Author: dale

My check ride was scheduled for 0800 this morning.  I was up at 6, ready to go at 7… and saw I had missed a call on my cell from the DPE.  I called him back and he told me we’d have an extra passenger, an FAA guy would be doing his review of the DPE today.  No problem, he says, don’t worry, it won’t make any difference in what we do (yeah, right) but I should plan for an additional 190 pounds in the rear seats.  AWOS said 67 degrees, winds calm, it was absolutely perfect weather for flying.  I knew that would change by the time we flew, and I was right.

Ha.  Not bloody likely.  With Mr. DPE and I and 38 gallons of the finest blue Avgas available, we’re not going to squeeze an FAA guy in the back seat unless everyone can shed about 25 pounds each.  Now, I could stand to lose it all, but given the circumstances I told the DPE that the FAA guy was going to have to find another ride, we couldn’t take him.  No problem.  But why does the FAA seem to have this irresistible attraction to me anyway?  I bloody well got ramp checked a couple of weeks ago!  Pretty soon I’m going to start taking this personally.

The oral exam went pretty well.  Me, DPE and FAA Guy.  Airspace, medicals, currency, electrical systems, fuel, preflight, radios, charts, nav, on and on.  No big problems. I was shaky on spin recovery (having never done one) but muddled through. Eventually everyone was satisfied, so we went out to fly.

I’d done an incredibly detailed flight plan from MLE to ONL — O’Neill, NE, about 138nm away.  We flew to my second visual checkpoint, by which time he said it was quite obvious I knew how to navigate.  He told me I was allowed to use anything in the airplane… I didn’t even bother with the panel mounted Garmin 396 (though I did later on, when we headed home after I got disoriented “in the clouds”).  I’d left my flippin’ foggles in my flight bag, so a sectional chart was my simulated cloud for instrument flight.  Turns, descending turns, etc – no problem, drifting off heading a little more than usual for me but not bad enough to bust the ride.  I recovered quickly from the unusual attitudes.  When we “left the cloud” I did slow flight, finally ending up with a turn into an approach stall.  Then it was a power-on stall… probably my least favorite thing, about neck and neck with a root canal.  But, it worked.  My steep turn was the best I’d ever done — so good, in fact, spot on 45 degrees all the way around, altitude within 25 feet or less, and rolling out dead on heading — he said I didn’t need to bother with the other direction.

Next he wanted to see an emergency descent.  I put the plane in a full slip and a pretty good descent with the throttle at idle.  He showed me a faster way down… 60 degree bank, steep dive, we went down like a safe dropped by Wile E. Coyote.  Neat.  Maybe if there actually WERE an engine fire I’d try that.  That put us at a suitable altitude for ground reference maneuvers.  There wasn’t enough wind to make them a challenge, not that I complained about it.  Then we headed back in; I climbed to 2000 AGL until we were close to the airport, where he wanted to see short and soft field landings and takeoffs.

By now there was significant thermal turbulence and about a 7-8 knot crosswind nearly straight across the runway.  I did the short field first, and it was not pretty by any means.  My first approach was high enough that I did a go-around.  He said, “Oh, just chop the throttle and use full flaps”.  Well, that wasn’t going to be enough for me… I went around.  I wasn’t going to try to salvage an approach that crappy, DPE or no.  On the second pass I was set up a lot better and did a better job accounting for the wind.  The landing was not as smooth as I’d have liked, especially with the crosswind blowing us around, but he commented that on a short field there wasn’t a lot of time and runway for a smooth flare (and did I mention? He said there was a 50′ obstacle at the threshold.)  The touchdown attitude was good, but it was a little firmer touchdown that I had hoped for with a pax.  From there I taxied back and did a soft field takeoff, followed by what astonishingly enough was the prettiest soft field landing I think I’ve ever done.

At that point he told me to taxi back and park it.  I’d passed.  Half an hour of paperwork and logbook and debrief and all that… and I am, finally, officially, a pilot.

Oh, this thing on my face? I think they call it “perma-grin”.

Wow, it’s been a while since I posted here.  As noted, though, I’ve been pretty busy!

Flight training has been moving along.  I’ve been flying a Cessna 172, mostly solo.  I passed the knowledge test last week, and am looking forward to finishing up and taking the practical test  (the “checkride”) soon.

I did my long solo cross country trip yesterday.  It was a pretty interesting ride.  As a student pilot, I have to have 5 hours of solo cross-country flying.  To be a cross country flight, one leg has to ne at least 50 nautical miles (67.5 statute miles) long.  For the long cross country, you have to land at at least three airports other than your home field.  Yesterday’s flight satisfied all of those requirements, in addition to covering two of the three required takeoffs and landings from airports with operating control towers.

The original flight plan was for KMLE (Millard) to KGRI (Grand Island, NE), a distance of 100 nautical miles (a nautical mile is equal to 1.15 “regular” statute mile) navigating by VOR (directional radio beacon) and pilotage (reading the map and looking out the window).  From there to KFSD (Sioux Falls), 172nm, also by VOR.  From KFSD I planend to go to KAIO – Atlantic, IA, 151nm.  I planned to use the GPS and/or pilotage for that — meaning pilotage, but I might cheat and cross check with the GPS.  From there I’d make the short hop back to KMLE by following the route I’ve driven countless times. It would take me through KOMA’s (Eppley Airfield) airspace, giving me a little more radio work practice.

Weather looked OK for the trip.  There was some rain south of GRI moving west, but it was going to stay south of my path.  There was also rain between GRI and FSD, but it looked like it would be clear of my route by the time I got there.  This was not to be the case.

My arrival and landing ar GRI was less than stellar.  The runway there is twice as wide as I’m used to, and when the grass disappears from your peripheral vision it’s tough to convince yourself you’re still not on the ground. I landed OK, but there was an authoritative thump.  I had planned a stop & go, but had forgotten to tell the tower that… or the fact that I was on my solo X/C.  I taxied over to the FBO and spent a couple of minutes re-hydrating and de-shaking.  It was my first solo landing anywhere other than Millard and I had just dropped in rather unceremoniously, so I was a little keyed up.

All the mistakes I made, I made at KGRI. I didn’t tell them I was a student on a solo X/C.  The landing there was the worst of the day.  I had also told the tower when I contacted them that I was 7 west… no, I was 7 east.  I made the correction, but apparently the controller didn’t hear that!  He was looking for me to the west and didn’t’ see me until I was crossing mid-field.  I told him I’d been mistaken but had corrected, which he may not have heard… he was laughing when he asked if that “W” on the compass had confused me.

Takeoff was fine, but getting to KFSD was interesting.  There was significant precipitation along the path, which I could tell I’d miss most of.  I was a little surprised to see it still west of my path, since I’d thought it would be well past there by now.  Still, none of it looked severe, just light rain.  I did fly through a little rain (another first for me) but I was well below the cloud layer and could see through it.  At one point, though, I watched as my altimeter spun from 5500 to 7000 faster than the airplane could possibly climb.  MN Center asked my altitude.  I asked for a new alitmeter setting, told them I must have crossed a front or something, because I was flying straight & level but my altimeter had just climbed 1500′ rather abruptly.  Nope, they said they showed me at 7100.  I boogied back down to 5500.  Apparently I’d caught a pretty big updraft, but it was very smooth, no turbulence at all.  I landed at KFSD and taxied over to Maverick Air — great service there.  I refueled and checked the weather; it was not pretty at all.  There was a line of storms headed right into my proposed flight path to KAIO, and now a conductive SIGMET to the south of FSD.  A conductive SIGMET means very heavy turbulence — like the “Don’t fly through this” kind of turbulence.

I waited about an hour, checking radar as I did. I checked with my CFI… I was thinking I’d just go back the way I came and pass behind the storms to the west.  He suggested I head to KONL (O’Neil, NE) for my third airport, then head south and turn east when I was clear of the storms.  By now it was getting a little later in the day than we’d have liked.  Getting back home before dark would be “iffy”, and I don’t have a logbook endorsement for solo night landings.  So I guess I’d have to either hurry up, or circle until morning.

Took off from FSD and headed direct to ONL on a VOR radial.  Oddly, there was no information I could find about the runways at ONL.  Nothing on the sectional chart, AND nothing in the airport facilities directory.  Oops.  The automated weather broadcast from O’Neil said that runway 4/22 was now officially open, so I planned to enter a downwind for 4 (winds were from 100 degrees at 5 knots).  As I got the airport in sight, though, I saw that 4/22 was a brand new, shorter crosswind runway.  I overflew and saw that 13/31 was a good choice, so I did a stop & go on 13 and was off to the races.

By now I had a text from my instructor.  Radar showed clear weather for direct to KMLE.  It was clear, but very hazy — I would say visibility was 10 miles at best, maybe less in places.  It had been hazy all day, and wasn’t getting any less so.  I wasted no time getting back home and landed just under the wire for what could be called a daytime landing… although I did turn the lights on.  While not officially night for aviation purposes, it was quite dark.  I was legal with about five minutes to spare.  I got to see a ton of fireworks going off as I got back over the Omaha burbs; it was pretty cool as a “big picture” although the fireworks themselves would be better seen from the ground.  Certainly the cool factor of seeing EVERYONE’s fireworks from the air instead of just what you can see from the ground, makes it worth doing at least once.