Well ... no more exams, and no more study (for a while anyway). Today began at 5am after a sleepless night. The day of my commercial checkride had finally arrived. It was initially scheduled for Monday but a combination of not feeling ready and a bad weather forecast put it back to today. By 6am I was at the airport, with strong coffee in hand, and talking to a weather briefer. By 7.15 the finishing touches to the fictional flight plan, that was to be used for the test, was complete and the waiting game began. At 8am the FAA examiner arrived and after a few minutes of small talk, the gloves came off and the oral test began. We spend the next 2 hours going over the finer points of aerodynamics, airplane systems, federal regulations and the dreaded topic of weather. All went really well and the preparation material I'd studied held strong.
Then it was time to fly ... 1st in a small 2 seater airplane - we took off and went on a simulated cross-country. Then a fictional divert due to bad weather, followed by some commercial air maneuvers (stalls, slow flight, lazy eights, eights on pylons, etc). The weather was really good today, in fact it was the only good day for a checkride this whole week. Then it was back to the airport for some landings, most were pretty straight forward but finally came one called the '180 power off approach' - this one can bite you. You fly in the pattern at an airport 1000' above the ground, then pull the power and have to glide through a 180 degree turn and land within a 200' mark. If you land either too short or too long then you fail the whole ride. No pressure ... Its a real judgment thing and every day is different due to the wind so its really hard to practice for. Anyway, I had about an 80 deg crosswind (far from ideal and NEVER practiced), and I turned a little too early ending up on final way way WAY too high. The maneuver involves doing what it takes to land safely at the spot so I went straight to full flaps and hammered the rudder putting the plane into a maximum slip. This means you effectively fly the plane sideways and the idea is that the extra drag will give you the glide ratio of a grand piano. As we got closer to the runway, I prayed harder and harder, holding the slip right down until a few feet from the ground. I don't know how, but praise the Lord we hit the spot pretty much right on. Even the examiner said 'Wow ... I really didn't think you would make it from there'.
Then it was time to change planes into a more complex one, with retractable gear and a variable pitch propeller. After some more stalls, emergency procedures and airport work we finally taxied back into the airport. Testing had lasted 5 1/2 hours, and finally I heard the words ... Congratulations you are now a commercial pilot!
So thank you all who lifted me up (and helped me come down) in prayer today. Yet again another milestone has been met! Luke 1.37 says that with God nothing is impossible and I'm walking proof that God can take a telecommunications engineer and turn him into a commercial pilot. He can take someone who had never done an oil change before and make them an airplane mechanic. Praise Him!
Oh yeah ... the day wouldn't be complete without yet another pic of an expensive piece of paper, at the end of a long day.
This was taken in front of the Cessna 152 tailwheel that I used for most of the flight test. What a fun little plane to fly!
