Check Ride – Part 2: Right at My Personal Max Limits
It was Thursday, 30 July 2021, 1100 local time at the same airfield in central Texas. And it was Texas-in-July hot, with the temp climbing above 98 degrees. The examiner arrived. I stared at the windsock. Wind speeds were gusting to my personal maximums. But the examiner had driven in an hour and a half from out of town. And no way did I want to extend this thing another day. I decided to go ahead with the practical. That was the first mistake.
My examiner talked on the phone during the whole preflight. I climbed into the left seat, and he finally hung up, signing off with a curt, “I’ll talk to you in an hour.” He nodded impatiently during the whole passenger briefing. I already felt squeezed for time.
I started up the engine, looked out the window, and caught my breath. I had left the stepladder under the left wing, where I had checked the stall warning horn during the pre-flight. Perfect timing. I had never done that in three-and-a-half months of training! I shut down the engine, jumped outside, and stashed the stepladder in the baggage compartment, fumbling with the lock. Seatbelt on, doors and windows secure? Ok, here we go.
The heat, wind, and hurriedness only got worse. We bounced through the hot gusts like a porpoise. My stomach dropped through the floor every few minutes. I completed the early items on the ACS checklist no problem—navigation, unusual attitude recovery, steep turns, slow flight. Then the examiner told me to do a power-on stall with a 15-degree right bank. I blinked. A 15-degree bank on a stall that’s supposed to simulate takeoff? “That’s what I said, wasn’t it?” I executed the maneuver within FAA standards, but it wasn’t pretty. The examiner criticized me sharply. “I’ll have to talk to your flight instructor about that,” he said, scowling.
Did that mean I failed the test? I pushed aside the negative thoughts and focused on finding a landmark for the turn-around-a-point. I took too long. “Circle back around,” the examiner cut in, “We’re getting too far from the airport.” I guessed we had to make it back in time for his phone call. I completed the ground reference maneuvers, and we headed back home for the landings.
Back at the airfield, the crosswinds had picked up. The windsock whipped around the pole, rippling at almost 90 degrees to the runway. I entered final too high and slipped to a landing. The examiner criticized my technique for the whole upwind and crosswind legs of the next touch-and-go. On downwind, he threw me for another loop: “Land this one without flaps,” he said, “You might have an electrical failure and lose power to the flap control. Happens all the time.” No flaps? That wasn’t anywhere in the ACS!
Unfamiliar with the new configuration, I entered final too high again, struggled to find the right crab angle into the gusting winds, and powered up for a go-around a second later than I should have. The examiner sent more spitfire over the radio waves. I was angry, hot, and frustrated. It was almost impossible to focus. No way was I going to execute the soft and short field landings to FAA standards in these conditions.
I called a time-out. I put the flaps in, set the plane on the ground, and issued another weather-related discontinuance. The instructor told me it was a good decision. He picked up his phone as soon as he got out of the airplane. I still had to complete the short and soft-field touch-and-go’s—maybe ten minutes’ worth of flying—before I could call myself a private pilot.
Finishing those ten minutes took the next twenty days. My examiner and I exchanged texts through the weekend. I was at the airfield every day practicing no-flap landings. All set for Sunday, 2 August, at 1400? On! Then late Saturday night, the examiner canceled. He had misread his schedule. Ok, so on for Monday? Monday, any time. Monday came, and we had to push it back until Tuesday. Tuesday at 1200? Confirmed. The examiner asked me to meet him at a new airport inside Class Bravo airspace, 30 minutes away from my home field. My flight instructor had to endorse me for a cross-country flight. The check-ride stress continued.
