Attempt 1: Failed Short-Field Landing
The day before checkride, I did some final practice with a help of another CFI and we were able to tune my soft field landing and we did one short field landing and call it a day. I felt much more confidence than before but of course, short field landing turned out to be my failure the next day.
That night, I spent a lot of time double check everything. I read up things from my mock checkride before and review all the FAR parts that I forgot from those mocks before as well. Double check the XC calculations and, well, go to sleep! You need a good sleep before checkride you know!
Don’t forget to bring these things to your checkride:
- Your Student Pilot Certificate, Medical and Logbook (with all the endorsements)
- iPad or paper XC navlog, weight & balance calculation
- FAR/AIM book (or store it on your iPad)
- All the airplane logbooks (Tip: Go over them before you go and either tab them or write down the dates of work so you can find these entries again during the checkride)
- Some food for snacks, this is going to be a whole day of work
My checkride starts at noon and I need to make a short hop from my airport (Airport A) to the airport my DPE was at (Airport B, the airport names are left out for anonimity). I arrived at my airport at 09:30am. Pre-flighted the airplane, check-out the logbooks at 10:00am. Go over it again in the clubhouse and did some art projects (cut & paste my training logs and endorsements from a paper into the logbook 😅). 11:00, I’m ready to go! It’s a short flight over so I picked up flight following and arrived there in no-time.
The test officially begins on 12:00pm. We go over the endorsement and 8710 form (IACRA) and I had to sign the application in IACRA as well. We took a short break, get some drinks and the test begins! The DPE explained the process first, oral will be scenario based and no trick questions and we will debrief flight portion and go fly.
Oral
- We started off discussing I’m taking him as a passenger today, how do I know this is legal?
90 days, 3 landings, BFR
- How do I make sure everything is all good to go?
PAVE, IMSAFE
- He continued with the scenario, asking if the stall horn failed, what do you do? Can we make this flight?
Check the KOEL list. Stall horn is required for all operations, so no.
- If alternator would have failed during this flight, what is my course of actions?
Pull out my trustworthy checklist and start there!
- What if my passenger shows blue lips? What was the potential cause and what will you try to do?
Hypoxia or CO. Open window, descend and turn off heater. If I know or suspect that it is CO poisoning, land ASAP.
- Why do you need to use rudder when you turn?
Adverse Yaw
- Oxygen requirements
14 CFR 91.211
- What rules are different above 10,000 MSL?
Class E Cloud clearance, speed restriction
- Alcohol limits
8 hours, 0.04% BAC, not under influence
- Spin recovery
PARE: Power IDLE, Aileron NEUTRAL, Rudder OPPOSITE, Elevator BRISK PUSH
- Special Flight Permits
I forgot the exact scenario and question but basically. When do you need one, how do get one? When your airplane is not airworhty and you get it from local FSDO.
- An interesting question was if you were ramp checked at destination, you had some stronger than expected headwind and the FAA inspector says you only have 25 mins of fuel remaining, that’s not legal for the flight what do you say?
Read 14 CFR § 91.151 very carefully: It reads No person **may begin a flight** in an airplane under VFR conditions unless, ... . Which means you should tell them, **I began the flight with enough fuel for my intended destination**.
- What hazardous attitude do I (the DPE) have?
I've read his gouge before, apparently the right answer is he had it all. 😂 We had a good laugh and took another break.
XC Review
I took out my XC navlog, he asked a couple questions:
- Why flying at 5500?
More gliding range and also VFR altitude
- How was the take-off distance calculated? What if it’s 30C? What if the pressure settings is 29.92?
Just use the POH performance chart
- What do you do if you’re lost?
The 5Cs but basically: confess, climb / circle and talk to ATC
VFR Sectional
He asked me if I had brought a paper sectional, I said I did but it was expired, I do have the current one on the iPad. We just used the paper one, in this case, it’s really just easier for both of us to see and point out things since they are big once unfolded. Fortunately for me, I already drew the trusty black line the day before so we can easily follow my intended flight plan.
Airspaces
- You see a couple F-18 in the upcoming MOA, can you go in and have a dogflight with them?
Uh, I'm pretty sure dogfighting will exceed the load limit of a 172, but yes, you can enter MOA with extreme caution.
- Requirements into Class C?
Two-way communication, transponder
- Where do you need ADS-B out?
91.225 - How do you find out the current weather WITHOUT ADS-B?
Flight Service!
- How do you talk to flight service over a VOR?
Some VOR has RCO co-locate so you can use NAV to receive it and transmit on the R frequency- Is VOR aligned to true or magnetic north?
It's really kinda wonky and everywhere. Some to the true, some to the magnetic and some never get re-aligned.
- What is the difference between true and magnetic north?
True north is the geographical north where magnetic north is where your compass say the north is.
Weather
- Went over the printed Leido’s weather briefing PDF on my iPad
- I told him there were some turbulent AIRMET south of the path. He asked what are the kinds of AIRMETS?
Sierra, Tango, Zulu
- What do you do when you encounter turbulence and why?
Reduce to Va, because your wing will stall before it reaches the load limit- If cloud base are at 900ft, and the airport has a magenta shade around it, how high can you legally fly? What would your altimeter show?
I started by breaking it down: cloud is at 900 but class E at 700 means means I can't fly that close, however, G is clear of cloud in day so I can fly 700 (but you can't touch 700 as it becomes E). However, why would altimeter show a different thing? I stuck here for a good minute before it hits me that airspace is AGL and altimeter is MSL so I looked up the airport's elevation and add 700 on top of it and told him the final answer.
- Temperature / dewpoint is close, what does that mean?
Low-level clouds/fog/precipitaiton
- What is NOTAM?
Notice to Airmen/Air Mission
Flying
We did a short-field take off from the airport B and start flying toward the first checkpoint. He asked me to not use GPS so we just fly the heading and climb to the altitude. (He did not fail my iPad so I can take a look at it if I want to, however, it also wasn’t that hard, just fly the heading and MAKE SURE THE TIMER IS ON!)
As soon as I made visual contact with the first checkpoint, he asked me to put on the hood and do some instrument flying and unusual attitude recovery, we started with steep turns (don’t forget clearing turns!) and we transition into slow flights, stalls and then he asked me to use VOR to go to airport C. I pre-dialed in that VOR frequency already so I just switched the CDI to VOR and just hit direct and turn on autopilot on NAV, then I worked on getting ATIS and initial contact with the tower. Once we’re half way there, he told me that I can use my GPS now, so I switched it back to GPS source, setup direct to KAPC (I mean the Airport C, not Napa 😂), tune the OBS to 310 for the runway and …, well, the approach was pretty uneventful. Kinda hard to get lost when you have both GPS and VOR on your hand.
HERE IS WHERE I FAILED 😭😭😭 The short field landing went fine at the beginning, but I was probably too worried about going long, we ended a bit low and a bit slow. I tried to initiate a go-around, but sadly but my gear did touch ground before the number. If I were to add a little power, it probably would went fine, but hindsight is always easy.
He let me know we need to retest on that one and asked me to do a soft field landing, taxi-back and soft field take-off. We did a straight-out departure. We fly on a heading and altitude he specified (should’ve just autopilot this leg too but I ended up hand-flying because I know he’s gonna fail my engine somewhere anyway 😅)
He failed the engine when we’re near the shoreline. I established best glide, picked a landing site and planned an pattern entry for strong headwind and ran through checklist (remember to call out 7700 and the radio emergency call). Start descending from 2500, put in flaps so we can descend fast enough and turn base and final. Once we’re on final, we leveled off and start heading back to Airport B. We did a forward-slip + no flaps landing, normal landing and taxi back to the FBO.
The Ending
He told me I only need to retest on the short field landing and it would be easy to reschedule since it should be very short. I ended up scheduled it with him on the spot and he printed out the disapproval letter and that was it.
It was sad of course, but I still had to fly back to Airport A. I took some time to recover, text a few friends to share the sad news and hop back in. Not much happened on the way back, I picked up flight following once I made the last call for Airport B and landed back at Airport A around 4:00PM.
Attempt 2: Retest, PASSED!
Definitely a very short ride. I arrived at Airport B at ~10:30am after doing 2 rounds of short-field landing. DPE said he’ll be slightly delayed and arrive at 11am so I just went in to the FBO and chill for a bit. Once he came in, we go through the same process of signing IACRA, etc. We also rechecked the airplane being airworthy then we went out flying.
Since I only need to do a short-field landing, we just stayed in the pattern. I did a shortened passenger briefing, taxi to run-up and did a normal take-off. The DPE told me that I can do a practice landing if I want to, I just need to declare it before the landing. I thought about it but decided that I did enough short field landing to feel confident and told him it’s okay, this is the one. With that being said, we immediately had 2 airplanes joining the pattern 😅so we had to take a VERY EXTENDED downwind to accommodate it. We stayed at the TPA, put in 10 flaps and start slow down and configuring as we turn final (since it’s a long final). I was able to slow down the aircraft to 59kts on short final, aim at the threshold, then pulled power out as we hit the number and we touched down before the first line! “Break and flaps!”, I announced it as I was slowing the airplane down, the DPE told me “Congratulations!”.
We taxied back to the FBO, shut it down. He printed out my new temporary certificate in the office and that was it! I’m now a private pilot!