Monday, I met with my instructor one last time to go over airspace, Cirrus SR20 systems, and various other areas before submitting me for my first stage check. During the oral exam you are allowed to use any of your books especially those that have the FAA stamp on the cover. One of my books in particular spells out every regulation called the FAR/AIM is particularly useful. During my study sessions I placed sticky note tabs from start to finish making it easier to find key areas I knew I would be asked about. On the viewable portion of the tab while the book is closed was the area or question I could be asked. On the inside of the tab I wrote out any acronyms pertaining to that section. I figured if I was asked something, but forgot which acronym to use, I could look for the tab and find the acronym without looking up the answer. I would then write out my answer and any letters I could not remember what they stood for I would look up. This proved to be the winning formula for me.
Tuesday night I got the email that I would have my oral exam on Wednesday at 0700. I got to the operations building about a half hour prior to my exam time and did some last minute crunching. I wrote out all the acronyms I could think of and brushed up on each letter. I did not try to do any rocket ships on my charts because there was no one around to correct me if I was wrong.
The hour came and I met the instructor who would be grilling me for the next 2 hours. I had two bags with me full of books. One of the bags was my old Zero G flight bag that I had placed all the patches from different events I had organized. Esther Dyson’s FlightSchool 07, Northrup Grumman’s Weightless Flights of Discovery, the release of Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa video game, the release of Nintendo’s Mario Galaxy with Mario and Buzz Aldrin floating side by side, and the old G Force One patch. I also had the GF1 patch on my pilot flight bag so I could easily distinguish my bag quickly from my other classmates as sometimes it can be like finding your luggage on the carousel at the airport. Every bag looks identical. As soon as the instructor came into the interrogation room he noticed all the “spacey patches” and asked me about it. I explained I used to work for Zero G, and after his initial “that’s awesome” statement he asked “So did you see the Mythbusters show a couple weeks ago?” I couldn’t help but smile and told him I was on that episode. We talked for about 10 minutes about Zero G, before he pulled out his grading sheet and we got to work. I found this process really interesting. I answered his questions one by one, acronym after acronym. After I answered a question he would then ask me something related but wasn’t required for me to know. He wanted to see if I could figure it out. If I couldn’t he would show me where in the FAR/AIM to look or go into detail about why something is. I have to say I was learning more from him than my instructor. We got into a discussion about weight and balance of the aircraft. This is something we must do before any flight to make sure we are within weight requirements for taking off and landing. There are three things we have to figure out for various areas of the plane. Weight, Arm, and Moment. Weight is of course the weight of the plane, but also weight of the pilot and copilot in the forward seats, weight of the passengers in the back seat, weight of the bags taken on board. The Arm is the distance of that area to a certain location determined by the manufacturer of the aircraft. If I’m not mistaken the reference point for the Cirrus is the firewall. When you multiply weight and arm you get the Moment which is a measure of force. This all has an effect on the center of gravity. More weight you put in the back of the plane the faster it will go but with less control, which means it will be harder to steer in the event of a stall. Moving on, he had me read a few weather reports (Metar’s and TAFs) to make sure I could accurately decipher the strange language. Then airspace came. He asked me about Echo airspace and all the different kinds. I didn’t have this quite memorized so I had to look in my book. I was however able to explain what each of the “other Echo airspace” was exactly. All of this took about 2 hours. Once the two hours was up, he said “Well you passed, Good job!” I sat there a bit dumbfounded. “What do you mean I passed? Are we done?! You don’t want me to show you what airspaces a rocket would go through on my charts?! You don’t want to know that the Cirrus has a fuel injected, normally aspirated, horizontally opposed, air cooled, D rated 200 horsepower, engine made by Continental?!”
“No… I just want to know you can fly without being a danger to someone or yourself. Rockets are good, but not for a your first oral exam. You’ll probably have your check ride tomorrow.” And he left.
Ummmm… Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? I must have gotten off easy. Ground school was in an hour so I walked over to see if any of my classmates were around. They asked me how my oral went and I told them I passed and how easy it was. One other classmate of mine had had the same instructor and said he had the same experience. Everyone else reiterated what I was expecting prior to the test. Well! I won’t complain that’s for sure.
The next day my check ride was at 13:30. Met my instructor who was from Jamaica, and we walked out to the plane to do our inspections. He followed me around the plane watching my every move. I decided to think out loud to make sure he knew what I was doing. I sumped the four fuel tanks to make sure there was no water or debris in the tanks and the instructor stopped me. “How many times did you sump the tanks?”
“Four times.”
“What about the 5th one?”
“What 5th one?”
That apparently wasn’t a good answer as he looked at me like I had two heads and extra eyes on my foreheads. He showed me a 5th sump under the nose between the exhaust pipes. Holy crap! I never knew this one was there. I apologized and explained I didn’t know it was there. Interestingly enough I don’t know if a lot of students know its there as the silver mechanism didn’t look like it had ever been used. We continued the inspection and all was fine. He pointed out a few things that were new to me and I found fascinating. There is a hard rubber piece just under the tail that has a hole through it used to tie down the plane when it is not in use. He asked me to feel it and tell him what it felt like. It was round and smooth. He asked me what if it was flat and rough? My brain started to go through scenarios as to why it would be flat and rough. If it were flat and rough I would imagine that meant someone had landed the plane and had a tail strike to the ground, that this would rub away the rubber. The ground was rough like a sand paper so that would mean it had not been checked out by maintenance. During an inspection by maintenance they would smooth out the flat area to let the next pilot know they checked it out and it was ready for flight again. My instructor was very pleased with this answer. We sat in the plane and I went through all my check lists. He made a few comments and asked a few more questions. Besides the 5th fuel sump I was doing pretty well. We taxied over to the engine run up area to make sure everything was working properly. As it was very hot and humid we taxied with the doors open to get a breeze from the spinning prop. We arrived at the airport’s “spot 5” for the run up test and I went to reach for my checklist. “Ummm… Where did my checklist go??” I asked him if he saw it somewhere, and we searched, under my seat, by the rudder pedals, the backseat. Damnit! This is not good! I knew he had seen me using it before so that wasn’t worried about him thinking I wasn’t prepared. It MUST have blown out the door as we taxied. He didn’t seem that upset and handed me his checklist for me to use. We got our clearance to depart and away we went. I didn’t like the looks of some clouds and we were getting some rain. It was very light though. We started out with turns around a point, rectangle course, and S turns. He was satisfied and asked me to climb to 3000 ft. Upon reaching the elevation he asked me to maintain heading and to slow down as much as possible. I pulled back power to 20% and started the slow flight maneuver. He asked me to turn left and to turn right, which I did like a champ! Then he asked me to do a power on stall. I hesitated. I had all the different types of stalls written down on a pad of paper, because I cannot for the life of me remember which is which. I asked him if I could use my notes to which he responded no. He then asked me step by step what I remember how to do. Ok… power back to 25%, at 75 knots pull back on the yoke to maintain altitude and power to 65% “Stall horn on”
“Normal continue”
The plane began to buffet and I applied full power while dipping the nose down to get straight and level. WOOHOO!! I did it!!
He then asked me to program the autopilot in a strange configuration. high feet per minute ascent, then asked me to pull some power out. “Whats going to happen?” was the next thing he asked.
“Well… Its going to stall.”
Sarcastically he responded with his Jamaican accent “Its not going to stall… the autopilot is on… its smart enough to know not to stall doesn’t it?”
Interestingly enough in our radio com class prior to this we had just watched a video by Nat Geo about 4 plane incidents that occurred because the flight crew didn’t understand all the limitations of their autopilot. “Uh… No it doesn’t know any better. The autopilot will do as its asked. It’s the pilots job to know its limitations."
“GOOD! Now disengage the autopilot.”
We started flying back to the airport and he said he wanted to do some pattern work. Pattern work is flying around the airport while landing the plane but immediately taking off again (touch and go), going around making only right hand turns to line up and touch and go again. I told him I had never done pattern or closed traffic work before. He seemed rather astonished. This is not something I had done with my instructor yet. We made the call for closed traffic for runway Niner Right. We were cleared for the option (we had the choice of go around, touch and go, or full stop) and we began the maneuvers. I guess he didn’t like the two laps we did and he called it a day. While on the ground in the operations building he graded me. He said everything was fine but he was putting an incomplete on my pattern work. I must say I wasn’t surprised, but disappointed I would have to do the check ride again. At least I wouldn’t have to do everything else, just the pattern work. As I was walking out I saw my instructor who was dying to know how it went. I told him what happened, and he seemed very surprised that I didn’t pass because of the one thing. We had a chat with the head instructor which is a requirement if you do not pass a check ride. He asked me what I think went wrong. Uhh well… Ive never done pattern work. He explained to me what I needed to know and that my instructor and I would do an hour of pattern work and then I would be resubmitted for the check. So… as the Soundgarden song Outshined goes “I’m looking California, but feeling Minnesota.” Perfect explanation of how I feeling. People that looked at me wouldn’t have known I was feeling bummed. It wasn’t my fault and I was ok with it… but again… bummed I didn’t pass on that one thing.
Next day came and my instructor and I went up for about an hour and a half. 11 touch and goes later I was doing just fine in the pattern… but my landings are horrible. My take offs are great… but landing is a problem right now. I’ll keep on it and hopefully I’ll be “greasing the wheels” soon.
A few weeks ago I was asked by @DaveFlys on twitter.com to join him and @PilotWill to be their guests on their pod cast Flight Pod Log. Which can also be found on iTunes. It has not been posted yet as of the publish date of this piece, but I had a great time with them talking about Zero G, DCA, and what I’m going through as a student pilot. Thanks guys… I had a lot fun and would do it again anytime!!
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