Day 19: The Checkride

     Today was the day I had been waiting on for several years. Today was the day of my private pilot checkride. This checkride was the final exam of flight school. I met with the examiner, Todd, and we did all the necessary paperwork. He then informed me that there would be three possible outcomes from the exam today - either I walk away with a pilot certificate, get a paper that says what I need to work on before trying again, or get a paper that says only part of the checkride was completed.

     After that we began the oral portion of the exam. It was almost identical to the stage check I had on Saturday. That and the paperwork took just under two hours, and immediately following was the flight portion. This too was very much like the stage check.

     We made a short field takeoff in N53417 and flew to Lunken airport, where he had me do a normal landing. After departing Lunken with a soft field takeoff, I set a course for Charleston, West Virginia. Just as on Saturday, a few checkpoints into the flight he diverted me to Snyder airport in Falmouth, Kentucky. This was actually much easier than the stage check because Todd said I was welcome to use the GPS at any time. Rather than fumbling with a map and a ruler, I simply dialed in K62, the Snyder airport, and the GPS gave me the distance and time enroute. From that information, it was simple arithmetic to compute how much fuel it would take to get there.

     As soon as I verified we had enough fuel, Todd was satisfied, and he had me determine my position using a VOR. That was a piece of cake, so we moved on to maneuvers. Slow flight was first on the list, followed by a power off stall, a power on stall, and two steep turns. These all went well except for one steep turn when I lost sight of the landmark where I was supposed to level the wings which caused me to overshoot the turn.

     The next few minutes were flown with the foggles. He told me to descend, then had me do a 180 degree turn while maintaining altitude, and finally we did one recovery from an unusual attitude.

     All that went well, so he pulled the throttle out to simulate an engine failure. I picked out a field to land in, and ended up a little high, but it was good enough for the examiner. We stayed low after that and did a turn around a point. I picked out a random barn and began to fly a circle around it, but I only made it through half the circle before he told me to head back to Clermont County airport.

     He had me do a soft field landing, which did not actually turn out very soft, but he gave me a tip on how to do it better next time. We then made a short field landing and taxied back to parking. After I shut the engine down, Todd congratulated me and shook my hand.

     We headed inside where Matt was waiting for us. He also shook my hand and congratulated me, and the three of us went to the examiner's office for debriefing. Todd told me a few of the things I could have done better, then had me sign my temporary private pilot certificate. I did so, and gave him his money, shook his hand again, and walked away as a new private pilot.

     As we walked out of the examiner's office, Matt asked, "So where are you going from here? Instrument rating?"

     "Probably," I replied. "Or maybe get my complex sign-off first."

     There really are many paths I could follow from here. I do not know exactly what lies ahead, but one thing I am sure of is that God is the One who brought me here, and I trust Him to lead me the rest of the way.

     22 days, 45.8 flight hours, and 134 landings are in the logbook, and today I have achieved my dream of becoming a pilot.

Austin Miller earned his Private pilot certificate on September 5, 2016. To obtain his Private certificate, Austin passed an oral and a flight exam with a Federal Aviation Administration designated flight examiner. Austin, a resident of Michigan, completed his flight training with Sporty's Academy, located at the Clermont County Airport in Batavia, Ohio. Austin is pictured with his instructor, Matt Safriet. #Congratulations #PrivatePilot

A photo posted by Sporty's Academy (@sportysacademy) on Sep 7, 2016 at 1:50pm PDT

Day 18: Stage Check

     I took the final stage check yesterday, which is the last lesson before the test. I met up with Sophie, the instructor who was conducting the stage check. We began with the oral portion, which consisted of a bunch of questions on anything from procedures to aeromedical factors and just about everything in between. This lasted about an hour and a half, and after completing it, Sophie sent me out to preflight the plane.
     Sporty's is usually pretty busy on Saturdays because they grill free hotdogs on the ramp. As I was walking around the aircraft, I heard a kid say, "But I don't want to."
     Another voice which must have been his mother replied, "Oh for crying out loud, just ask him!"
     I continued the walk-around, and soon these two approached the wing I was examining. I walked over toward them, and the mother said, "He wants to know if you're going to take off. We've been watching the planes land for a while, but he wants to see one take off."
     "Yup," I replied. "I'll be taking off in about ten minutes."
     "Thank you! We'll sit over here and watch."
     It reminded me of of my younger self, when I had a lot of questions about airplanes but was too shy to ask a pilot. I would have loved to tell him to hop in the back seat and ride along, but I do not have the certification to do that yet. I am really looking forward to the time when I will be able to take passengers.
     After starting up, we were taxiing to the runway when an airship made a low pass over the runway. It was really big and slow, and it was cool to see one up close like that.
     We made a short field takeoff and flew over to Lunken, where we made a soft field touch-and-go. Following that, we proceeded on the planned flight to Charleston, West Virginia. After passing several waypoints, Sophie said, "Ok the weather all of a sudden turned really bad. We've got weather ahead of us, weather over there, and weather behind us. We have to divert to Georgetown."
     I marked our location on the map and began plotting a course to Brown County airport in Georgetown. It was only 7 nautical miles away, and I was not even finished by the time I saw the field ahead. I asked if I needed to continue calculating the course if I already had the field in sight, and she said it was not necessary. I entered the traffic pattern and set up for a short field landing. As I got close to the runway, I realized I was too high to touch down in the touchdown zone, so I initiated a go-around. After a lap around the pattern, I managed to set it down in the touchdown zone. "Setting it down" might not be the best choice of words. I guess it was more like "slamming it down," but apparently it was good enough to pass. As Chuck Yeager put it, "If you can walk away from a landing, it's a good landing. If you use the airplane the next day, it's an outstanding landing."
     We departed Brown County and did some slow flight, stalls, instrument flying, and steep turns in the practice area. As we completed the last maneuver, Sophie pulled the throttle to idle and told me we just lost the engine. I did just as I had practiced and set up for a landing in a nearby field. It was a hard decision to choose the field, because I could see Clermont County airport in the distance, and I might have been able to glide over there, but if I did not make it, there were many houses around the airport. I decided it would be better to make a safe landing in the field than to risk crashing into a house, if it was a real engine failure.
     Upon seeing we would be able to safely make the field, Sophie told me to climb back up to pattern altitude and land at Clermont County. It was still very busy, and I had to deviate from the pattern twice to avoid other traffic. We followed CAP3024, a Civil Air Patrol flight, and made a no-flap landing. After tying down the aircraft, we went inside for debriefing.
     Sophie thought I did very well, and I got a good score. I had to chuckle inside when she said I did well with using checklists, like I had been flying for the airlines. I blame that on Flight Simulator.
     Today's flying added 1.7 hours and 4 landings to the logbook, which brings the totals to 44.3 hours and 132 landings.

Day 17: Dear Old 417

     It was windy again today. The winds were out of the northeast at 9 knots gusting to 16 knots. I got to Sporty's Cafe and said hello to another student who had just gotten back from a flight.
     "It's bumpy up there!" he said with a southern drawl. "I was doing this number the whole time," he said as he grasped imaginary controls and jerked them back and forth like he was fighting turbulence. We talked about the wind and the resulting rough landings for a little bit, then he had to go downstairs to take his written exam. I wished him good luck and sat down at a table to wait for Matt.
     "What do you want to do today?" he asked when he walked over.
     "I think I'd like to practice some landings in this wind," I replied.
     "Sounds good. Go ahead and start the preflight, and I'll meet you out there."
     I headed out to the flight line and got N53417 ready for the flight. 417 is what we call her for short, and she's been around for quite a while. Matt said she was already being used back when he was doing his primary training. 417 is a good-looking aircraft, with wheel pants that give her a streamlined look and a white, green, and gold paint scheme. None of the other Cessna 172s at Sporty's have either of those features, and she looks quite glamorous sitting on the flight line. She is equipped with a Garmin GNS430 GPS as well, so she would be my favorite plane out of the fleet if it was not for one tiny little problem. It is a very small problem when you first hear of it, but it gets really annoying really fast. There is always a hissing sound in the pilot's headset. It sounds like the crackling, hissing sound that an old vinyl record makes during the silence between songs. When it first started making the irritating noise, I just shrugged it off. But after a two hour flight, I was millimeters away from going insane. Dear old 417, if it weren't for such a small flaw, she could be my favorite.

The instrument panel of N53417

     We practiced landings and takeoffs in the slight crosswind. Well, it was a crosswind most of the time. The direction of the wind kept shifting, sometimes very rapidly. Once I was lined up with the runway, maybe half a mile from the threshold when the wind direction changed very abruptly, causing the plane to roll to the right. I immediately jerked the yoke to the left to counteract the force, but the wind held us in a right bank, and I could not roll the wings back to level for a second or two. When the wind stabilized and I was able to level the wings, we were above the glideslope and off to the right of the centerline.
     "I'm just going to go around," I said.
     I applied full throttle, retracted a notch of flaps, and started climbing. After I made the radio call, Matt said, "I'll never argue with the decision to go around."
     We made a total of eight landings, then tied down dear old 417 in her parking spot, ending what is most likely the last flight with Matt.
     Later in the day, we called off the next flight, choosing instead to review ground knowledge. Matt asked me all kinds of questions the examiner might ask, and I either gave an answer, or he explained the correct answer if I was unsure. There is so much information to take in that many days after completing a flight or ground lesson, I return to the hotel where I sit down and stare at nothing for a while, giving my brain time to process all the information it has taken in.
     It definitely has been seventeen days of drinking from a fire hose. Matt said I finished training faster than any of his previous students, except for the guy from Wisconsin who just came down to finish up night and solo flying.
     Matt is confident that I will pass both the stage check and the exam, and I am pretty confident of it as well. I know I will not be able to answer all the questions perfectly, but I believe I will be able to pass the exam.
     Today's flying added 1.5 hours and 8 landings to the logbook, which brings the totals to 42.6 hours and 128 landings.

Day 16: The End is Nigh

     It was a beautiful day that greeted my eyes when I opened the curtains morning. A few puffs of cloud material were floating high in the sky, and a cool breeze was a welcome change from the heat and humidity of the past few days.
     Once airborne on a solo flight, I began to like the breeze a little less as it kicked my aircraft around. At pattern altitude, which is a thousand feet above the ground, the wind was blowing at least 25 knots by my rough calculations. It made the flight quite bumpy, but it did make the takeoffs and landings much shorter. All the takeoffs and landings, except one, used less than half of the available runway. For the two hour block, all I did was practice takeoffs and landings. By the end of the flight, I had all the solo time I needed before taking the test.
     The next block was dual time with Matt. We practiced basic instrument flying while wearing the foggles, which included recovery from unusual attitudes. I wrote some about unusual attitudes in an earlier post, but simply put, I close my eyes, and Matt does some maneuvers to disorient me and puts the plane at an angle that would be dangerous if left there too long. Then I open my eyes and recover from the situation using only the instruments. Today I do not know what maneuvers Matt did, but with my eyes closed, it felt like we had to be upside down at one point. I know we were not, because that aircraft is not capable of inverted flight, but my senses were telling me different.
     After we got the 0.3 hours of instrument time I needed, we practiced a few stalls and steep turns, as well as a simulated engine failure. Matt was satisfied with how well I did, and so was I, so we returned to the airport. After debriefing, Matt signed my logbook for the instruction he gave, then turned to the back pages of the logbook. As I watched, he signed the part that gives me permission to take the practical test, which means that by his judgment, I have all the training I need. So tomorrow or Saturday, I will fly with Tim, a Master Instructor, for a stage check. If I pass his examination, then Monday or Tuesday I will take the practical and oral exams with an FAA Examiner. Upon passing that, Lord willing I will drive home as a newly certified private pilot.
     Today's flying added 3.2 hours and 13 landings to the logbook, which brings the totals to 41.1 hours and 120 landings - enough to take the exam.