. So we head back to the airport for landings.
I had a tough time spotting the airport, had to rely on GPS to orient myself, and ended up on a dogleg-to-final for Runway 17L. Normal landing, no problem. Normal takeoff, again, no problem. Tower has me go right traffic, for a downwind between the parallel runways, right over the top of the terminal. Weird, I thought, but whatever. Just as I'm making my initial power reduction, they switch me to the other runway, so now I'm on a wide left downwind for 17R. Soft field landing followed by a soft field takeoff, again, no problemo. On downwind between runways again, tower switches me back to the other runway. Annoying, but whatever. Short field landing followed by short field takeoff, fine. First attempt at a power-off 180 doesn't happen, I initiate a go-around. On upwind, tower tells me to follow a Katana just entering the pattern. No problem, until they make an extended downwind and prevent me from attempting another 180. On downwind, surprise, tower switches me to the other runway once more (3rd time, for those counting). Again, I'm short and go around. Examiner says I've got one last chance at it, and I put it down at what he calls 250 feet long. By that point, I'm like, whatever, I'm so done with this. Oh, and the winds I was trying to do these in:
KCOS 161954Z 18007KT 130V220 10SM FEW100 33/00 A3017 RMK AO2 SLP105 T03280000
And did I mention the continual wind shear alerts from tower? Yeah....
Lesson Learned #2: widely shifting winds make for pretty tough power-off 180s.
So we taxi in, I get the plane fueled up and paid for, and meet him inside. He says everything was acceptable except for my steep turns, slow flight, and the power-off 180, and hands me my disapproved 8710 and IACRA-generated Notice of Disapproval. I'm thinking great, only three things to re-do. Then I look at the Notice. It says I am to be re-evaluated on:
IV. Takeoffs, landings and go-arounds
V. Performance Maneuvers
VIII. Slow flight and stalls
No credit for the soft/short fielders that went fine, no credit for the stalls that went fine, no credit for the Chandelles and Lazy 8s that went fine. In other words, I pretty much have to redo 80% of the checkride, even though only 3 elements were unsat. Shoulda ended the ride right when he said he couldn't let the steep turns go.
Lesson Learned #3: when it's clear you've busted the ride, end it. It's not salvageable, and in a demoralized state, your head's not going to be in it, so why waste the cash? Knock it off and come back fresh and ready to fight another day.
As you can tell, I'm still pretty pissed, but it's only been 6 hours. It sucks that it wasn't me just having an "off day"; I thought I flew pretty well, actually. Had the air just been a little smoother, I'm confident that I'd be celebrating right now. Yeah, I know that sounds like a cop-out but I just don't think that with that much thermal activity and general turbulence, that expecting adherence to +/- 50' is realistic--and the thing is, DPEs are supposed to be able to make a judgment call there, and he kept saying, "well, this is a commercial ride". DPEs should be honest enough to say "ya know, the air conditions are such that there's no way you'll pass today, let's reschedule." But when they have a financial stake, that's just not gonna happen.
Having thought about it, I won't be coming back to the same examiner for the re-check--and not because I'm not happy with today's outcome (and though he made it clear he's not a "big picture" type of DPE). I came over to Colo. Springs to do the ride because I had done most of my commercial training in a 182RG over in Salt Lake, but that airplane went down for maintenance just 4 days before I was to originally take this checkride back in May, and the owner elected to sell it rather than invest in the due engine overhaul. Being unable to find another Cessna retract for rent anywhere in Utah, I found this one here at COS and figured it'd be no problem to hop a flight over here and knock out the ride. Certainly, it'd be cheaper than getting checked out and proficient in an Arrow someplace...or so I thought. Even with buddy passes for the travel, after hotel and rental car expenses, it would've been a wash. So, I'm gonna go home and get checked out in an Arrow, and see if I can't get a re-check scheduled with a local examiner within the next few weeks.
