PP-ASEL Checkride – Practical

Today was the day. I got out of bed and went straight to the window. It was gorgeous outside. Called for a weather briefing (to re-calculate my numbers for Vegas) and it was perfect.

I got to the airport an hour early to preflight the plane (as requested) and get everything in order. Mark showed up about 10 minutes early. We walked around the plane and he asked me questions about various items on the plane. Stumped me on which antenna was which, but that was OK. We hopped in, I gave him a briefing, got a clearance and off we went. He asked no questions during preflight, but did ask what the procedure was for a short field takeoff. I told him, and he said this would be a short field takeoff. I was cleared to go, and gave him a good one. He seemed pleased with that.

We started on our cross country to Las Vegas. I switched to So Cal departure after we cleared Van Nuys, and he asked how far to our first and second checkpoints. I told him. He asked what heading we’d fly if we were going direct to Palmdale, and I told him. He said “OK – Van Nuys is fogged in, our route is fogged in, divert to Whiteman. I canceled flight following, called Van Nuys to transition to Whiteman, and headed over. The tower controlled confused me with calls about a helicopter, so I ended up coming in high. I told him I was going around. He thought that was fine.

We headed to Santa Clarita for airwork. Steep turns first, then turns around a point. Then he pulled the power and I went through the emergency checklist. Power restored, I went under the hood. Lots of that, then some slow flight and stalls. Then he said “take me back to Van Nuys”. I could taste victory, but I still had landings left.

On the way in, he told me he wanted a short field landing, and then to transition directly into a soft field takeoff. The landing was good, but the takeoff was a little sloppy. No problem. He didn’t like the un-rectangularity of my pattern, but I got through it. The last one (!) he said would be a soft field landing. I turned base, put in 10 degrees of flaps, and he took them back out. “Your flaps have failed”. OK. I pulled the power immediately, but was going to be too high. He asked how I’d get it down in time. I had the power all the way back, no flaps. I couldn’t think. He said “Ever heard of a SLIP?”. Ahh yes. I struggled to put the plane in a slip, and got it down in time. Made a nice soft field landing, and taxied off. Ground cleared us to taxi back, and he took the plane. He started talking about the things I needed to work on. We got back, hopped out, finished talking and he congratulated me! I was a pilot! I buttoned up the plane (huge smile on) and went back to his office to get my temporary license.

So that was it. Almost 6 months, 90 hours, more money than I care to think about and a ton of studying. Worth all of it.

Now I just have to get my wife to like it.