I am now an official CAP Pilot...
I started this journey in November of last year, and it has been a bit of a challenge getting to this point.
The main challenge has been overcoming various conflicts with A/C availability, scheduling of an instructor, weather, and my availability due to my work. There have been a couple of times when I was just about ready to take the check ride, only to be blocked by one of the above.
Fortunately, over the last few weeks, the planets have seemed to aligned. I was able to schedule some time with the instructor, the airplane stayed working, the weather cooperated, and I was able to get time from the check pilot.
I spent most of the weekend studying... CAPR 60-1, SE and FLWG supplements to 60-1, FARs, the C172S POH, the FAA Private Pilot PTS, any anything else I could think of. Jeanie helped drill me with the flash cards I had made for the emergency procedure memory items.
Sunday night (the night before the check ride), I couldn't get to sleep and then when I finally did (around 2:00 am) I didn't sleep well. I was especially nervous about the verbal portion, and about steep turns, hood work, and the simulated engine failure to land portions of the flying. Monday morning, I awoke before the alarm went off, and did some last minute preparations, checked DUAT, and headed out the the airport.
The check pilot was really good - he was really nice and put me at ease, and he was demanding without being unreasonable.
The verbal portion went fine. There was only one question that absolutely stumped me - a question about currency requirements that turned out to be something contained in the SE supplement.
The flying portion started out a bit rough. The first task was a soft field takeoff. I had been warned that the 172 with only two people and fuel only to the tabs had a tendency to jump off the ground when configured for soft field (10 degrees flap and the elevator held well back). The key, I was told, was to make sure that I kept the plane within 3 feet of the ground until I attained 56 KIAS - the trick being to push the nose back down as soon as I broke ground. Well, let's just say I was a little too firm with my nose down control input and ended up having one of the mains touch back down. The good news was that I did keep the nose wheel off the ground, and did maintain control of the airplane. Just not a pretty way to start a check out.
The rest of the ride went much better. Highlights included: unusual attitude recovery - it really helped that I had practiced on Microsoft Flight Simulator and had done some studying on the web; steep turns - I only had to do 45 degrees rather than 60 - which was like a walk in the park; and slow flight, which I enjoy anyway. Even though it had been quite a while since I had actually flown under the hood, I did pretty well - at least well enough to keep myself out of trouble were I to suddenly find myself "in the soup." I did fall into one "gotcha" while under the hood - while configuring to fly to the nearest VOR, I neglected to switch the nav head from GPS to VOR - it was a good lesson learned. Also, even though I had studied the manual on the auto-pilot, I had missed the difference between the HDG and NAV settings. My use would it worked - manually adjusting the heading bug to the proper radial, but I learned that having it set to NAV made life much easier, as the auto-pilot would slave to the VOR needle, without the need for my manual intervention. My final task was a simulated engine out landing, which, ended up being my best landing of the day. I might have started out "rough," but it was nice to end "smooth."
One other little bonus was that I figured out that fuel "to the tabs" on the C172S is 35 gallons total, 32 gallons usable. Logic is: sticker on wing says 28 gal capacity, 17.5 to the tab. POH says capacity is 56 gal, with 53 usable, so 3 gal (1.5 gal / tank) is unusable, and since the wing sticker for full fuel shows total, it is logical that the sticker for "to the tab" would also be total, thus meaning one would have to deduct the unusable amount to calculate usable to the tabs.
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Posted by David at July 26, 2006 02:45 PM