USMC-SSGT
Well-Known Member
After five weeks I finally finished my PMEL addon on Friday and figured as per JC protocol would give everyone a rundown.
first the leadup
I say "finally" because I had allotted 6 hours per week to fly and I had planned on finishing in three weeks but.....I started part 141 and after my first three flights was ready for my stagecheck on flt 4. Come to find out they told me it would be a week before I could do that so I would be grounded. I wait the week and come to find out they meant 3 weeks not one ARHHGGG! Ok screw it, part 61 here I come, I start flying and finish all of the required work and schedule my checkride, oh great....the plane has 6 hours till 100hr. I fly all the way through the day before my checkride and the instructor wants one more flight to prepare, the plane only had 2 hrs left at that time so checkride scratched, no biggie, the plane is only going down for 2 days. 8 Days later I am back in the air and scheduled the ride for Friday. I take my mock checkride the day before the actual and find the alternators are not working correctly, they ground my plane for the weekend...what now? I call another FBO at the airport that I know has a duchess and ask if I can take my checkride in their plane with my instructors endorsements and they say if I can get a checkout than fine. After some wheeling and dealing I take my checkout at noon in their plane and land at 1:30 a half hour late for my checkride (the dpe was aware that the checkout would run late and was ok with it beforehand) Glad I did the checkout though because that plane behaved differently. On shortfield landings in this plane (unlike mine) you had to pull power to idle well before the threshold and land it just like a cessna with a flare, in mine if you cut the power before the threshold you would lose lift and land before the runway. I believe it was airspeed discrepencies this plane indicated lower than actual. Ok enough of all that stuff, you know the deal and the plane now onto the ride.
The oral-
Oral started at 1:30 and lasted a little over two hours total. It was basic in some points and I was glad that since my commercial is next i studied to the commercial level. He asked simple things like "what will the prop do if you lose oil pressure?" I was prepared to pull out a diagram and explain every small piece of the system for all of the systems but that was just not necessary. He asked slightly obscure questions that there was no real way to study for example "explain every step to turn on the cabin heat, with the engines off before a flight" it was more tricker than you would think and involves aux power and setting all of your vents and blowers before turning on the heater or it would trip an overheat breaker which is inaccesible. Alot of other questions were situation ordered instead of out of the books. Alot of great examples and stories though as he had 25,000 hours of which 4000 of that is turbo prop PIC and another 7000 of piston twin PIC so he had seen alot and done alot. Other than that it was basic, just show him the performance calculations, explain a few factors of vmc and critical engine and of course beforehand my certificate, id, medical and the airplane logs. All in all it was a great oral and i was well prepared and he had no problems that were worth mentioning so I was pleased.
The flight-
Went out to preflight at 3:45 and he just sat back and mostly watched from a distance only coming in to ask a few questions, heater inlet, heater exhaust, oil requirements and levels, the battery vents and a few other basic questions, I talked through the whole preflight as if i was teaching it to him so I think that helped avoid extra questions because i verbalized every thing I did. He was, he not looking for a passenger brief because he said it was covered in PSEL although I offered it to cover my own end. The startup and taxi was uneventful and I went right from the checklist item by item which was very thorough so I had no questions. Did the run-up and pre-takeoff brief the usual "any fire, failure or critical engine abnormalities etc etc". Normal takeoff and headed out to the practice area, he had me climb to 5,500 and had no questions along the way. Got to the practice area and just said, give me a steep turn. Word of advice and I was warned on it, they will not tell you to clear the area, however you will likely fail if you did not do it. I cleared the area and did my pre-maneuver flow. I picked a point and did a steep turn to the left, probably my worst ever, I fluctuated all the way to 110' at one point and rolled out 10 degrees off, I dont know what came over me but he said nothing and I brushed it off and went to the right. My turn to the right restored faith, I was within 10' the entire down and plus or minus 3 degrees on the rollout heading...phew. Next he had me setup for slowflight and he had picked the airspeed he wanted and threw a few headings at me, instead of cleaning up he asked for a power off stall. None of the manuevers so far were of any issue. After cleaning up I did a left turning power on stall and it didnt want to break so I had to give it a good pull and got a good break off of it but recovered fine. Next we did a VMC demo and he wanted to see an actual loss of control instead of just a buffet or stall horn. That went fine although he asked that I reduce more power (it says reduce power as necessary to regain control, which I did) I could see his point though to be safe than sorry and was glad for the suggestion, not a hit on me but a heads up. At that point he pulled my right engine and he had briefed beforehand to on my own go through all the steps to feather, secure and then immediately restart. I went off of memory, and backed up by the checklist and he had no problems except that when I hit the 100 knots to windmill the prop to hold the 100 and not accelerate any more to maintain as much alt as possible. After that I did an emergency descent with my gear cct breaker pulled and did the manual extension. He had me land at a local airport in a short field and at 5 feet agl had me go around, on the go around he pulled my engine and I was pulling aroung 400 fpm on one engine with other in zero thrust that I made the pattern alt no problem. I was very high because of the climb rate so with full power on good engine I opted for flaps and gear down to get me down to land. This airplane did not want to go down so I even reduced power on good engine and managed to finally get it on the first 1/8th just as I was closing the throttle on the good engine. Taxid back and did a short field takeoff with engine cut on the roll well below vmc, no problem there and took off back towards my home airfield. Called into tower and was given straight in for a short field with crosswind correction (for a crosswind that wasnt there) after he was happy with the correction i straightened out and pulled all power before threshold (stupid plane) and landed it like a 152 10 feet past my point.
Total it was a 1.3 flight and I was done a little after 5pm. Great experience and now I start my commercial today.
first the leadup
I say "finally" because I had allotted 6 hours per week to fly and I had planned on finishing in three weeks but.....I started part 141 and after my first three flights was ready for my stagecheck on flt 4. Come to find out they told me it would be a week before I could do that so I would be grounded. I wait the week and come to find out they meant 3 weeks not one ARHHGGG! Ok screw it, part 61 here I come, I start flying and finish all of the required work and schedule my checkride, oh great....the plane has 6 hours till 100hr. I fly all the way through the day before my checkride and the instructor wants one more flight to prepare, the plane only had 2 hrs left at that time so checkride scratched, no biggie, the plane is only going down for 2 days. 8 Days later I am back in the air and scheduled the ride for Friday. I take my mock checkride the day before the actual and find the alternators are not working correctly, they ground my plane for the weekend...what now? I call another FBO at the airport that I know has a duchess and ask if I can take my checkride in their plane with my instructors endorsements and they say if I can get a checkout than fine. After some wheeling and dealing I take my checkout at noon in their plane and land at 1:30 a half hour late for my checkride (the dpe was aware that the checkout would run late and was ok with it beforehand) Glad I did the checkout though because that plane behaved differently. On shortfield landings in this plane (unlike mine) you had to pull power to idle well before the threshold and land it just like a cessna with a flare, in mine if you cut the power before the threshold you would lose lift and land before the runway. I believe it was airspeed discrepencies this plane indicated lower than actual. Ok enough of all that stuff, you know the deal and the plane now onto the ride.
The oral-
Oral started at 1:30 and lasted a little over two hours total. It was basic in some points and I was glad that since my commercial is next i studied to the commercial level. He asked simple things like "what will the prop do if you lose oil pressure?" I was prepared to pull out a diagram and explain every small piece of the system for all of the systems but that was just not necessary. He asked slightly obscure questions that there was no real way to study for example "explain every step to turn on the cabin heat, with the engines off before a flight" it was more tricker than you would think and involves aux power and setting all of your vents and blowers before turning on the heater or it would trip an overheat breaker which is inaccesible. Alot of other questions were situation ordered instead of out of the books. Alot of great examples and stories though as he had 25,000 hours of which 4000 of that is turbo prop PIC and another 7000 of piston twin PIC so he had seen alot and done alot. Other than that it was basic, just show him the performance calculations, explain a few factors of vmc and critical engine and of course beforehand my certificate, id, medical and the airplane logs. All in all it was a great oral and i was well prepared and he had no problems that were worth mentioning so I was pleased.
The flight-
Went out to preflight at 3:45 and he just sat back and mostly watched from a distance only coming in to ask a few questions, heater inlet, heater exhaust, oil requirements and levels, the battery vents and a few other basic questions, I talked through the whole preflight as if i was teaching it to him so I think that helped avoid extra questions because i verbalized every thing I did. He was, he not looking for a passenger brief because he said it was covered in PSEL although I offered it to cover my own end. The startup and taxi was uneventful and I went right from the checklist item by item which was very thorough so I had no questions. Did the run-up and pre-takeoff brief the usual "any fire, failure or critical engine abnormalities etc etc". Normal takeoff and headed out to the practice area, he had me climb to 5,500 and had no questions along the way. Got to the practice area and just said, give me a steep turn. Word of advice and I was warned on it, they will not tell you to clear the area, however you will likely fail if you did not do it. I cleared the area and did my pre-maneuver flow. I picked a point and did a steep turn to the left, probably my worst ever, I fluctuated all the way to 110' at one point and rolled out 10 degrees off, I dont know what came over me but he said nothing and I brushed it off and went to the right. My turn to the right restored faith, I was within 10' the entire down and plus or minus 3 degrees on the rollout heading...phew. Next he had me setup for slowflight and he had picked the airspeed he wanted and threw a few headings at me, instead of cleaning up he asked for a power off stall. None of the manuevers so far were of any issue. After cleaning up I did a left turning power on stall and it didnt want to break so I had to give it a good pull and got a good break off of it but recovered fine. Next we did a VMC demo and he wanted to see an actual loss of control instead of just a buffet or stall horn. That went fine although he asked that I reduce more power (it says reduce power as necessary to regain control, which I did) I could see his point though to be safe than sorry and was glad for the suggestion, not a hit on me but a heads up. At that point he pulled my right engine and he had briefed beforehand to on my own go through all the steps to feather, secure and then immediately restart. I went off of memory, and backed up by the checklist and he had no problems except that when I hit the 100 knots to windmill the prop to hold the 100 and not accelerate any more to maintain as much alt as possible. After that I did an emergency descent with my gear cct breaker pulled and did the manual extension. He had me land at a local airport in a short field and at 5 feet agl had me go around, on the go around he pulled my engine and I was pulling aroung 400 fpm on one engine with other in zero thrust that I made the pattern alt no problem. I was very high because of the climb rate so with full power on good engine I opted for flaps and gear down to get me down to land. This airplane did not want to go down so I even reduced power on good engine and managed to finally get it on the first 1/8th just as I was closing the throttle on the good engine. Taxid back and did a short field takeoff with engine cut on the roll well below vmc, no problem there and took off back towards my home airfield. Called into tower and was given straight in for a short field with crosswind correction (for a crosswind that wasnt there) after he was happy with the correction i straightened out and pulled all power before threshold (stupid plane) and landed it like a 152 10 feet past my point.
Total it was a 1.3 flight and I was done a little after 5pm. Great experience and now I start my commercial today.
