Just took my first FAA test. It was the ground tests for the private pilot license. In order to get the private pilot license, you must first take the FAA ground test. If passed, the student pilot then takes the oral test with an FAA examiner. He or she will ask you questions about flying and you answer them. However, you can’t use notes, books, or any other medium as an aid to the orally given questions. It has to be knowledge that you’ve learned while studying. Lastly, the student pilot will take the practical, or the flying test, with either the same, or a different examiner. If the examiner deems the student pilot safe and confident, he or she will give you the license.

The first test, or the written test, is what I just took. Overall, it wasn’t that hard. However, being in a part 141 flight school, the ground school has given me tests where the questions are the exact same FAA questions that are on the written test. So I had an idea of what the questions looked like, and how the FAA phrased things before I even saw the first question. The FAA uses the same questions over and over again. I believe there are around 1,000 questions (While going for different licenses, there are different sets of questions) for the private pilot course. What was weird, to me at least, is that the test was administered on a computer. I met with the FAA examiner, we went into a classroom with computers, and he brought the test up on one of the screens for me. The tests consisted of 62 multiple choice questions. 60 of them were graded, while 2 of them didn’t count. I didn’t know which ones didn’t count, nor do I have a good idea why the FAA decided to put two void questions on the exam. The test took me about 55 minutes, but I had an hour and a half to complete it.

The questions which took the longest were the weight and balance, performance, and navigation questions. I had to do either math, use the tiny print on charts, or use the wiz-wheel, respectively, to find the answers. Other than that, questions included all areas of aviation. Luckily, there were only 2 or 3 questions on the test about regulations. I always have had a hard time with regulation questions, because they don’t have much to do with flying. Regulations are more or less the rules pilots must follow. And example is, “when should a battery on an ELT (Emergency Locator Transmitter) be replaced.” The answer is either after one half the battery life has been used, or after one cumulative hour of use. It’s easy to see that this question has nothing to do with actually flying an airplane.

I waited the 15 minutes while the test was graded, and then submitted to the FAA. In order to pass, students must get a minimum of 75%. Fortunately, I was nowhere close to that. I got a 96% and was congratulated by the examiner. Next up is the oral test, but that’s taken when I’m ready to do the practical and finally get my first, or many, pilot wings.

Earlier today, I finally passed my first stage check. For the past two weeks, I had struggled with the practical. I failed horribly the first time, and during the second time, the ceiling came down to just over 2,000 feet and the visibility was less than 6 statute miles. Because of these past two attempts, I had experience of the mistakes I made. The mistakes left me feeling confident and comfortable this tie around.

The winds were definitely not optimal for a check ride. During the preflight paperwork, the winds were coming 30 degrees off the active runway at 11 knots. By the time I was practicing my touch and goes, 2 hours later the winds were still 30 degrees off the centerline but at 14 knots and gusting to 25. While you might think the winds made it harder, they somewhat helped. My check airman judged my landings more leniently than if the winds were weaker or variable.

Just like the last two attempts, I was judged on both the power off and power on stalls, as well as slow flight. However, this time, I was instructed to a ground reference maneuver. Unfortunately the winds were gusting so my circle around a point wasn’t the best I had ever done. (After the flight, the check airman actually admitted that he was expecting a horrible circle around the point. So I won’t say I impressed him, but he was a little surprised). As for the rest of the maneuvers, they went well. The stalls were satisfactory, as well were my two engine failure procedures. Like I said before, the landings were a little bit dicey. I had to do 2 go-arounds; one because the plane in front of me was going way too slow and I caught up to him, and the other because the tower told me to do so. Other than that, my flight was a success.

Next lesson I can finally do my first solo. The first solo for our school is three taxi-backs. (Which means I’ll land, taxi off the runway, and go back to the active runway to take off again). The only thing I need to watch is the crosswinds. My instructors won’t let me solo unless the crosswinds are less than 5 knots. As for stage 2, I’ll be learning how to plan cross-country flights, as well as flying at night.

Don’t worry if you fail a check ride which would have allowed you to solo. This was my third attempt at it and it finally worked out. Everyone has a little trouble with the first check ride, whether they admit it or not.

Next post will be for my first solo. Hopefully, I’ll have pictures or a video to share.

Today I retook the first stage check for the private pilot course. If you read the last post, than you know how horribly I failed my first attempt at it. I had Bob again; however he wasn’t as intimidating this time. Having done it once, I knew what he was going to be looking for and what things I had to fix.

When I woke up this morning the skies were overcast, and I knew it was going to be questionable whether or not I was going to have the stage check this afternoon. I was scheduled to have the flight at 1715Z (12:15 pm local). So after my first class of the day, I headed over to the airport for the flight.

I checked in with the Air Boss and filled out my dispatch paperwork. The weather was winds of 12kts out of 340 and gusting up to 19kts. More importantly, the clouds were OVC080, or overcast at 8000 feet. These conditions meant I would be flying.

After pre-flighting the airplane I was assigned, I went back to the briefing room and met up with Bob. We both had a laugh about how horribly I had done the last time and how I should do better today. Well it went better, but not as good as I would have liked. From when the engine started until I left the ground, I only made a few mistakes. Forgetting to take the fuel pump off after engine start, and forgetting to retract the flaps after we were both inside the plane are two examples. I was about to radio tower to request permission to take off when Bob radioed the tower and asked to stay in the pattern for touch-and-goes. The weather had gotten bad enough that he knew going out to the practice grounds would be unfair conditions to test me in. I got permission to take off and taxied onto the runway.

The take off went well, as did turning crosswind and then downwind. This time I definitely didn’t forget to do the pre-landing checklists. Bob said he was going to use the radio today so I didn’t have to worry about that. However, I did have to worry about the rain and winds, which were gusting at 1,100 AGL (traffic pattern altitude). The visibility stayed VFR but went down to 5 statute miles at times. The hardest part of the flight was finding the traffic and reporting back to the tower that traffic was in sight. Bob helped me with this because of the deteriorating conditions.

The first landing went well, however Bob had me do a go-around on the second one because I forgot to announce the decent was stabilized at 200 feet AGL. After that one, I didn’t forget it for the rest of the lesson. All in all, I did 5 landings with one go-around. The worst part of my flying was that on most of the landings, the plane wasn’t lined up on the centerline. After 1.2 hours Bob had had enough and I landed for the last time. I taxied back to Echo ramp and shutdown the plane. During our talk, back in the briefing room, Bob had said that the worst part of today was my landings weren’t on the centerline. Other than that my approaches and line ups were good, as well as my traffic pattern maneuvers.

I got an incomplete on the day (because of the weather, not because of my flying) and I will finish up the stage check either tomorrow morning or next week sometime. I’m hoping I pass the stage one check ride before the Thanksgiving break next week.

The first milestone that students pilot will reach is the solo. The solo is the first opportunity the student has to fly the airplane by him or herself. However, no flight school will let a student take a plane up without a check ride. A check ride is simply the equivalent of the road test for an automobile driver. That’s what I did today. It involves 2 test and a flight with a check airman who judges the student on their ability to perform maneuvers, complete safe landings as well as establish communications with the tower and ground control.

The test has 3 parts. The first part is the written test. The written test gives 50 fill in questions. The questions are related to general aviation, FAA regulations and about the specific airport I’ll do my solo at, which in this case is my base airport of Republic. It took me about an hour and I did well, a 95%. The second part is the oral. During this part, the check airman, Bob in this case, asks me questions face to face in order to see how well I know what I’m doing without being able to look it up. Again this is about the airport, general aviation questions as well as specific questions about the plane I train in. This test was harder than the written, but again I passed. Lastly came the practical, the flight portion of the test.

It didn’t go well

First I filled out the pre-flight sheet and checked the airplane. Once that was done I told the check airman, the plane was ready. We walked across the ramp together and got in the plane. From that point on I blew it. It’s embarrassing to admit, but I suddenly forgot what to do. I looked down, got my checklist out and started going through the items. From when I started the plane and got to the end of the ramp where I was to call ground control, everything was normal. Then I called ground and fumbled the entire call. Later Bob would tell me he didn’t judge me too poorly for this, but it messed me up for the rest of what I had to do. Once ground told me I was clear to taxi, I started to roll and Bob pressed the brakes with his feet. I was about to cut off a plane which was to my right and waiting to taxi. I forgot to look right. The plane to the other’s right always has the right of way and I would have broken that rule if Bob didn’t stop me. After I finally got onto the taxi ways I thought I was going to be fine. I was wrong. Bob asked me when I was going to put the wind correction in with the ailerons, and why I was riding the brake pedals with my feet.

Once I made it to the run-up area, I started going through my checklist again. Once I felt I had sufficiently got the plane ready for takeoff, I taxied to the runway. Upon reaching the active runway, I called tower and asked for permission to takeoff, they granted and I rolled onto the runway. I guess I wasn’t rolling fast enough for Bob and he told me to hurry up.

I finally took off.

I was finally in the air, and was feeling good. I had messed up a few ground operations, but my flying had been good in the previous lessons with my instructor. The first thing I did wrong was I forgot the climb checklist. It’s supposed to be done at 1000 feet AGL, but I didn’t do it until about 3000 feet AGL. Bob commented on this while I was flying but it wasn’t anything major, so I headed towards the practice grounds.

My maneuvers were well below average. During slow flight I forgot to put flaps in until I almost stalled the plane, and I forced the pane into secondary stall while I was attempted to recover from the power off stall. My recovery from the power on stall was the only satisfactory maneuver I did the whole day. Perhaps the worst part of the flight was when I busted class C airspace. MacArthur Airport is a class C airport close to Republic, and its’ airspace go up to the edge of the training grounds. As I finished the engine failure procedure (which didn’t go well because I was attempting to simulate a landing on the beach and not a parking lot), I increased full power to go around and recover. However, I forgot about the Charlie airspace and flew right into it. The check airman grabbed the controls and flew away from the area. While he still had the controls, he asked why so much air was coming into the cockpit. I looked up and realized I never latched the door shut while back in the run-up area. It was closed and locked but not latched. This allowed excess air to enter the cabin.

At this point I knew I was going to have to retake the check ride. He told me, in a horribly grump voice, to take him back to the airport. I called the tower control and asked to land. I don’t know why, but I forgot to go through the pre-landing checklist. As I landed, he took controls away from me and taxied to the ramp where our airplanes are kept.

I knew it went really bad. When we got inside, after tying up the airplane, we went through what I did wrong. I don’t remember all of what he said because I was so mad at myself for messing up that horribly. However, I didn’t learn a lot from the flight. Make sure to always go through the checklists carefully, keep situational awareness and be confident.