Tuesday, December 15, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 09, 2009

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 :-)