Checkride Training

Yesterday was the PERFECT day to go flying. Well, it was a bit bumpy but who cares? That just makes it more fun. I went out with my instructor to officially start training for the checkride. It was a whirlwind. He had me doing everything from turns around a point and S turns to slow flight and stalls. It's amazing how quickly those skills rust over. Plus, with the crazy bumps staying within a 200 foot altitude band was harder than I expected.

Oh well, it was great training and the view was incredible. I flew over Alvin towards I-45 and I could see the little sailboats in the bay and Galveston off to the South. I love ground reference maneuvers because it's all out the window. I just can't get over how small cows look at 1000 feet.

Ok so that was all the easy part. We got back into the pattern and about halfway down the downwind leg he says, "Lets make this a soft field landing".

Alright, no problem. I'll need full flaps on final, but I'll pad my approach speed with 5 knots for the gusts. A little left crosswind but nothing to fret over. Then as I glide over touchdown I fail to bring the nose high enough. He took the controls and showed me as we glided over the runway.
"Like this" and he pulled the nose up to what seemed the empty blue sky. I was so used to normal landing i forgot how high the nose seemed on the ground as you tried to keep all the weight on the rear wheels. (The reason for this is to get the max braking effect on the rear and to protect the nose wheel).

Then while still coasting along on the runway he says "Alright, soft field take off".

Ack! Ok, 10 degrees of flaps and full power. I take weight off the nose again and try to fly her off the ground in ground effect. I get her up but i DONT hear the stall horn. It's counter intuitive but this is a situation where you do want to hear the stall horn and have it flying in the lowest speed possible. The ground effect is what helps you to cheat aerodynamics and get you flying.

So I fly her a few feet off he runway until she accelerates to climb speed and we are off again. At about 200 feet I go clean (or no flaps).

Then we do the whole thing again and I'm a little better but not much. I do have some things to work on but I'm there. This weekend I purchased some books to help with training. They include a guide to the oral exam and the standards for the checkride.

Yes there is an oral exam IN ADDITION to the written exam. The examiner can quiz you for as many as 3 hours on basically anything. He can say something like "Show me this airplane is legal to fly" or " what do you do if a passenger is hyperventilating". It's a final check to make sure that all those hours of studying will actually be useful in real world situations.

It's "studying" but I like it. I'm training for my checkride!

On a clear day, you can see for miles

I did it!
I flew my long cross country. That's 217 nautical miles around Houston and it was awesome!
The trip was incredible and it couldn't have been on a better day. I could see for miles and miles in every direction. I was going to write a huge entry about the things that happend along the way. For one thing a country radio station interferes with the Clover field frequency. I've never felt more Texas than when I was flying over farmland with country music piping in over my headset.
Anyway this flight did alot of things for me. For one thing, my confidence was bult much more by being in that plane for so long. By the end she fit like a glove. It's a special bond a boy and his plane.
Mostly though any doubts I may have had about my new hobby were completely obliterated that day. I'm hooked. The view up there is just too beautiful. As I flew out to that first airport everything just felt right. I looked out over the horizon and I was not afraid or nervous. The horizon was now a place, it was somewhere to go and it called irresistably.
I'm thinking people become pilots for different reasons. Some do it for the personal challenge. Others are more adrenaline drunkies, the big kids looking for that next big rush.
I am in it for the view. I am simply awed by flight.

This instense fascination/appreciation for all of this has led me to reconsider some life choices.


The view of Clover field as I left on my first big trip. Notice the blimp in the grass field.