Proving a point

Well none of the other B-Cat's were available on Sunday, but luckily CFI Rob had a last minute cancellation which put a 2 hour hole in his schedule... which I quickly filled with a booking ;)

So I gassed up JFY while he was busy with his first flight of the day, a check flight for another student to check on his progress. I remember my first one of those with Rob... I was nervous like a nervous thing... for no real reason, as Rob is great to fly with.

Anyway I finished the pre-flight and did some last minute swot on arrival/departure procedures for NZAR and also a quick review of the training area boundaries and the applicable altitudes.

I was fully expecting an EFATO, and sure enough I got one, but luckily due to the wind we were flying off runway 21... and there are a whole bunch of sports fields etc. so plenty of suitable landing spots. So on the climb out, Rob says "Can I just have the throttle for second, I need to play with it"... Carb Heat HOT, trim for 65 knots, pick my landing spot and in I go. "Excellent," says Rob "Go Around"...

Phew... Big tick #1.

Climbing out, I followed the recommended departure procedure which is to climb out on runway heading until you crossing the railway line, then turn left and track between Papakura and Karaka reporting points and track west of Drury.

Rather than quiz me about the boundaries, Rob offered a small tip. "About now, the testing officer will probably ask you to do a compass turn onto west, at which point you will...", "Tell him that I cannot as I would be infringing on controlled airspace" I finished. "Excellent," says Rob "climb up to 3000' and we'll go down to Pokeno and do some engine failure practice".

Phew... Big tick #2.

Heading down towards Pokeno, I made sure I changed over to the Mercer frequency in plenty of time and broadcast my intentions. Rob asked me confirm which way the wind was blowing, then pick a paddock and demonstrate a forced landing. So I did. And I totally nailed it! :)

"That was good, I am confident we would have got in there." he said "Now climb up to 2500' and then I'll just go ahead and pull the throttle on you and you can demonstrate another one."

So I climbed up to 2500', did a top of climb SADIE check and then he asked me to turn around and head back the other way. While I was doing that he pulled the throttle closed. So I ran through another forced landing. This time, I was a little high, so went to drop some flap on the downwind leg at which point he told me that if I did that in a test I would probably fail. So I just drifted it out a little wide to allow for it and then glided in right in...

"Well done" says Rob "let's go home"

Phew... Big tick #3.

And then things got a little tricky. There were some tricky thermals starting to appear as it was a very hot day and the gliding club at Drury had started up for the day. Not a big deal, only the one glider in the air and he was well away from me. The big problem was that while trying to execute a nice short field approach and landing, the plane refused to come down. At which point Rob said, "Just nose it down to 80kts" (the max flap speed)... which was wiped off the height but messed up the approach a little. It was a marginal approach and I should really have just executed a go-around and setup again. But I persisted and put it down and we were on the ground just after the threshold and stopped well before the third maker. He commented that if I was solo or on a flight test my preference in that situation should be to go-around rather than persist with a marginal approach, but it was still a relatively good landing, if somewhat fast.

We finished with a short debrief, during which Rob said he would talk to the flight examiner and arrange a time (hopefully for next weekend!) for my flight test!

Yeah baby!

This flight: 1.0 Dual
Total Hours: 87.7 (68.0 Dual, 19.7 Solo, 5.1 IFR)