Sorry for the delay, its been a heck of a couple of weeks. Well, the title says it all, I am officially a commercially rated pilot. About freakin time! It did not come easily, though. The checkride was one of the most challenging things I've faced, not in the sense of weather conditions, or emergencies, or whatnot, but the examiner was a bit of a handful. The oral exam went well, with a few hiccups on some of the weather charts (anyone want to explain what a "dry line" is on a surface analysis chart?). That said, once we got into the airplane, things just couldn't fall my way. First off - it was windy, and they were swinging around all over the place. I've flown in much worse conditions (ask me sometime about an A36 Bonanza into Nashua, NH), but its certainly not what I wanted on my check ride. Secondly, the examiner wanted me to perform the check ride, and its associated maneuvers, HIS way, as opposed to the standardized way I was taught at FlightSafety.
I was warned about this before, but didn't expect it to be as bad as it was. Throughout the flight I was concerned with failing - he constantly told me how bad my maneuvers were and how I should be doing something different - and was worked up, but never let it show. As we came back to Vero, I was soaked in sweat and exhausted, with only one landing left to make. We sailed in along the glideslope, wind knocking us about like a dingy in a hurricane, and I fought to keep the airplane aligned with the center of the runway. I rounded out my approach into the flare, and waited for the airplane to settle down, keeping my cross-wind correction in and hoping a gust of wind didn't float me past my touchdown point. The resulting landing was only realized when we could feel the cracks in the runway pass beneath our tires. No sound, no jolt. The examiner's smile betrayed the mask he had been wearing throughout the flight, as he later said he is especially stern on commercial students to see how they react to pressure. Thirty minutes and $400 later, I had my ticket in-hand.
So there we are! The ink had barely dried on my Instrument rating and I was issued another "Temporary Airman's Certificate." The economist (read: analyst) in me can't let the moment pass without some number crunching, though. The total cost of my training from Instrument to commercial was $10,644.54 - nearly a full $4,000 less than what was originally quoted to me from FlightSafety. I attribute the savings to a few factors. FlightSafety quotes time and cost numbers based on "average" time needed to complete a rating or certificate (under CFR part 61). Coming to FlightSafety, I was already a fairly proficient pilot, and didn't need a lot of recurrent training to adapt to their standards. Also, I was very proactive in my studies and classroom preparation, a point which the Chief Flight Instructor mentioned makes a significant difference. Further, my schedule was only limited by my instructor, aircraft availability, and work schedule. Not once did a lack of preparation or available funds restrict my flying. To that point, only 70 days had passed from my first flight (3/17) to my commercial check-ride (5/25) and in that time, I amassed 50 hours in my logbook, bringing my total to 271.2 hours.
So what's next? Well my multi-engine training has started. Its only 17 lessons, 5 of which are in the simulator and one or two briefs, so it should go fairly quickly. I hope to be on my checkride by the beginning of next month. First thoughts on it though - things get a bit complicated when an engine fails. In single-engine aircraft, you have one option when your engine quits: Land. In multi-engined aircraft, you're still flying, so your approach to handling the emergency is much different than anything I've learned before. The challenge is certainly fun, and I can't wait to have to learn to handle it all, AND fly an instrument approach. Geeze...
Flight Instructor ground school starts on Monday, so I'll be back to report on how that is going as well as a multi-engine update. I'll leave you all with something I came up with while talking to a friend of mine, trying to describe why I love flying:
"It's always a sunny day above the clouds..."
So I'm signed off to take my Commercial Single-Engine, Land checkride on Tuesday. I have a "mock" checkride tomorrow with another instructor, just to make sure everything is fine, but the endorsements are in the logbook. The last hurdle I had to pass in order to get those endorsements was to show my instructor I could perform all the maneuvers in order to pass the flight test. Lazy-8s, Chandelles, Steep turns - I was performing them well within the practical test standards, and often better than my instructor. Hell, on the steep turns, I not only hit my own wake after the first one, but after the SECOND as well!
Unfortunately, I am human, and like all humans, had a nemesis: The Power-Off 180. The power off 180 is a maneuver designed to simulate an engine failure in which you have to make a 180-degree turn and land on a designated spot. The kicker is, for the commercial exam, you need to be within -0/+200 of that designated spot. When you're moving at 70+ MPH on touch down, that window comes and goes in about 2 seconds - its no easy feat! On top of that, the Piper Arrow is no glider. When you pull the power off and put the gear down, it sinks like an elevator with the cables cut (or a Cirrus full of doctors). The margin for error is very slim, and for one reason or another, I could NOT get the hang of it. Some times I'd come in too short and have to go-around. Other times I'd float forever and miss my mark. I was getting frustrated, flustered, and angry with myself.
So I started asking around for advice. One of the senior instructors at FlightSafety recommended I pick a "gate" to aim for in the sky. In other words, at "x" point from the runway on my approach, I should aim for "y" altitude, and that will put me into a position to make my point no matter what. The theory was if I could get myself set up early, I wouldn't have to work so hard later in the approach. So I tried it on my first attempt, and while the winds were relatively calm, I felt I was a little shorter than I wanted to be, but was able to use ground-effect and flaps to my advantage. Had the winds been higher, I don't think I would have had the kinetic energy to get to my point.
At that point, I was happy that I could hit the mark at will, but I wasn't convinced the method would be perfect for my checkride. I turned to my instructor and told him I was "going to try something a little unorthodox." Keeping my pattern tight, I came abeam my landing point, pulled the power out, lowered the gear and imagined I was back home flying my friend's Decathlon. Established in a slight slip, I started a constant turn to base, managing my airspeed through the pitch of the nose and noting my altitude. Seeing I was a tad high, I put in flaps and increased the slip, all the while continuing my turn from base to final. I had a LOT more energy than the other method, but as soon as I was into the wind, it started to dissipate rapidly. I rounded out a few feet over the runway, keeping the slip in to bleed the remaining airspeed, kicking it out only to grease it (greaser = soft landing) within 50 feet of my mark.
I couldn't help but smile, and under my breath, said the same thing JJ would say time and time again: "No fair having fun..."
