I'm finished!!! My final couple of flights all happened pretty quick and I didn't get a chance to post anything.
I flew twice on Monday, 10/5, and it was kind of a stressful day. I had been planning my last cross country all last week and last week but the weather was bad an I was unable to do it. Monday the weather still wasn't the greatest to the West of Little Rock which is where I was headed, so I ended up doing my cross country to Searcy and Stuttgart, which are East. It was also my first solo in a Cessna, and like I said they weather wasn't ideal. But it was still a great flight and good experience flying in less than perfect conditions.
The second flight that day was my final stage check in a Katana and even though the instructor said I did fine, I felt like it was one of my worst flights. He quizzed me on all different aspects, which I did okay for the most part, and then we flew to KSGT and did maneuvers. All of the maneuvers he said were within the limits but I didn't feel like any of them were as good as I normally do. One thing that he did that I’ve never done before is he put a little spin on unusual attitudes. Usually, for unusual attitudes you close your eyes, the instructor maneuvers the plane in all kinds of awkward positions, and you have to open your eyes and recover the plane. This time however, he had me close my eyes and continue to fly the plane. Let me tell you, this throws your senses for a loop. He had me do turns climbs and descends with my eyes closed. I have no idea if I was actually doing what he was telling me to, but eventually I would open my eyes and recover the plane from whatever attitude that I got it into.
Tuesday, 10/9, I flew for the last time with my instructor and we did a Mock Check ride and made sure all of my endorsements, and documents were good to go for the check ride. We practiced all of the maneuvers again and he also quizzed me on different things (weather, airspace, rules and regs, etc.).
Wednesday 10/10 was the big day. I had my check ride at 8am. On the way there I happened to find a podcast that talked about the Private Pilot check ride so I listened to it. It was put out by MZeroA, if anyone is looking for podcasts or youtube videos theirs are pretty informative. When I got there I met the Examiner who was very friendly and we starting joking right from the start. We sat down and he went over how the morning was going to go, then we went over my application for the private pilot cert., my log book and endorsements, medical certificate, student pilots cert. and all of the documentation that goes along with everything. Then we started into the oral exam which took about 2 hours. It definitely didn't feel like 2 hours though because it wasn't a strict question and answer session. He would ask a question, I would tell him what I knew about it, and then he would spend a little bit talking about it more in-depth. He was very knowledgeable and I learned a lot from him. He also told me several stories that were pretty interesting and from the sounds of it, he has had an amazing carrier in aviation. Everything from having his own skydiving business in Florida to flying tours in the Grand Canyon. When we got to the weather portion of the oral, he listed 10 or 11 items and said I had to be able to explain 7 of them to pass, but if I got all 10 I would get a free "do over" on any maneuver that I screw up. I managed to get all of them right, but he did let me look one of them up. After the oral exam was finished we went over the cross-country flight I had planned the night before which was a flight from Little Rock to Memphis. Then I head headed out to pre-flight the Katana. After the pre-flight I ran through the checklists and we taxied out to the runway where we sat for quite a while waiting for clearance to take off. All but 1 of the runways were closed and we finally got clearance to take-off. The first take-off was a soft field which went just fine. Once we were on course to the first checkpoint, Carlisle, he continued asking me different questions about the plane and airspace etc. When we got close to 4M3 he said that there was bad storm moving in and we had to divert to a different airport, and of course the GPS was “broke”. I got the chart out and diverted to Stuttgart. He asked me some questions about the VORs and how to intercept a radial. We intercepted the 089 radial and headed to KSGT. It was pretty hazy and we were flying into the morning sun so I couldn’t see KSGT until we were pretty close to it. Once I had KSGT in sight we started some maneuvers and did the power on and off stalls. During the power on stall I did make one mistake and I wasn’t applying quite enough right rudder, and I felt it start to go into a left spin! This was my first time almost entering a spin accidentally (my instructor did a spin intentionally a one point to show me what it was like). Surprisingly, I quickly applied right rudder to correct it. He scolded me (in a very friendly manor) for not applying enough right rudder but commended me for a quick recovery from the oncoming spin and we talked a little bit about spin awareness. Then we had a simulated engine fire and had to land at KSGT. The only thing I messed up on this part was I started to pitch for best glide like you would for an engine failure, after I realized I wasn’t doing the correct thing I dropped the nose and got down as fast as I could. We did a soft field landing and then taxied back to do a short field take off. There was another plane in the area with two instructors in it doing some training, which will be relevant in a minute. Before we did our take off, he brought up the pre-flight inspection. He said I did a really good job except I forgot to take the cover off the pitot tube (there isn’t a pitot tube cover on the Katana). So he covers up the airspeed indicator and says I have to do it without it and be off the ground before the 1000ft markers. I’ve never done a take-off without the airspeed indicator, much less a short field but okay, let’s see how it goes. It actually went surprisingly smooth. So he said he wanted me to show him a nice traffic pattern and then a short field landing and be stopped by the 1000ft markers. I asked if I get my airspeed indicator back. He said yes and took the cover off and then changed his mind… He said “nowhere in the book does it say you have to be able to do a short field landing with no airspeed indicator, but let’s see if you can. Oh great, just what I wanted to do. Airspeed is very important for every landing, but it’s extremely important for short field landings. When we on the downwind leg for the runway the other plane with the two instructors in it were holding short of the runway waiting for us to land, so the examiner gets on the radio and asks them to watch and grade this next landings. He also tells them it’s supposed to be a short field landings and the kicker is that my airspeed indicator is covered. No pressure. I extended my downwind a little to give myself a little extra time to get slowed down if I felt I was going to fast. My biggest hurdle I’ve overcame is learning to land slower and not be afraid of low airspeed in the vicinity of the ground! I got my flaps down at what I thought was a slow enough speed, and came in on final at what felt right judging by how fast I was approaching the runway. Once I was coming in over the runway lights I knew I was on the right track and began my flare. Not trying to pat my own back, but I made a nice touchdown right on the numbers and got stopped well before the capt bars. The examiner asked the other instructors what they thought and they gave me a “well done” and said I wasn’t 5 feet above the runway lights. Feeling pretty proud of myself he commended me and gave me precious airspeed indicator back. We took off and he talked to me about how we really don’t need the gauges to fly and need to be able feel what the plane is doing and be aware of what it’s telling us that it needs. We started to head back to LIT and he had me do some ground reference maneuvers. We did a few S-Turns and then he had me put my foggles on. Then he did some unusual attitudes which I was able to recover from fairly easily. They seemed much less aggressive than the attitudes my instructor put the plane in. After that he had me do some turns and climbs with the foggles on. He told me to take them off and then told me that all I had to do was land and park the plane and I’d have a pilot’s license! As we came back into KLIT’s airspace they started to vector us way out away from the airport. They still only had one runway open and lots of traffic in the area. After what felt like hours, they finally brought us back in to land. Once we were back in the office he printed off my temporary certificate and congratulated me on a job well done. It was actually a very fun and educational check ride. I couldn’t have asked for a better examiner. Even though I very rarely get nervous about anything non-life threatening and work fine under pressure, I was a little nervous about the check ride. His relaxed demeanor and stories made me feel very comfortable and I think if it hadn’t had been for that, I wouldn’t have done so well.
Thanks for all of the encouragement from everyone on here, and good luck to everyone who is still in the process of finishing their pilot’s training. If you ever need any help don’t hesitate to ask! If I don’t know the answer I’m sure someone on here will.