I did it. Finally.
It was a perfect day for it. Clear skies, with scattered fluffiness and a moderate wind from the north-west. The ground work went well and the examiner's inspection of the flight-plan put him in a good mood. On the last test he commented that mine was one of the better flightplans he'd seen (they're frequently incorrect) but today he noticed that I made ammendments that he'd recommended on the last test. Listening to what they say is always a perfect way to put the examiner in a good mood.
It was an uneventful take-off and a regular visual departure towards Kilcock. I picked up a routing to Enfield as my first leg. I then turned onto 220 degrees heading for Rathangan. I put a call in to Baldonnel to advise them what we were doing. Flip me, the controller in Bal was talking way faster than you usually get even from Dublin Approach. I don't usually have to get a controller to repeat what they say but he was just way too fast for me.
Rathangan appeared on time and on course and that was the end of the plan which was to bring me to Kilkenny. From Rathangan, I was diverted to Kilbeggan. Immediately, I picked up on the fact that the route takes us right over Clonbullogue (EICL), a very active parachuting airfield. I called them but there was no response. As a precaution, I routed to the north side of the 'field. This was taking the wind into account; allowing for a stray canopy to drift to the south of the field. This sort of reasoning definitely impressed the man in the right-hand seat.
We got to Kilbeggan on time and on course. Interestingly, the examiner said to me after the flight that he was happy not to see a whizz-wheel in use for the diversion. He prefers to see candidates be able to use rough navigation techniques to achieve the diversion.
Next up was the upper-air work, which is almost never a problem. Up to three and a half thousand feet. Steep turns left and right - I flew into my own wake so that's always a good sign. Okay, Okay, I know the wake drops a little so that means I lost a few feet but it's still a good indication - certainly well within the 50 feet limits required for the commercial flight test.
The stalls were a non-event and there wasn't much to report on the practise forced landing either. It wasn't great but I'd have gotten into the field. It's amazing how few suitable fields there are. I guess that's the Irish landscape for you- defintely more patchwork than rolling plains. You really do need climb to a decent altitude to give you some options if the engine fails.
After that there was the usual VOR fixing and tracking and a 360 degree turn under the hood. Again, all that stuff went well. To be honest, I was well able for it all and have been for a while, which is why failing it the first time was quite blow. Today was much more indicative of my capabilities. While it wasn't perfect flying, it was safe and clearly up to the examiners expectation. Perhaps I have too high an expectation of myself.
The last thing for the examiner to check was my flapless landing. Weston cleared me back into the zone to join right base for 25. The examiner offered the choice of either the flapless or a standard approach. I felt relaxed, on top of everything so I elected to go for the flapless. There were two items of traffic ahead of us so we had to slow down a bit more. It added a little to the workload but i figured it gave me a little room to fudge the circuit a little if I had to and the extra spacing I was leaving for the traffic gave me space to slow down the Grob. I called "final for touch and go" and the tower cleared me to continue. On short finals the examiner said to make it a full stop. I requested the landing and the tower cleared me to land. I knew the change to a full-stop landing was a good sign but I dismissed that thought rapidly, focussing instead on a good landing. I flared a little high, but recovered nicely. The touch-down was no greaser but it was certainly nothing to be embarrassed about.
It was all looking good but I was conscious of getting complacent so I parked carefully and paid particular attention to the shutdown checks. It would have been a shame to get sloppy at the end. I didn't and it all went smoothly. I was a much happier aviator at the end of this flight than the last time. In fact once I landed, I wanted to go flying. That's a lie - when I landed I wanted a mug of tea and then to go flying.
We went through the debrief where he told me I'd passed and we both acknowledged how much better a day today had been. It certainly was - today I am a pilot.
Thank-you to all of you that helped, taught, encouraged and supported. You do the test on your own but you can't get there without a lot of help. Thank you.
Congratulations. Welcome to the club!
Posted by: Charles O'Rourke | October 16, 2007 at 11:09 PM
BTW - what's next? Instrument rating?
Posted by: Charles O'Rourke | October 16, 2007 at 11:09 PM