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| Airline Prep |
PRE-FLIGHT
You are given one hour to prepare for the flight, the examiner gives you a short nav leg to plan and then you have to do the standard mass & balance, performance, flight log, and of course print off and assess the weather, as you do on any other flight. It was pretty relaxed, you're not monitored or isolated when you do this, it's just like preparing for any other flight. I was asked a few questions on these but I knew what I was talking about with those (as I should after the amount of times I've done them) so he didn't spend long on that.
Anyway, once I had done all the paper work and planning the examiner and I went into a briefing room where he asked me a series of questions about the aircraft, a few law questions and general questions which should be common knowledge to do with the map or questions about various places that need to be looked up in one of the AIP's. As far as preparation went for this, I spent a few days looking through the aircraft manual and AIP's (big books with lots of information in such as weather met minima, aerodrome plates, daylight tables etc). It is impossible to memorise all of this so you just need to know where to look. All of this was good until we came to the technical questions. He asked me a few tricky questions which I didn't know and couldn't remember where to look in the manual. It was a little embarrassing that he had to show me where to look in the manual on two occasions, especially since I thought I was well prepared for that. But thankfully the examiner was very nice and didn't mind too much. We then had a look at the weather which we went through in a bit of detail and came to the conclusion that it was more than good enough to go flying.
We then walked out to the aircraft where he observed my pre-flight inspection whilst asking me a few more technical questions on the way round. I was better here but there were still a few things he had to tell me about which I just hadn't heard before. He was happy with the inspection though. Some examiners pretend to be a passenger that's never flown before so you have to give them a proper brief and actually treat them like a clueless passenger which can be quite awkward. Thankfully my examiner didn't do this.
DEPARTURE & NAV
I did all the start up checks, radio calls and taxiing then started with the nav leg that I'd been given. I was given quite a generous leg, I've flown it many times, there are some excellent event cycle features to use to make sure you're on track and the airfield itself is easy to find. The conditions were excellent for flying which made navigating accurately much easier than it has been over the last few weeks. About 3/4's of the way down the leg he simulated a battery failure, which meant having to use my emergency check list. This was a problem because I only then realised that I'd forgotten it! I'd brought it on every single flight up until this one, why would I forget it this time? IDIOT! There wasn't one in the aircraft either like there usually is so I was very cross with myself. The examiner, relaxed as always, just reached back and found a section in one of the manuals we carry which contains the checks for the scenario which I read and concluded that we would have to divert, whilst turning off all the lights, the fuel pump and one of the radios, so as to make the battery last a bit longer. I said in reality I would divert to Thames which was about 3 minutes ahead of us but he wanted me to divert to Matamata. So I planned the diversion and after flying the diversion leg for about 30 seconds he said he was happy and that's the end of the nav section.
GENERAL HANDLING
The next part was the general handling. I was tested on all three different stalls which were spot on apart from one, which he then demonstrated and I repeated it just how he showed me, which he was absolutely fine with. I just didn't pull the nose up after the recovery quick enough first time. He then asked me to do a few steep turns which I did nicely. He was happy with all of that so then asked me to join at Matamata for a few circuits.
CIRCUITS
Being a sunny Sunday, there were a few gliders operating at Matamata which I hadn't experienced before so I was very cautious. He first asked me to do a normal landing, which I did well, then he asked for a flapless landing. Late into the downwind leg he told me to tighten up the turn a bit and when I applied a bit of power he told me off. I was a bit confused and confirmed that he wanted a flapless landing. He looked back equally confused and said he thought he'd asked for a glide.... By this point we were on a short final coming from an unusual angle. I asked if I could just continue with the flapless anyway which was fine and again a nice landing, then finally I did the glide approach and thanks to the calm conditions, did another nice landing just past my aiming point. I felt quite chuffed as that was probably the part of the test I had been most concerned about.
INSTRUMENT FLYING
The last section was half an hour of instrument flying, where he asked me to do a few turns and a bit of climbing and descending. He then covered up a few instruments and asked for a few more turns, but just using the compass which is harder than using the DI. He then took control and asked me to close my eyes and take my hands and feet off the controls whilst he manipulated the aircraft into a few unusual positions. He then said open your eyes and recover (bare in mind I'm still under the hood and can't see out). Judging by what the instruments were doing I recovered and got the plane back into straight and level flight. On one of the recoveries I rolled and pitched at the same time to recover, rather than rolling first then pitching. Nothing major but just not the precise technique that we are taught. All the others were good though.
ARRIVAL
He then asked me to take him back to Hamilton and do a flapless landing. The arrival was standard, except we had to hold short of the airport which I hadn't done before so I had to ask for a bit of help, which he didn't mind. We were then cleared to join the circuit and land. I did a very nice flapless landing and taxied us back to CTC.
Once we stopped at the fuel pumps he got out and told me straight away that I'd passed and will debrief me once I'd refuelled. YES!
DEBRIEF
The areas that needed a bit more work, or that he'd noticed a mistake were the technical knowledge mainly, but also one of the stalls and one of the unusual attitude recoveries. When we initially took off I wrote down our departure time on my knee board so I could give an ETA and log how long the flight was. He said I should have waited longer to do this and kept my hand on the throttle in case there was an engine failure. Another minor point was to just verbalise everything I was doing so that he knew my thought process. Other than that it was all good and I left the centre feeling very happy indeed.
I must say I was lucky with the weather. We really have had some poor weather recently, making flying a bit more challenging but I was lucky enough to have a beautifully still, clear day which made things so much easier. I just have 2 night flights to do now before I'm totally finished on the Katana and with VFR flying. Exciting!
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