Questions asked, required flight maneuvers, and reflections from my commercial check ride

A list of what I can remember having to answer and do for my commercial check ride last week, in no particular order. I know I don't remember everything...but here's what I do recall:

Oral Exam:

1. Logbook review. Had to show required day/night VFR cross country, long solo cross country.
   
2. Prove that the aircraft is airworthy. Reviewed current airframe, engine, and propeller logs, discussed our current recurring airworthiness directives, showed examiner the binder of all airframe ADs for our plane that I'd compiled.
3. What documents are required to be in the aircraft?
4. Reviewed my cross country flight plan and weight & balance calculations, asked to show where were were in the CG envelope
5. Has me review the weather information I'd printed out for the simulated cross country flight.
   
6. If we were farther forward in the CG envelope, would we fly faster or slower? Why?
   
7. What are the required VFR day instruments?
8. One of you required VFR day instruments isn't working. Can you fly? How?
   
9. What holds the landing gear up in your airplane? What holds it down?
10. Is the automatic gear extension system in your aircraft functional (vs. overridden)? How does it work?
11. What is trim used for?
    
12. What type of electrical system does your aircraft have? 12 volt or 24 volt?
    
13. How does a constant speed propeller work? What happens when you increase the throttle setting? What happens when you decrease the throttle setting?
14. What type of oil do you use?
    
15. If the governor failed, how would you deal with it?
    
16. What is the maximum altitude of Class E airspace?
17. Sectional questions: What does the shaded magenta area mean? What about the shaded blue area? What about the area enclosed by this thing that looks like a zipper? Points to a MOA and asks "what is this?". Same thing with a restricted area. Asks how to find hours of operations for MOA and restricted areas. Asks"Can you fly through a MOA? What about a restricted area?" Asks if the hours of operation for MOA/restricted areas are local or zulu. Points to class E airport and asks what dashed magenta circle means.
    
18. Class C airspace: What are the visibility and cloud clearance requirements. Do you need a transponder? What are the entry requirements? Same set of questions for Class B airspace
    
19. Points to an airport, says it's a 90 degree day and asks if can we take off or not.
    
20. What is density altitude?
21. What is pressure altitude?
22. What happens if you fly high enough long enough without oxygen?
23. What are the oxygen requirements for crew and passengers?
24. You mentioned having an oxygen bottle, what type is it?
25. Have you ever flown someone that experienced motion sickness? How would you handle it?
26. What would you do if you thought you had carbon monoxide in the cabin?
27. You have an engine fire in flight, what are you going to do?
28. How long can an ELT battery be used before you are required to replace it?
    
29. Draws a taxiway/runway intersection, asks what is the sign you'd see on the right side as you face the runway. What would be on the other side of this sign?
30. If ground control clears you to taxi to a runway, what does that mean if the route takes you across other runways?
31. Draws a runway with numbers 30 and 12. If runway 30 is right traffic, where is downwind, base, and final. If runway 12 is left traffic, same questions.
    
32. Light gun signals. What does flashing red mean? Solid red? Flashing green? Solid green? Red/Green?
33. Points to a METAR from my cross country weather information, has me decode it
34. What is an airmet? What is a sigmet? What is a convective sigmet?
35. What does a prog chart tell you?
36. What two things are required in order for an aircraft to enter a spin?
37. How do you recover from a spin?
38. There had to be more questions I was asked...I just can't remember them right now :-)
    

Flight:

1. Regular takeoff, short field takeoff, soft field takeoff.
2. Short field landing, soft field landing, power off 180 spot landing.
3. Simulated cross country flight to first checkpoint then says "Our ground speed is x and we're y miles from our destination, how long will it take us to get there?.
4. Diversion. Examiner says "The destination for your cross country flight is fogged in, where are you going to go, how far away is it, how long will it take us to get there, and how much fuel will we burn? Oh, and the GPS just died".
   
5. Chandelles, one each direction.
6. Lazy 8s (one)
7. Steep turns, one each direction. I was given the option of rolling from one to the next or stopping between them.
8. Power on stall, clean configuration while turning (in this case left, simulating departure stall while turning crosswind).
9. Power off stall, gear down, full flaps while turning (in this case left, simulating base to final stall).
10. Slow flight. Maintain specific heading, turn to specified heading while maintaining specified altitude and airspeed.
11. Simulated engine failure/forced landing (from 2000 ft, chose a road with a field next to it, would have taken the field had this been for real)
12. 8s on pylons, about 3/4 of one complete maneuver. 180 degrees into the second half of the 8, examiner said "That's good enough"

Things that I felt made a positive impression on the examiner. These were not required but went a long way to convey how I approach flying and maintaining my airplane:

1. Showed my binder of all airframe ADs and explained that this was a work in progress with a goal of having all ADs for our plane in one place and a note referencing where in the logs any terminating actions had been taken. Examiner commented that this was an ambitious project and agreed that it is an excellent way to learn more about my plane.
2. Had printed diagrams of a constant speed prop and governor with my notes on how they both work. When asked how they work, I replied "I have a couple of diagrams that I can speak to" to which he responded "I thought you might".
3. Wherever possible, I stressed safety as a top priority in the decision making process.
4. I related as many personal flying experiences as possible into my answers. For example, when asked about density altitude, I related how I handled a 9600 ft. DA takeoff from Rawlins Wyoming, what were the conditions, book numbers, and how if this had been on a much shorter runway, I'd have spent the night in Rawlins. In another example, I related how I spent the night in Lancaster during my long solo cross country flight, due to poor weather over the mountains.
   
5. Showed my homemade checklist, emergency procedures, light gun signals, transponder codes, etc. This is several laminated pages that are on my kneeboard.
   

CP-ASEL-IA

After four scheduling attempts, I passed my commercial pilot check ride today. In so doing, I exchanged my private pilot certificate for a commercial pilot certificate. I can now (almost) get paid to fly. There is the matter of obtaining a second class medical certificate vs. my current third class medical certificate.

Started at 4:00 am this morning in order to print out the weather information required for my simulated cross country flight, fill in the navigation log for said cross country flight, make sure I had everything I'd need for the day, and fly for a bit before the check ride.

Arrived at the airport around 8:00 where the temperature was a balmy -1c. With such cold temps (ok, cold for Northern CA) I saw 2000 feet/minute climb rate for the first time. Impressive for a 200 HP Arrow.

The oral exam went well and took a bit over three hours to complete. Nothing really unexpected and very much conversational vs. being asked question after question. I had several opportunities to relate my answers to real world flying experiences. As expected, I had to look up a couple of items in the FARs and the FAA Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. As with my private pilot check ride and instrument rating check ride, things were no different in that if you didn't know an answer but knew where to find it, life was good.

A quick break for lunch and we launched on the flying portion of the check ride. This took 1.8 hours. We started with the simulated cross country and shortly after hitting the first check point, the examiner had me perform the diversion. Unfortunately, I miscalculated my heading based on a position error where I thought we were. Mistake #1, completely my fault and I've since determined what I'd do differently next time.

Next up was air work. Conditions were pretty hazy so visual landmarks like mountain peaks, etc. were not as easy to see as usual. This bit me during the first steep turn as I rolled out on the incorrect peak in the Sierra Nevada mountains. Fortunately, altitude and airspeed were right on for this steep turn (to the left) so the examiner had me do one to the right and I nailed the proper heading when rolling out. Had to repeat the first chandelle as I didn't hold constant pitch during the last 90 degrees of the turn. Did one to the right and another one to the left than it was on to lazy 8s. These had been giving me fits and I've found them to be the most difficult of the maneuvers. I managed to perform one each direction within tolerances though. Next was slow flight and turning power on and power off stalls which went well. Descended to 2500 ft for a simulated engine failure/forced landing. Next was 8s on pylons which went fine. By this time, it's near sunset so we headed back to the airport for landings. Short field landing, short field takeoff, soft field landing, taxi back for soft field takeoff, then the power 0ff 180 spot landing then heard those wonderful words "If you can taxi back to parking without hitting anything, you can have your commercial certificate". Phew, done.

I'm spent...and for some reason, don't feel like flying for a bit. Go figure :-)

Almost a check ride

Another time lapse since posting anything, especially about the commercial certificate.

Two sentence summary: I've spent the better part of the past two months working with a CFI on my commercial certificate. Flying twice a week, I've managed to complete the training requirements and am apparently performing maneuvers and answering questions well enough that I'm endorsed to take my check ride.

You're now up to speed and hopefully this post will make more sense.

Three weeks ago, my CFI drops those wonderful words "Let's see about scheduling you check ride" on me. I casually reply with "Sure, sounds good, let's look at the calendar" while panicking inside and realizing that the next three weeks mean more time hitting the books and working on the flight maneuvers.

I spent the last three weeks doing the following:

- Finished going through the oral exam guide, making copious notes of things I need to review, print out, read, memorize, know where to find in the regulations, etc.

- Re-learning the finer points of old school flight planning via pencil lines on a sectional, plotter, and a whiz wheel. Re-familiarized myself with my electronic whiz wheel.

- Actually followed the instructions on the sectional for plotting a course from one side of the chart to the other. Ah, fond memories of figuring that out the first time I did it several years ago.

- Hand calculating weight and balance numbers. Ok, so I used a spreadsheet to check my math, liked it so much that I made it look like the old school example from the Piper weight and balance form that is part of the aircraft flight manual. Is that bad? :-)

- Replaced the starter in our '99 Corolla. A subject worthy of its own post and has absolutely nothing to do with commercial certificate check ride preparations other than the fact that I had to divert time and attention to it. Hey, "diversion", that fits...it all makes sense now...er, never mind, I digress.

- Made a long/ever growing list of things I'd think of that I didn't quite know off the top of my head.

- Printed out the recurring Airworthiness Directives for our plane and was reminded of always learning something new. For one AD, I discovered that I can perform the inspection. For another AD, found that our aircraft serial number isn't listed. For a third AD, found that the one listed in our logbooks has been superseded by a new AD (doesn't change anything for our plane, more of a bookkeeping thing to reference the new AD number). Note to self: run all of this this by our mechanic the next time I see him.

- Read, fly, fly, read. Read some more, fly some more. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I took yesterday off from work so I could study and fly. Did ok on the flying maneuvers but visibility limited things enough that I had to cut flying short. Came home and studied more and finished up as much of the required mock cross country flight plan as I could. Earned bonus points by actually using the wind side of the manual whiz wheel. Thankfully, my private pilot book has illustrated examples. I also discovered U-Tube videos on the subject. Figures.

Got up at 5:00 am this morning, printed out weather, punched wind information into my electronic whiz wheel and cranked out the final information for the mock cross country flight plan and arrival weight and balance numbers. Double and triple checked that I had everything I needed. Aircraft logs, flying gear, books, lunch...check, check, check...ok, off to the airport only 30 minutes after I'd planned. My goal was to fly for an hour and a half or so, refuel, then fly to my flight school (located at a different airport than my plane).

It was a great morning to fly. Great visibility and a horizon to use for steep turns, lazy 8s and chandelles, not something that I've had all the time lately. I was fairly pleased with all of my maneuvers but didn't have as much time as I would have liked for practicing some of the landings. I land and when I turn on my phone....beep, new message. I call, it's the examiner saying he has to cancel as he's not feeling well.

Just like that, my day is changed. It's slightly disappointing that I'd prepared and couldn't get a chance to take the check ride but on the other hand, the examiner made the right decision to cancel. It's no different than a cancellation due to weather (as yesterday would have been). In the end, no worries as I figure I have a bit more time to review things like CG weight shift formulas, weather theory and think of even more things I don't know off the top of my head. So now I spend another couple weeks in the seemingly infinite read, fly, fly, read loop. I really can't complain, there are far worse fates in life.

To be continued...

T-minus two days until launching for Oshkosh

Yea, it's that time of the year again. In two days I start the annual migration/pilgrimage/whatever you want to call it to Oshkosh. No aluminum tube travel this year. Nope, we go the proper way, via my plane. It really is the only way to go when it comes to flying to Oshkosh. Commercial travel is faster and cheaper but you miss out on so many things. No airport dogs/cats to pet, no meeting the wonderful folks who work at and run our nation's little known airports and, most important, no experiencing the Oshkosh arrival. There is really nothing like flying yourself into the busiest airport in the world when Airventure is going on. It truly is an experience most pilots should put in the logbook.

This year, we travel the Southern route with stops in AZ, NM, TX, and IA. Well, that's at least the plan, we'll see what transpires due to weather. Speaking of weather, this is my first year traveling this distance with on board XM weather. Having watched some stationary thunderstorms in the AZ/NM area over the weekend, I know this will be an invaluable addition to the avionics suite for the ~35 hours of flying from/to the Left Coast.

For a preview of what's going on this year, visit www.airventure.org

Airwork

I've finally started working on the flying portion of my commercial pilot certificate.  It's been a long time coming (passed the CP written test more than a year ago) but now that nice flying weather is here, it's time to dust off the Gleim maneuvers manual and get to work.  So far:

• Steep turns: Tons of fun.  More challenging at the minimum 50% bank, doing two back to back/one each direction.  Need to keep working on them.

• 180 degree power off spot landings in the Arrow (with the glide ratio of a streamlined brick):  Combination of fun and interesting.  Gear down, power to idle abeam the 1000 ft. touch down marks, *turn now*, flaps when the landing is assured (or you know you're way too high...rare in my plane), cheat and pull the prop back the instant you think you might be short....oh yeah, fun fun fun.  The interesting thing is that I tend to land them 100 ft. longer than allowed.  More practice needed.

• Chandelles: Fun but I've only tried them once.  Need to work on the proper pitch attitude to establish then hold.  Nice way to gain altitude for the steep spirals though.

• Steep Spirals: Have only done one.  Nice way to lose all that altitude gained doing chandelles.

• Slow flight: So far, this is the easiest part of the airwork.  It's also the least exciting.  It does have the distint advantage, however, of consuming less fuel so it's not all bad :-)

Not much ground covered in the past couple of weeks but it's a start.  My plan is to get out at least once a week, more if possible, and work on all of the maneuvers until I have them dialed in.  Oh, and poke/prod/beg/cajole my instructor friend into getting current in the ranks of the CFI world so I can log the necessary dual instruction.

Barnstorming - A Documentary Film

Check this out: http://www.barnstormingmovie.com/trailer.htm. Looks *very* cool...

New photo site

Well, it's not really new, I just updated my links section so tep.smugmug.com is new there. Anyway, here's a photo site from a friend/first ever CFI (yes, those two really can co-exist :-) ). This would be the same guy I'll blame for giving me a reason to sink money into a DSLR when he said "My D80 is for sale". Oh well...the D80 is likely holding its value way better than anything I have in the stock market right now :-)

http://tep.smugmug.com/

Also, his Flickr photo stream:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stpilot

No pause button

It's funny how you never know at the start of a day just where things might go or what you might learn that will impact your day in an unexpected way.

About a week ago, I found an old friend on Facebook. Brian grew up two doors away from me during my Jr. high and Sr. high years. I can't even remember the last time we spoke or saw each other. It's strange how the mind works (or doesn't in my case) with things like this where you can't put your finger on a specific time or place yet you know it's been an incredibly long time. All the while, you wonder where the time went. You start counting years only to be shocked at how many have gone by.

In a quick reply on Facebook, Brian asks "Did you hear about Neil?". Neil grew up across the street from our house and was a year younger than me and Brian. The three of us goofed around a lot, went fishing, rode bikes/skates/skateboards, played baseball in the street and got in trouble from time to time. We were typical Jr. and Sr. high boys. My first thought at Brian's question is that this isn't good news about Neil. An e-mail later, my suspicion is confirmed and I find out that Neil was killed in a cycling accident last year. As I read that line in the e-mail, I wanted time to stop for a minute so that I could take things in. I wanted to hit the pause button...why isn't there a pause button in life? I've been in this situation before, several times, yet I still just want things to stop, just for a minute or two. A childhood friend is no longer alive yet I'd gone about my life for a year or so not knowing this. When I find out, it seemed only fair to pause time so I could catch up with things.

So, instead, I've gone about my day doing normal things but also taking time to think about life roughly 35 years ago when we were kids. The memories keep coming back and they're vivid. Neil was the kid that broke his arm skating down a hill but not making the corner. Neil went fishing with us. Neil built and rode skateboards with us. Neil was part of our seemingly daily summertime trips to the neighborhood pool. Neil played baseball in the court with us and did his fair share of shagging the tennis ball when it went into the Eastman's back yard. I learned about Nike shoes from Neil . Several times he'd saved his money and while on trips to (I think) Los Angeles, buy a pair of Nike Bruins...blue if I recall correctly and you could only get them in LA. Neil also had the biggest olive tree on the court in his front yard. This tree supplied endless slingshot ammunition and I can't count the number of cars we pelted while they drove past our street. We never got caught thanks to Neil 's yard having bushes with a built in tunnel system.

I wish I had a chance to know what Neil had been up to the past 20+ years and to talk about the fun we had growing up so many years ago. Sadly, I'd let time and distance take it's toll on things and have been out of touch for far too long.

News such as this can make you reflect and want to reprioritize some things in life. We're not guaranteed tomorrow so we need to make the most of the time we have today. The song "We Live" by SuperChick is rolling through my head right now. Listen/video here Lyrics here