After having to put it off last Saturday due to some maintenance issues with my plane I finally went in for my checkride today.
After a fitful night's sleep last night I got to the airport around 11:30 (my checkride was scheduled for 1:00) to do weight and balance and get the plane preflighted. The plane looked ok and I made sure that there was more than enough fuel on board.
At about 12:30, as I was sitting around the FBO eating a muffin and making sure I had all my papers in order I got a call from the examiner. He was checking to make sure he had my online application number correct. I verified the number with him and it was correct, he called back a few minutes later and told me he still couldn't access it, he said it probably meant that my instructor hadn't "signed" it (signing it involves logging onto the faa site and clicking a few buttons). So i gave my instructor a call, I got a hold of him no problem but he was in Santa Maria at the time changing a tire on a plane that had been left there the day before. He said he would try and get to a computer as soon as possible, but he wasn't sure if he could find one!: I got a call back from him a few minutes later and he was able to get on a computer and get what he needed to do done.
With the paperwork taken care of everything started off ok at 1:00. I had my stuff all laid out in my conference room at Atlantic in SBA. The DPE arrived and we went in the weather room to go over charts and when we came back the conference room had been taken over by the Atlantic staff for a meeting! Since we couldn't continue the oral sitting in the lobby we had to sit around for about half an hour chatting until they were finished with their meeting and we were able to continue. The rest of the oral went well and we were soon ready to start flying.
The DPE went over what approaches we were going to do and what he expected from me and what I could expect from him. We were soon crammed into the plane and ready to set off. The plane seemed to be running particularly well and neither mag was fouled during the run-up, which was a relief since it happens fairly often, and I didn't want to be playing around trying to clear the mags during my checkride. I finished the run-up and was soon on the runway applying power. I've lately gotten into the habit of applying power very slowly during the takeoff roll, and I'm very glad I did today. Right as we were rolling through 30kts my seat back slipped and suddenly slammed back to the fully reclined position. I aborted the takeoff and taxied back to runway 25. Once I was back in the runup area I put the parking break on and got my seat back how I liked it. I later realized that the seat slipped because I had bumped the adjustment wheel earlier in the day when I was crawling into the back.
The second takeoff roll went smoothly and we were soon airborne tracking the localizer outbound on the Habut 4 departure (nothing like starting off a checkride with some backwards localizer tracking). After we completed the Habut 4 departure the DPE set me up on the LOC/DME BC-A approach into SMX. I had practiced this approach many times with my instructor but I still found it difficult since it was fairly windy and tracking a back course has always been tricky for me. We followed the approach up with the ILS runway 12 out of the hold and then headed to IZA to do the vor approach. The surface winds were quite high so we ended the approach with a miss instead of circling to land. Once we finished the approach we headed back to SBA and followed the ILS down to circle-to-land on runway 25.
Over-all the DPE said I did very well, I was quite nervous leading up to the flight but I had calmed down fairly well by the time we went up. I had heard from quite a few people that the DPE I was using can be very difficult but I found him to be quite likable and he seemed very fair to me. Everything went pretty well despite the few early mishaps and I'm very happy to be done with my IFR training!
After a fitful night's sleep last night I got to the airport around 11:30 (my checkride was scheduled for 1:00) to do weight and balance and get the plane preflighted. The plane looked ok and I made sure that there was more than enough fuel on board.
At about 12:30, as I was sitting around the FBO eating a muffin and making sure I had all my papers in order I got a call from the examiner. He was checking to make sure he had my online application number correct. I verified the number with him and it was correct, he called back a few minutes later and told me he still couldn't access it, he said it probably meant that my instructor hadn't "signed" it (signing it involves logging onto the faa site and clicking a few buttons). So i gave my instructor a call, I got a hold of him no problem but he was in Santa Maria at the time changing a tire on a plane that had been left there the day before. He said he would try and get to a computer as soon as possible, but he wasn't sure if he could find one!: I got a call back from him a few minutes later and he was able to get on a computer and get what he needed to do done.
With the paperwork taken care of everything started off ok at 1:00. I had my stuff all laid out in my conference room at Atlantic in SBA. The DPE arrived and we went in the weather room to go over charts and when we came back the conference room had been taken over by the Atlantic staff for a meeting! Since we couldn't continue the oral sitting in the lobby we had to sit around for about half an hour chatting until they were finished with their meeting and we were able to continue. The rest of the oral went well and we were soon ready to start flying.
The DPE went over what approaches we were going to do and what he expected from me and what I could expect from him. We were soon crammed into the plane and ready to set off. The plane seemed to be running particularly well and neither mag was fouled during the run-up, which was a relief since it happens fairly often, and I didn't want to be playing around trying to clear the mags during my checkride. I finished the run-up and was soon on the runway applying power. I've lately gotten into the habit of applying power very slowly during the takeoff roll, and I'm very glad I did today. Right as we were rolling through 30kts my seat back slipped and suddenly slammed back to the fully reclined position. I aborted the takeoff and taxied back to runway 25. Once I was back in the runup area I put the parking break on and got my seat back how I liked it. I later realized that the seat slipped because I had bumped the adjustment wheel earlier in the day when I was crawling into the back.
The second takeoff roll went smoothly and we were soon airborne tracking the localizer outbound on the Habut 4 departure (nothing like starting off a checkride with some backwards localizer tracking). After we completed the Habut 4 departure the DPE set me up on the LOC/DME BC-A approach into SMX. I had practiced this approach many times with my instructor but I still found it difficult since it was fairly windy and tracking a back course has always been tricky for me. We followed the approach up with the ILS runway 12 out of the hold and then headed to IZA to do the vor approach. The surface winds were quite high so we ended the approach with a miss instead of circling to land. Once we finished the approach we headed back to SBA and followed the ILS down to circle-to-land on runway 25.
Over-all the DPE said I did very well, I was quite nervous leading up to the flight but I had calmed down fairly well by the time we went up. I had heard from quite a few people that the DPE I was using can be very difficult but I found him to be quite likable and he seemed very fair to me. Everything went pretty well despite the few early mishaps and I'm very happy to be done with my IFR training!
Quinn... this is great!! Now I can read about all your wonderful adventures! Keep up the good work.
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