Date & Time: Wednesday, 17th September, 1997, 17:30 CDT
Where: From SPX, local
Instruction: 1.0 hrs practise checkride with Jim Frazier. Running logbook total: 60.9 hrs, 24.4 hrs solo
Aircraft: Cessna 172, number N1219F

Practise Nightmare!
   Today was the practise nightmare, I mean checkride day. Even though it was not for real so to speak, my nerves got me before I even got to the field.
   It started badly from last night. I dreamed that I busted the ride - not a good way to sleep! When I actually got there, I got told off for not calling earlier to confirm that we were still on (my "designee" for the day, Jim Frazier, another club instructor told me I should always call the designee a couple of days earlier. I don't think he was actually annoyed, but it didn't help my nerves one little bit). I made an instant descision at this point - I'll take at least 2 days off before the actual checkride so I don't get sidetracked by work and forget things like this. "How are you going to pay? Got cash?" I always pay with checks - I don't like hauling cash around so I said no. He told me to always pay in cash - it usually makes the DE much happier! That just rattled me some more. I'm terrible at reading people's emotions so I couldn't tell whether Jim was annoyed or not by this, or whether he was just rattling me to make me remember!
   Fortunately, the next section went well. Jim tried to bamboozle me with the charts, but I could tell him exactly what everything meant, the whys and wherefores of various airspace charted around here. I did slip up a little once. He pointed out a spot on the map. He said "You're here - you are lost. Who you going to call, and what frequency?"
   I first came back with the frequency for flight watch (that's weather only - oops), but then I saw over a nearby VOR - 122.1R meaning that Conroe FSS was receiving on that frequency and transmitting back over the VOR in question.
   Then it was time to do some cross country planning, during which for some reason my mind blanked and I completely forgot how to use the plotter. "Don't do that on your checkride - it's an instant bust!" I haven't reviewed cross country planning since my last cross country - I just assumed I could do it. Bad move.
   Now thoroughly rattled, we went out to preflight. At least I felt more at home as I removed the sunscreens and got the checkist out. The plotter thing had me badly rattled. However, I had a good knowledge of the systems, and our exchange went something like:
"What's this?"
"VOR antenna"
"Where's the other one?"
"Other side of the tail"
"How much horsepower is the engine?"
"160 horsepower"
"Do we have electronic ignition?"
"No, dual magnetos firing two different sets of sparkplugs"
I was now having a bit of fun. I was wondering whether I should just say "We have a Lycoming O-320 H2AD which is a 320 cubic inch, horizontally opposed, normally aspirated four stroke carburated engine rated at 160 horsepower...", but I thought it best just to answer questions as they came. I'm interested in machines generally, and can retain this sort of stuff easily. I got asked about vents, brakes, tires, hydraulic systems. I got asked what was I looking for when I preflighted certain items etc. That bit went OK, and calmed my nerves just a bit.
   Then we went flying. I had forgotten the darned hood! Arrghh! Jim said "That would be a bust right there". My confidence gained during preflight had now been nicely placed in check once again! I quietly cussed myself for my sheer stupidity - I was now reeling from a double dose of forgetting how to use the wretched plotter (embarassing in itself), and forgetting the hood (which I had just been reading about the night before!)
   We got started. I got asked questions whilst going through the checklist. Item 2 - seat belts and shoulder harnesses on. Guess who didn't have a shoulder harness on? You won't get me that easily! In the end, Jim wanted to keep the harness off just in case he had to grab something on my side of the instrument panel, so I let him off. He complemented me, saying that this is exactly what the examiner will want to see - they will want to make sure that I don't blindly go through the list but actually check that they have the belt on (not realising that this wasn't just a test, I was acually getting quite assertive about that shoulder harness!)
   I carefully taxied out, ensuring that the control positions were all correct for the wind direction. When we got to the runup pad and turned into the wind, I saw we were being followed by the club's 210. Great, I thought and groaned a little inwardly. I would prefer to have the runup pad to myself today! However, they didn't hang around - I think they had done a stop-and-go and taxied back in, then performed a short-field takeoff and left me with my runup pad. We went through the run up (more questions at each point in the checklist), including "What happens if you lose your static port?" Our 172 is equipped with an alternate static source, so I replied "I'd pull this out". "How do you test it?" I'd never actually tested this, but quick reasoning got me out of that. "Well, since the cabin pressure is usually a little lower than outside, we should see the instruments move", so I pulled it, and we did (the altimeter jumped up a little, and the VSI flicked up momentarily). "OK, give me a short-field takeoff".
   I did my clearing turn, and all was clear (we actually had two club airplanes in the pattern - the Musketeer being flown by a fellow student who is lucky (or unlucky) enough to have his father as his instructor, and the owner of the 172 being checked out in the 210 by the club's president, who is also an instructor). I explained that I would use 10 degrees of flaps, come up to full power with the brakes on, rotate at 48 and hold 53 knots until clear of the obstacle. Off we went. The takeoff went reasonably well - I kept the airspeed within tolerance, but I did keep climbing out like that for too long! We went round the pattern for a touch and go, making the landing a soft field (target airspeed 65 KIAS and make a smooth touchdown, and hold the nose off for as long as possible, using a touch of power if necessary). I wasn't that happy with the landing - the touchdown was reasonable, but the approach wasn't right over the centerline and I had to herd it back. We then went out and did some airwork.
   I proceeded to do some of my worst ground reference manoevers ever. The only saving grace I had was good altitude control, but I kept getting closer to the point I was using to turn around. I'm going to have to go out and practise those again. We climbed out and did slow flight and stalls. Jim prefers no-flap slow flight - this was a new one on me since I always use flaps (usually all of them). Then we were going to do steep turns, but we had gone a little out over Galveston Bay, and I wanted to be closer to land. I flew in a bit closer, noting the aerobatic aircraft which was doing a few aileron rolls and some inverted flight, and looked out for other traffic. "OK, steep turn to the right, then reverse course and do an immediate steep turn to the left, 360 degrees each". I thought I'd blown it after the first one, but the altitude didn't stray more than 50 feet in any direction. I quickly corrected for any descending tendency, but I still didn't feel great about it because I had it nailed on the weekend.
   We then did some VOR work, which is no problem to me (since I've known how to use them before even starting to fly thanks to many generations of MS Flight Sim). Then back to the field. Noting I was still close to 2000 feet and not that far away, I gave my intention to do a 360 to lose altitude. "Just slip it in", I was told. So full rudder one way, and opposite rudder, and we were merrily slipping in losing 1000 ft/min, so we would be at pattern altitude before the actual pattern. "Give me a short field landing" was the next order. However, this one was going to get complicated! First off, the power was pulled. I had flown a too wide pattern and I knew it. I had already got 20 degrees of flap out for base, which was fine at the current power setting. How do you stretch the glide in a Cessna? Get rid of the flaps! So I immediately got rid of the flaps being careful to hold 65 KIAS, and then trimmed for 65 KIAS, no flaps, and turned in directly towards the runway. I was just going to make it - but Jim reckoned I'd have a close encounter with the trees, so he put the power back on and dumped out all the flaps. I think he was trying to give me a good bit of work to do because guess what? All that trim for best glide with no flaps suddenly has you fighting the controls.
   I quickly spun the trim back to something sensible and got the approack looking right. We were coming in for a nice, on the numbers touchdown when all of a sudden I got "AIRPLANE ON THE RUNWAY! GO ROUND!! GO ROUND!!" bellowing through my headset making me jump. I didn't lose my composure though and crammed in the throttle and immediately got us down to 20 degrees of flap. I kept the airspeed up and didn't sink which was good. I quickly pushed the carb heat in as well, realising I had a slight misordering. However, the go-around was good and safe despite Jim' best efforts to rattle me by throwing me an engine out, an out of trim condition and a go around within about 30 seconds of each other.
   After a harrowing hour in the air, we came back in for the short field, in which I managed to overcook the airspeed and float. Another thing that needs practise!
   I'm not sure whether Jim was trying to pull the DE's stunt of jumping out of the airplane with the prop still running as he wasted no time in undoing his safetly belt as soon as the wheels stopped. I quickly cautioned against leaving until I had the prop stopped and ignition off. That's another thing that the DE will look for!

Conclusion.
   Well, I need to make sure I don't have a plotter black out again! That was just too embarassing! I know what I need to do, though.
My plan of action will be...
   Take 2 days off work - three if necessary (it would be nice to get the ride on a Wednesday and have the weekend, Monday and Tuesday to make final preparations and not have to worry about work!)
   Bring cash.
   Make sure I've got everything confirmed at least a couple of days in advance.
   Try and figure out some sort of plan to "break the ice" and get to know the DE before he or she actually starts questioning.
   I'll be glad when it's over, I tell you!

What was learned.
   Make sure that I have forgotten nothing at all. Use the checklist in the PTS book to ensure this.
   Don't try to do this after coming hot out of work - 8 or more hours of mental activity trying to debug code takes the edge off anything that follows (except perhaps watching TV!)
   Do some other preparation. I need EVERY manoever nailed to zero tolerance so when the inevitable nerves take the edge off my performance, it's still within the PTS tolerances.

Date & Time: Thursday, 18th September, 1997, 17:30 CDT
Where: From SPX, local
Instruction: 1.2 hrs dual with Lee Simmons, logbook total: 62.1 hrs, 24.4 hrs solo
Aircraft: Cessna 172, number N1219F

Review session.
   Today was time for debrief from yesterday...
We went over a few of the points that came up yesterday, and finished up the hoodwork. Jim had written quite a few comments, so we went over them (mainly ground reference). We even did some impromptu turns around a point (Lee spotted a handy truck in a field, so we used that and a few others).

What was learned.
   Don't hurry the ground reference manoevers - that's probably where I went wrong!

Date & Time: Saturday, 20th September, 1997, 13:30 CDT
Where: From SPX, local
Instruction: 1.2 hrs dual with Lee Simmons, logbook total: 63.3 hrs, 24.4 hrs solo
Aircraft: Cessna 172, number N1219F

Crosswind review...
   There was actually some wind today (well, we've always had some wind when I've gone out, but recently I can't remember any time we have had more than 5 knots). However, we had 11 knots today. I brought everything with me (or so I thought) so we could do any necessary review, but cleverly forgot my charts! So I had to go home and get them... fortunately I live close to the airport (under the base leg for 13 to be precise) so it didn't take too long. We were going to do some planning to go right through the class B because I will almost certainly have to plan my cross country through the class B when the checkride comes.
   The weather was looking a little threatening on the horizon, and since I had been planning the cross country for a while as well as gone home, I decided to call Flight Service to make sure that it wasn't coming our way. It wasn't. We didn't do the trip through the class B today - instead we just went to Ellington Field, a nearby airport with a control tower for a few touch and goes.
   This got me! The traffic pattern is 600 feet at Ellington which really had me. It just looked a lot different. The crosswind was a good 50 degrees across the runway, meaning that I needed to keep a lot of rudder in to keep the nose straight, and a reasonable bank angle. We did two touch and goes here - and with this wind, a soft field takeoff was quite tricky! It was quite hard to deal with the 600 ft. pattern altitude, an incoming helicopter, the communications and the crosswind, and listen to Lee's advice all at the same time - I haven't had that sort of workload for a while, and it was very beneficial to get that practise in.
   We then went back to the practise area and did some more hoodwork, stalls and slow flight. For slow flight, we decided to do it with no flaps right on the edge of the green arc (with the stall horn going). Then we tried banking whilst holding that speed and altitude, to see when the bank angle would cause the stall to break. Eventually it did, and funnily enough, the aircraft rolled level as it stalled.

Conclusion.
   Well, we are going to do the Class B work on Thursday. I need to get out for a solo session to practise the things that Jim found that needed work on for the checkride. It was good to get into a crosswind situation again - I need this preparation for the winter (the winds are bound to get stronger - however, the clearest days can come in the winter, so it'd be bad to have to be grounded because I didn't have any crosswind practise...)

What was learned.
   A 600-foot pattern altitude is really quite different! I've been to places with 800 ft patterns, and that doesn't seem to be too much different to 1000 ft. patterns. It also seems a bit strange to me that Ellington, with many subdivisions nearby has such a low pattern.

   The debrief from the simulated checkride can be summed up by: Practise everything even if you think 'that's easy' such as laying the plotter the right way up instantly, and remembering the hood! Everything else was reasonable, but I could do with practising short field takeoffs to make them smoother, make sure that I don't hurry ground reference manoevers and turn in and get closer to the reference, announce everything (including announcing clearing turns for ground reference manoevers), read the Cessna manual again to pick up the points I wasn't 100% sure about. I know I could do with going through the FARs once more, so I will be doing that. My plan for the real checkride is to take a couple of days off work before the event and spend them revising like for my finals at university. In this case, go through the material again, don't worry about work and do some flying to get some final practise. I've also just got FS98 which includes Houston Gulf, so I'm going to do a simulated cross country using dead reckoning and VOR cross checks to ensure my dead reckoning skills are up to it.