Pre-Checkride Practice
All of my cross-country work is finished. All of my night work is finished. I have the required solo time (10 hours), I have the required dual instruction time (20 hours). Prior to yesterday's lesson, all that was left was 4.8 hours of flight time to reach 40 total hours, 3 hours of time in preparation for the FAA checkride, and 1.7 hours of time operating the aircraft solely by reference to instruments (simulated IFR or "hood" time).
After yesterday's lesson I have 3.8 hours left to reach 40 hours of total time. 2 more hours of preparation for the FAA checkride, and 1.5 more hours of "hood" time.
What we did was set up a mini-checkride. When we were cleared for takeoff, I maneuvered the plane to the end of the runway and started a shortfield takeoff. The idea is that you have 1000 feet of runway and there's a 50 foot tall obstacle at the end of it. So you have to get airborne and high enough to clear the 50 foot obstacle prior to being 1000 feet horizontally. To give you an idea of what 1000 feet looks like at the airport, refer to the image below.
After the short field takeoff, I had to perform three different types of landings. First, a short field landing, where the 50 foot tall object is at the approach end of the runway. I have to clear the object and stop the plane in the same 1000 feet. Next, a soft field landing. I bring in power as I flare the plane and keep the plane up for as long as I can, and when I do touch down I keep the nosewheel up for as long as I can. The last type of landing is a slip. I use no flaps but to make the plane descend, I yaw the plane using the rudder to create drag and make the plane sink, then align the plane with the centerline just before flaring.
Those went relatively well, I had a little more trouble with the soft field landing, but I attribute that to the wind more than anything else... but I will need to practice and develop the technique a little more before the actual checkride.
After that we asked for a southeast departure and were approved at our discretion. As we climbed out, I put on the foggles and we did some hood time. During that hood time I was asked to turn the plane to different headings, then my instructor took over and put the plane in an unusual attitude and told me to recover. I looked at the airspeed indicator and saw that I was gaining speed fast which meant we were in a dive, so I immediately cut the throttle to idle, the looked at the artificial horizon to see how we were banked and proceeded to level the wings and pull out of the dive to straight and level flight. No problem.
After that, he told me to take off the foggles, did a couple of stalls. First we did a power off stall. In that type of stall, we setup as if we're landing on a short field and keep pulling up until the plane stalls. As soon as we sense the stall, we let the nose drop down and put in the power and establish best rate of climb. I had a little trouble with actually making the plane stall during the power off stall, but did much better with the power on stall, we start climbing as if we're taking off but keep pulling back on the yoke and until the plane stalls. When that happens, the nose just needs to be dropped to recover. This stall went much better.
After the stall practice, my instructor said, "ok, you just lost your engine, find a place to put it down." I pulled the power to idle (to simulate the engine failure) and I saw a field up ahead beyond some trees that looked good, so I trimmed the plane for best glide (65 knots) and made for the field, when we got down to about 1000 feet of altitude (500 above the ground), and it was obvious we would make the field, I was told that my engine came back online. Success.
We then climbed to 1500 feet and found a water tower and did turns about a point a few times, then did a couple of s-turns, and finished off with some steep turns. The first steep turn was a bit difficult to control, I let the nose drop too much and lost a couple of hundred feet of altitude. Once I got used the site picture (i.e. where the nose would be in reference to the horizon and the angle of the horizon relative to the cowling), the feel of the turn, how much to back pressure to use, and how much rudder to use, I did pretty well.... we did a few of those successfully and then made back for the airport.
Overall, my instructor told me that I would have passed the checkride and that he felt like I would be ready within a week. I just need to sharpen up a little more and schedule some time to talk about the oral portion of the checkride.
