ready2fly
Well-Known Member
R2F\'s CFII/MEI Rides
Okay... the rides:
First ride was the MEI. I cannot tell you how easy it was. Mainly because I was so friggin' prepared. The oral lasted - OH - about 45 minutes, and included me performing a w&b, takeoff and landing performance charts, TAS at 6000', ... that kind of stuff. Easy. There was not a question he asked that I did not have an immediate - and correct - answer to.
< note: the bravado comes from being prepared....overly so. I worked my tail off for these. >
Then, it was off to fly. Did a short-field takeoff, then stayed below a solid layer for about five minutes before finding a hole and going up to 6000'. There, we did all the maneuvers = steep turns, stalls, slow flight.... which is where Karma kicked in for my aforementioned bravado: In the set-up I... umm.... stalled the plane.
However, I informed him IMMEDIATELY that I had been too late (DUH!) bringing in the power to maintain altitude and had tried to correct by adding pitch (dumbass
). He said "Stan, that's a no-no."
So, I gave it another go and did two 90 degree turns with the stall-horn SCREAMIN'!!.. and no stall this time.
Then, we did the Vmc Demo, the Drag Demo, I "taught" steep turns while he flew.... followed by an emergency descent from 6000' to 1000' - WWWWEEEEEEEEE!!!
Then, he caught me off guard with a request to teach - of all things - S-turns across a road......in a multi-engine.
I obliged and taught him the hows and whys and what-to-do's. He seemed happy.
Went back and did a normal landing, a short-field landing - and a single-engine landing. ALL were the best I've done on any checkride to date!!
Broke for lunch .... with the D.E. (who was the guy who did my PPL rides) and learned a LOT about the man. NICE guy!! Has a TON of flying experience too! HE told me how he and a buddy once flew down to Havana, Cuba in a Tri-pacer. How freakin' cool is THAT????
Then, back for the II. This one, I was worried about.
The wx was not so great, but we headed south for SRQ to do the ILS because not only was the ILS at LAL shut down at FEMA's request (they have their trucks on RWY 5 and apparently got tired of being "buzzed" by airplanes doing the ILS
).. but, the other closest ILS was at BKV (Brooksville), and it, too was out of commission due to the storms.....so, it was off to SRQ which is 45 miles away.
The first one he let me do with both engines. I did an okay job. Flying instruments from the right with the guages on the left is not as easy as one would think... especially in a downpour....with strong winds... etc., etc., etc.... but that's why we fly on instruments, right? Right.
I'll stop whining.
Did a t&g and was vectored around for ILS #2 which was.... you guessed it ... single engine. He failed that sumbitch JUST as I was vectored onto final.
That one was ... well... ROUGH. Got about three dots BELOW the GS as I was recovering, and about a dot and a half to the right of the localizer.
Managed to get the LOC back to center, but stayed about a dot below GS on final.
I think the only thing that saved me was that I talked aloud and told him what I was doing wrong and what I was doing to correct it.
Saved the landing gear until the last possible minute... maybe too long... but they were three-green well before the threshold.
Did a t&g and then flew the published missed with a full hold. That went well dispite my setting everything up pretty close to crossing the fix.
Needless to say, I had gotten a bit flustered and was fighting to stay with it.
Finally, we were headed back to LAL. ON the way, did unusual attitudes. Those went fine.
For the remainder of the trip, I was partial panel. For whatever reason, PP came back to me like I had never taken a break and the comment he said to me upon landing was something I'll never forget:
"Stan, I saw some good things today. Your partial panel work was probably the best I've seen in some time."
Did the VOR for RWY 9 at LAL with a circle to land. Greased the landing to my surprise and great pleasure.. and taxiied on in....and I was done.
So... there it is.
OH - got a potential student today.... AND got to fly an SR-22.
More on that later.
I LOVE INSTRUCTING!!!
R2F
Okay... the rides:
First ride was the MEI. I cannot tell you how easy it was. Mainly because I was so friggin' prepared. The oral lasted - OH - about 45 minutes, and included me performing a w&b, takeoff and landing performance charts, TAS at 6000', ... that kind of stuff. Easy. There was not a question he asked that I did not have an immediate - and correct - answer to.
< note: the bravado comes from being prepared....overly so. I worked my tail off for these. >
Then, it was off to fly. Did a short-field takeoff, then stayed below a solid layer for about five minutes before finding a hole and going up to 6000'. There, we did all the maneuvers = steep turns, stalls, slow flight.... which is where Karma kicked in for my aforementioned bravado: In the set-up I... umm.... stalled the plane.
However, I informed him IMMEDIATELY that I had been too late (DUH!) bringing in the power to maintain altitude and had tried to correct by adding pitch (dumbass
So, I gave it another go and did two 90 degree turns with the stall-horn SCREAMIN'!!.. and no stall this time.
Then, we did the Vmc Demo, the Drag Demo, I "taught" steep turns while he flew.... followed by an emergency descent from 6000' to 1000' - WWWWEEEEEEEEE!!!
Then, he caught me off guard with a request to teach - of all things - S-turns across a road......in a multi-engine.
I obliged and taught him the hows and whys and what-to-do's. He seemed happy.
Went back and did a normal landing, a short-field landing - and a single-engine landing. ALL were the best I've done on any checkride to date!!
Broke for lunch .... with the D.E. (who was the guy who did my PPL rides) and learned a LOT about the man. NICE guy!! Has a TON of flying experience too! HE told me how he and a buddy once flew down to Havana, Cuba in a Tri-pacer. How freakin' cool is THAT????
Then, back for the II. This one, I was worried about.
The wx was not so great, but we headed south for SRQ to do the ILS because not only was the ILS at LAL shut down at FEMA's request (they have their trucks on RWY 5 and apparently got tired of being "buzzed" by airplanes doing the ILS
The first one he let me do with both engines. I did an okay job. Flying instruments from the right with the guages on the left is not as easy as one would think... especially in a downpour....with strong winds... etc., etc., etc.... but that's why we fly on instruments, right? Right.
I'll stop whining.
Did a t&g and was vectored around for ILS #2 which was.... you guessed it ... single engine. He failed that sumbitch JUST as I was vectored onto final.
That one was ... well... ROUGH. Got about three dots BELOW the GS as I was recovering, and about a dot and a half to the right of the localizer.
Managed to get the LOC back to center, but stayed about a dot below GS on final.
I think the only thing that saved me was that I talked aloud and told him what I was doing wrong and what I was doing to correct it.
Saved the landing gear until the last possible minute... maybe too long... but they were three-green well before the threshold.
Did a t&g and then flew the published missed with a full hold. That went well dispite my setting everything up pretty close to crossing the fix.
Needless to say, I had gotten a bit flustered and was fighting to stay with it.
Finally, we were headed back to LAL. ON the way, did unusual attitudes. Those went fine.
For the remainder of the trip, I was partial panel. For whatever reason, PP came back to me like I had never taken a break and the comment he said to me upon landing was something I'll never forget:
"Stan, I saw some good things today. Your partial panel work was probably the best I've seen in some time."
Did the VOR for RWY 9 at LAL with a circle to land. Greased the landing to my surprise and great pleasure.. and taxiied on in....and I was done.
So... there it is.
OH - got a potential student today.... AND got to fly an SR-22.
More on that later.
I LOVE INSTRUCTING!!!
R2F
