Certified flight instructor, airplane
The morning of December 28 saw Palo Alto wrapped in a chill from a slowly-passing cold front. Though it was clear below, the frosty air and a cumulus layer above portended the possibility of icing. The Skyhawks at Palo Alto sat in neat rows in the morning cold, their surfaces speckled with beads of water from an overnight rainfall.
Ashley does her finish-ups in the afternoon, meaning my checkride was scheduled for 1 pm. This would normally be a relief for a late riser like myself, but the TAF had mercilessly been forecasting lowering ceilings at Lincoln, dropping below 2500 feet by then. The morning was more optimistic, with ceilings above 4000, but my checkride wasn’t in the morning. I opted to show at 10 am, giving plenty of time to absorb the inevitable delays that come with trying to depart IFR from Palo Alto. Any extra available time upon arriving at Lincoln would be used for last-minute maneuvers practice, and perhaps a power-off 180 just to nail the touch. And maybe — just maybe—Ashley would be able to start the checkride a little earlier, and we could at least get some of it done before the ceilings closed in on us.
N494SP is not an enviable aircraft to fly IFR, much less take to a checkride. N171MA had predictably gone to annual before I could finish my checkride, leaving me with this (comparatively) clapped-out rental as my only option. The risk factors of taking 4SP on an actual IFR flight in these conditions weighed heavily during my pre-flight briefing.
On my previous flight in 4SP, the attitude indicator had briefly failed, indicating a descending turn in straight and level flight. Fortunately, this had occurred during a VMC portion of the IFR flight, and a few minutes later, the attitude indicator had righted itself. Still, in other circumstances that would have been enough for me to take another aircraft to the checkride, but Advantage requires two weeks’ notice for checkride flights, so that they can get the logbooks in order; there was no changing planes now.
The fact that 4SP had only a six-pack instrument gauge (including a suspect attitude indicator), a KLN 89B, and no (functional) autopilot would make it any reasonable pilot’s last choice for today’s flight, but I soldiered on, at least somewhat convinced that I could effectively manage these risks. The icing risk also posed a concern, but the icing potential forecasts progged only trace ice at my cruising altitude of 5000, and all of the PIREPs for icing were above 10,000 feet, so I labeled that risk as manageable as well.
With the pre-flight briefing completed, I fired up the cold engine and watched as the propeller pushed aside some of the raindrops on the bespeckled windshield. ATC told me they couldn’t find my flight plan (not surprising as I had only filed it 10 minutes prior), but they gave me my taxi clearance. Palo Alto was using 13, mercifully, as that expedites IFR departures, pointing them away from the SFO finals. I taxied the aircraft to a hold-short point midway down the runway, as instructed.
ATC had gotten my clearance by then, so I copied the instructions as they were read aloud. There were no surprises in the clearance, though the fixes were different from both what I filed and what ForeFlight had told me to expect. The route was longer still, going through Modesto and Sacramento VORs, but I had enough fuel onboard for plenty of reroutes, so I was not concerned. Likely all the rerouting was due to my having filed as /U — VOR receivers only. This wasn’t technically correct until 4 pm when the database expired, but I filed /U just to make sure I had non-RNAV options in the event that the ancient KLN 89 proved to be unhelpful, or the return flight stretched past 4 pm.
It was a short wait for the engine to warm up sufficiently to begin the run-up, and the run-up sufficed to bring engine temperatures into the green arc for takeoff. I carefully configured the GPS and nav radios, doing as much preparation on the ground as I could, before asking ATC for my release. As I had hoped, the runway 13 flow meant the release came quickly, and in short order I was accelerating down the runway, my view of the broken layer above improving as the wind shrugged raindrops off the windshield.
I rotated the aircraft and climbed to 400 feet, when I began my first on-course turn direct to San Jose VOR. The CDI was swinging unhelpfully with VOR navigation, so I switched to GPS navigation and followed a much more stable deviation indication. Tower handed me off to NorCal, who climbed me to 5,000 feet and turned me eastbound towards Lincoln.
At around 4,000 feet, the aircraft entered a thick layer of obscuration, and I lost most of my forward visibility. Looking at the side of the aircraft, I saw tiny drops of mist striking the leading edge of the wing strut, running a short ways back, and freezing. The mist was turning into clear ice. It was at this time that I noticed that the droplets from the overnight rainfall were still on the aircraft; they had never been blown off from the wind. On a hunch, I opened the side window, and stuck my hand out into the cold blast. With some difficulty against the wind, I reached out to the trailing edge of the wing strut and rubbed some of the raindrops — they were frozen solid. I had managed to convert last night’s rainfall into clear ice.
This was obviously of immediate concern to me, but I noted that the airplane was climbing in the neighborhood of 1,000 feet per minute at 100 knots, so there was no discernible loss in performance from the frozen droplets. The mist I was flying through had stopped accreting on the aircraft, and so I was left with a trace layer of clear ice on the leading edge, and a bunch of frozen drops on the trailing edge. This was by no means an ideal situation for a Cessna 172 to be in, but the accretion had stopped by now, and the aircraft was still climbing without trouble.
Leveling at 5000 feet, the outside air temperature was -2 °C, and I was still wrapped in a misty fog in all directions. I kept my eyes on the gauges, flying the Sacred Six flight instruments, and keeping up my scan. The attitude indicator was thankfully not giving me any trouble today, but the heading indicator seemed to precess rapidly, requiring adjustment every 5 or 10 minutes. An occasional check of the leading edge of the strut continued to produce no evidence of further ice accretion, allaying some of my fears.
ATC continued to give me vectors, absolving me of my need to further operate the KLN 89. After crossing the Oakland Hills and entering the Central Valley, mist gave way to a clear view ahead. The sun was still choked by an overcast layer above me, robbing my aircraft of a chance to melt off the ice still pugnaciously attached to the wings and struts. Below me was a scattered layer at around 2500 feet that offered occasional views of the ground.
As I soared over Sacramento, I flew into another area of significantly reduced visibility, which I quickly discovered to be a thick snowfall. Snowflakes struck the strut and the tires, leaving little white snowbursts behind. The front of the tire looked as if it had rolled over some chalk dust. The sight of the airplane plying through streaks of snow was beautiful, and most crucially: when there’s snow, there’s no ice.
The ILS at Lincoln was still inoperative, so ATC asked me if I wanted the visual or the RNAV. I told them to vector me closer to the airport so I could make a try for the visual, before resigning myself to flying the RNAV approach. They descended me to 3000 feet, which put me right into the middle of the scattered layer below me.
As I approached the northern reaches of Sacramento, the scattered layer thickened, becoming broken, with only an occasional hole through which I could see the suburbs. I told ATC that I would likely have to fly the RNAV, but they came back with a counter-offer: if I could continue flying this heading for five more miles, they could descend me to 2000 feet. I accepted.
I got my clearance down to 2000 feet while only about 15 miles away from the airport, so I descended expediently, hoping to cancel IFR before I was 10 miles out. At about 2300 feet, the cumulus layer gave way to a clear view of endless farm fields, so I canceled IFR and got my frequency change. I made my first traffic pattern call on CTAF, and not long after, I was able to locate the airport visually.
An altitude of 2000 feet kept me sufficiently below the broken layer while high enough to overfly the traffic pattern, so I stayed at 2000 and floated over the pattern, trying to line up whom I was hearing on CTAF with whom I was seeing making turns below me.
I heard another aircraft announce that they were over the “log pile,” a reporting point I was unfamiliar with, and saw one on base, one on the upwind, and one on the downwind. My goal was to practice a power-off 180, but fitting a short approach into this busy pattern would require some planning. I flew outbound, and descended onto the 45, then merged onto the downwind, managing my speed to create enough of gap between myself and the Pitts ahead of me to afford myself an opportunity to fly the short approach.
Abeam the numbers, I cut power, and extended my downwind, watching my descent rate and planning my base turn. I turned base early, and noticing that I was still high, put in full flaps in increments. I kept my base square, and turned final with an attractive descent rate that relieved me of a need to slip. I failed to notice that my approach speed was high, however, and I sailed past the 500-foot markers before touching down—well more than the 200-foot requirement.
I exited the runway and taxied the aircraft back to the hold-short, intending to practice a soft-field takeoff. The broken layer had receded nicely, leaving scattered puffs of cumulus at 2500 feet and clear skies above. The warm weather had melted the last icy raindrops off the aircraft. I decided to fly some practice maneuvers after the takeoff, before landing again to start my checkride. Normally, Lincoln has parachute jumping on the west side of the airport, but I hadn’t heard any jump planes on CTAF, so I resolved to simply fly to the west side, away from the traffic pattern, and bang out a few quick maneuvers as last-minute practice.
A Cherokee had just touched down on runway 15, and I taxied past the hold short, intending to depart before the Pitts, which was turning base. I radioed CTAF with my intentions.
“You won’t make it,” came the curt reply from the Pitts. Not one to argue (and with that limited high-wing visibility anyway), I simply came to a stop just before the runway, and waited.
“OK, then 4SP is holding short past the line.”
“Roger.”
The Pitts, to its credit, did fly the base and final quickly, and touched down surprisingly soon after the Cherokee. I took the runway after the Pitts and demonstrated a soft-field takeoff, followed by a right turn away from the pattern.
Once five miles away, and after finding a safe altitude between the cloud layer and the ground, I flew two quick chandelles to the left, descending briskly back to 1500 feet each time. Chandelles to the left are always more difficult, because the need to transition between left and right rudder during the maneuver, and the worsened visibility from the right seat.
I wouldn’t say I was satisfied with my chandelles, but they were passable, so I practiced a lazy-eight to the right, which was also acceptable. These maneuvers were much more expertly flown in the Cirrus, but the Cirrus was in the shop, and I had only given myself two practice flights prior to re-train myself to fly them in the Cessna.
I then climbed to 1700 feet and overflew the airport once more, finding the 45 entry for runway 15. It was at this point that I noticed the log pile, a very understated name for an enormous heap of wooden logs in a lumber mill just outside of town. I radioed my position on CTAF as I turned overhead it onto the 45.
I flew a picture-perfect short-field landing, touching down firmly just past the runway threshold, and brought the airplane to a stop after exiting the runway. I followed another Cessna 172 to the south side of the airport, parking just outside of Ashley’s office. I shut the aircraft down and opened the door to a cold breeze, improved somewhat by the pleasure of direct sunlight.
Ashley was waiting for me in her office. She didn’t waste any time. “I just sent you a text; I’m glad you made it. I was just looking at the weather. Everything to the east is out, but I think we have a chance if we go out west.” I was happy to oblige.
It was clear Ashley wanted to get going. I told myself to be extra careful, because I know of my tendency to rush things, especially when time is critical, and I didn’t want her attitude to tempt me into rushing myself. Ashley had no desire to see the airplane logbooks or do any IACRA paperwork; she was ready to fly. She reviewed today’s maneuvers with me quickly.
“You can treat me like an experienced student; you don’t have to walk me through every step of your pre-flight. We’ll go out to the west and see if we can find a spot to get above these clouds. We’ll do power-off stalls, cross-controlled stalls, steep turns, chandelles, and then we’ll go down and do eights on pylons and turns around a point. Then we’ll come back here and do a soft-field landing and a power-off 180. Sound good?”
Nothing in that list came as a surprise, so I felt ready. Most of these maneuvers I had never practiced in the 172, only in the Cirrus, but that didn’t reduce my confidence that I would be able to fly them passably.
Ashley continued. “You’ll do all the flying. You can get flight following, or not, it’s up to you. I’ll see you out there.”
I stole a quick bathroom break, partly out of necessity and partly just to pace myself so I didn’t get sucked into rushing. I then walked back outside and began pre-flighting the aircraft. Since the pre-flight was not a “teaching moment,” I did it with practiced expedience, moving quickly between each pre-flight item, while still making a show to Ashley of checking off every box on my iPad.
Unsurprisingly, Ashley had no concerns about the pre-flight; she was ready to strap in and get going. I took the right seat, and made another expeditious but diligent scan of the Starting Engine checklist, bringing the engine to life immediately with no prime. The engine settled nicely at 1,000 RPM after start, without overshooting its target. I was pleased with this good omen.
I gave Ashley a pre-flight briefing and then brought the airplane forward, demonstrating a brake check along the way. I lectured as I taxied, explaining taxi techniques and how we look for traffic at an uncontrolled airfield. I talked about engine cooling and how to do turning instrument checks. I wasn’t sure exactly how much teaching I was supposed to do during this phase, but I figured the more I acted like a CFI, the better. (I’ve never really been at a loss for words anyway.)
At the run-up area, I taught my way through a run-up procedure, adhering diligently to the checklist. Ashley was satisfied, and asked me to demonstrate a soft-field takeoff. I gave a quick takeoff safety briefing, then described the soft-field takeoff procedure to Ashley.
After doing a 180° turn on the taxiway, looking for traffic, I took the runway and put in the power. The airplane accelerated down the runway as I talked the whole time, describing my process as I flew the soft-field takeoff. The takeoff went without issue, and we were quickly climbing, turning right in search of space to maneuver.
Ashley and I located a hole that seemed promising, and I pitched the nose way up to Vx to climb up through it, discussing engine cooling concerns in the slow-speed climb. Knowing one’s distance from clouds is of course a fool’s game—how can you truly know whether you have the required 1500 feet of lateral separation inside your hole?—but I made a show of talking about it, teaching my “student” about cloud clearance requirements. I figured, that way at least she knew it was on my mind.
The airplane pierced the cloud hole and topped the layer quickly, so I pitched down for Vy. I recommended 4000 feet as a good altitude to demonstrate the power-off stall, and Ashley agreed, so I stopped my climb at 4000 feet.
I began by executing clearing turns, as any good checkride student is trained to, but I additionally taught through the clearing turns as well, describing proper scanning technique and division of attention. I then established a westbound heading, and gave Ashley a quick briefing on the airspace around us, including the TFR surrounding Beale AFB, which we were just south of.
I reduced power and allowed the airplane to slow to approach speed, adding flaps as it slowed, monitoring my altitude and describing the process the entire while. When the airplane reached approach speed, I pitched up, and as the stall warning horn sounded, I quickly aborted the procedure and increased power.
“Sorry, I have to abort. Are we flying this to first sign of stall, or full stall?” It’s a question I probably should have asked before beginning the maneuver.
“Uh, full stall, please,” Ashley replied. So I restarted the maneuver, reducing power and establishing my pitch attitude. The stall warning horn whined, and then wailed, and the nose finally dropped. I struggled to describe the recovery procedure as quickly as I was executing it. I flew the recovery well but the description was muddled by its rapidity. Ashley was satisfied.
“Let’s do a cross-controlled stall, now.” I verified with her that she wanted to see the stall done with the aircraft in landing configuration, then began slowing the airplane down again, lowering flaps in increments while maintaining 4000 feet.
“As long as we bring out the rudder at the moment of the stall, the airplane will not spin,” I said, describing the procedure. As the stall warning horn began to sound, I pitched the nose up while applying left aileron and right rudder. The airplane stalled quickly, but I was fast enough on the recovery that neither wing dropped. The airplane only drifted a few degrees off heading during the recovery.
“OK, steep turns next.” I talked my way through the fundamentals of steep turns, describing overbanking tendency and controlling vertical speed with bank, while accelerating to maneuvering speed. When stable and at maneuvering speed, I commenced a turn to the right.
“The key to steep turns is division of attention, inside and outside,” I said, as the airplane swiftly turned about its plane. CFI checkrides are done to commercial standards, so I targeted 50° of bank, with the bank indexer just past the 45° tick. Unfortunately, this steep angle proved too much for the vacuum gyroscopes, and the heading indicator tumbled, twirling about itself with surreal speed.
I continued to talk through the turn, ostentatiously looking for traffic, and only too late noticed the airplane had already turned 30° past the bug. Whether I had actually missed my reference by 30° or whether the tumbled heading indicator was lying to me, the distinction was moot: I needed a visual reference, and I had never chosen one.
“OK, I am aborting this maneuver,” I said while leveling the wings, as if it were a get-out-of-jail free card. “I need a reference.” Ashley didn’t protest, and I banked gently left and right, looking for some kind of ground reference to use.
“You might be able to see Mt. Diablo,” she suggested, but it was clear that the only thing in view was an endless layer of scattered clouds below and clear sky above. I settled for picking the largest puff of cloud within my view.
Ashley spoke up. “Before you start again, I want to ask you: what bank angles do the ticks represent?”
I knew the first three ticks were 10°, 20°, and 30°, and the last tick was 90°, but it had been so long since I had flown in a six-pack that I couldn’t recall if the intermediate tick was 45° or 60°. I struggled to visually discern which it was, but it was obvious that strategy wasn’t going to yield any reliable information, so I resigned to doing what every CFI must learn to do at some point: I said “I don’t know.”
Ashley didn’t feed me an answer, so either she didn’t know either, or she was being purposefully unforthcoming. I asked her if she would permit me a short experiment, and I banked the aircraft to line up one of the painted runway references with the 90° tick. This put the bank indexer shy of the intermediate tick mark, so I decided the intermediate tick mark must represent 60° of bank. Ashley was satisfied with that answer, despite the fact that it implied that my previous steep turn was done with a bank angle in excess of 60°.
My chosen reference cloud-puff was close enough that now it had drifted off to my side, so I turned right and put it on the nose again. It had also changed shape slightly, but was still prominent enough to serve as a visual landmark. I decelerated to maneuvering speed, cleared the area, and then performed another attempt at the steep turn, this time with the proper bank angle. I taught my way through it, making a point to say “sight your visual reference” as the cloud puff came through the 270° point. I easily locked my eyes onto the reference and rolled out on-heading, reversing the bank and adding a touch of forward pressure to immediately start the right-hand steep turn. The airplane jolted as we flew through our wake.
The turn to the right went similarly, with acceptable pitch and bank control, a tumbling heading indicator, and a well-timed roll-out that put us inside our own wake and staring right at the reference cloud. Ashley was writing some notes on her paper, but was otherwise content.
She then asked me to demonstrate a chandelle to the right. I briefly lectured on the procedure, cleared my right side, and then increased power and quickly brought the airplane into a 30° bank. The Cirrus, with its faster speed and heavier inertia, was always slower through the chandelles, and when I first practiced them in the Cessna, I was surprised how quickly the tiny, slow aircraft scooted around the turn. Expecting that now, I quickly pitched for 8° on the attitude indicator, reaching it right as we rolled through the 90° point, and did my best to maintain pitch attitude as I rolled out on the reciprocal heading. Everything about the chandelle was so fast in the 172.
The stall warning horn sounded right as I completed my rollout, sealing this maneuver as completed to perfection. Confirming the small amount of dread inside of me, Ashley did indeed ask to see one to the left, so I summoned the meager skills gleamed from what little practice I had in the Cessna, and attempted one to the left. I smoothly increased pitch to 8° and brought it around the turn. I did my best to work the rudder through the turn, though I could feel my lack of coordination as I increased back pressure.
To my dismay, the stall warning horn began to sound with plenty of turn left. Hoping for a miracle yielded no such luck, as the stall warning horn began to wail with 30° of turn left, so I was forced to abort the maneuver.
“We’re getting too close to the stall,” I said, recovering to level flight. We were now at 5,000 feet but there was nothing but clear sky above, so I simply turned back to my reference and told Ashley I would try it again, at a faster entry speed.
I accelerated the aircraft to about 100 knots this time, then applied full power and attempted the left chandelle again. At first it seemed a better attempt (despite the sub-par coordination), but quickly devolved into a wailing stall horn, just like the prior turn. I aborted the maneuver again. Whatever goodwill Ashley felt like extending must surely be expiring.
“OK, this time I will pitch up to 5° only,” I said. Surely seeking the proper chandelle technique by trial and error is not the appropriate way to fly a checkride, but I was determined to get it right. It was clear I had needed more chances to prepare in a Cessna.
Mercifully, however, this third chandelle barely rose above the floor of acceptability. Though the stall warning horn wailed mightily as the aircraft came about the last few degrees of turn, I was just barely able to recover to level flight in triumph, a hair’s width above the full stall.
“OK, when you’re ready, go ahead and lose your engine,” Ashley continued, “and teach me about engine failure procedures.” I cut power and lectured on the ABCs of engine failure while making a turn back towards Lincoln. The layer below us afforded no view of the airport, but I was able to use ForeFlight to estimate an acceptable heading back. After completing the engine failure memory items, I settled into a stable glide and continued to discuss the learning points of engine failures. It was obvious from glancing at ForeFlight that we would make it with altitude to spare, affording us a risk-free landing on a paved runway, but I nonetheless lectured on off-airport landings and egress concerns.
“Alright, you have your engine back.” Ashley had me move on to ground reference maneuvers, and offered a cloud hole behind us as a potential means of penetrating the layer back earthward. Once overhead the hole, I didn’t have enough room to continue flying ahead, so I opted to demonstrate a steep spiral on my way down. I also used the opportunity to note the ground track of the spiral and deduce the wind direction, as 494SP’s paltry panel had no means of doing so.
On my way down, I lectured through eights on pylons, including the theory of pivotal altitude, which described correctly but poorly due to my split attention. I then chose two references—a barn and a collection of hay bales—in an area where my engine noise wouldn’t be too bothersome. I selected 800 feet MSL (600 AGL) as my pivotal altitude, and discussed proper eights-on entry. I flew to the upwind side of the reference line, and entered the maneuver on the downwind.
I flew one turn around the barn, describing my corrections to pivotal altitude as we turned from the downwind to the upwind, then sighted the hay bales and entered the 45. The Cessna arrived abeam the hay bales quickly, and I flew a pylon turn around them, teaching the entire time.
I asked Ashley if she wanted to see more and she declined. “Let’s go back to Lincoln and do some landings.” I couldn’t help myself from eyeing Ashley’s notes, as any nervous checkride student would do, but so far I hadn’t seen her write anything to cause concern. It occurred to me that we had never done turns around a point, as she had told me to expect. My first, fear-driven thought was that I had failed my checkride, but my better angels told me to relax and just keep flying—perhaps she merely substituted my impulsive steep spiral instead.
I climbed to 1700 while describing uncontrolled airport procedures, explaining my choice of altitude, how to search for traffic, and how to enter on the 45. I overflew the airport and entered the pattern for runway 15. Ashley asked me to demonstrate a short-field landing. I acknowledged her request, and then began describing short-field landing technique. She asked me what I reference I would use, and like a professional, I said I’d aim for the piano keys.
I lowered my first notch of flaps crossing abeam the numbers, then extended my downwind some to give me a reasonably long final to stabilize my approach. The pattern was empty, and I radioed my base and final turns to a silent audience. I was slightly high still on the rollout to final, so I applied full flaps and cut the power, allowing the airplane to settle onto a more desirable glidepath.
I had taught 55–60 as a target approach speed for the short-field landing, but I sneakily maintained 50 knots on the approach in attempt to save the flare from going too long. The stall warning horn protested intermittently, but I made a show of applying forward trim each time it did, in an attempt to project a developed sense of stall awareness. The 50-knot gambit paid off wonderfully, and I touched down nary a foot beyond the piano keys. I made one firm brake application to demonstrate maximum-effort braking, the let off the pressure to grant the poor rental aircraft’s brakes a more reasonable workload.
Ashley offered either the touch-and-go or the full-stop; I opted for the former. I reset the flaps and trim, and applied full power. The pattern was still empty, and a tiny nagging doubt in my mind still wondered why we had never flown those turns about a point, but I dutifully shoved that fear aside, and rotated quickly, as it did not take the Cessna long to attain flying speed.
I flew one more lap around the pattern, discussing pattern-flying technique all the while, and this time Ashley requested a power-off 180. “Let’s try to nail that pattern altitude this time, OK?” she added.
This addendum threw me; I had noted an occasional excursion from pattern altitude in the previous circuit, but nothing that would have been eye-raising to a DPE. I suppose she felt otherwise… or maybe she just didn’t want me to be too high on the power-off 180° turn? Once again, I shoved those doubts aside and just focused on nailing the pattern altitude this time.
“What reference will you use this time?” I was tempted to pick the piano keys again, but since the power-off 180 induces a natural temptation to stretch the glide, I bowed a little more to safety, and chose the numbers instead.
Abeam the numbers, and precisely at 1000 feet AGL, I radioed my short approach and cut power. I extended my downwind, noting my descent angle and explaining the changes in glidepath on the downwind vs. upwind legs. I lectured on the different techniques you can use to manage descent rate without engine power as I turned onto the base, managing my rate of turn and the length of my base leg to attain the sight picture I wanted.
As I rolled out on final, I found myself higher than I liked, so I started a big, fat forward slip, all the while discussing the physics and technique of a forward slip. The runway floated up nicely into a better glidepath, so with about 200 feet of altitude to lose, I recovered from the slip, and simply managed airspeed with nose position as the aircraft finished the last few seconds of its descent. The touchdown was firm, with very little flare, but right over the numbers, a much more impressive demonstration of energy management than my practice attempt earlier in the day. With a quiet, inner sense of satisfaction, I taxied the airplane off the runway and brought it to a dutiful stop for the after-landing checklist.
“Well, that’s a short checklist,” I remarked, upon seeing that its only contents was “Flaps — UP”. Working from memory, I reset the pitch trim, leaned the mixture, and turned off the landing and strobe lights as well.
I taxied the airplane back to Ashley’s office and brought it to a stop right outside the gate. I made an effort to demonstrate use of the Shutdown checklist, but Ashley was already unstrapping.
“There’s a few things I’d like to discuss with you, but congratulations,” she said, dispelling any of the last of my lingering doubts.
“I have a feeling I already know the things you want to talk about,” I joked. I had sneaked glances at some of the notes she had written down and none of it was surprising.
We went back to her office, and she moved right into the debrief as I packed away my things.
“So the main thing I saw is that you were really rushed. Especially for the chandelles and the steep turns, you seemed to want to move from one maneuver to the next, and you didn’t give yourself enough time to prepare. You rolled into and out of the chandelles way too quickly. I think if you had rolled into them more slowly, they would have turned out better.”
I concurred, and added my own thought, in a continuing attempt to demonstrate stall awareness. “You’re right, and rolling the wings that quickly when the airspeed is so slow puts you at risk of an aileron-induced stall.”
“Exactly. … The Law of Primacy is paramount. If you are rushed, your student will be rushed. They will do it like you do it.
“Normally the FAA says you only get one chance to perform each maneuver, but the heading indicator also isn’t supposed to tumble like that, so…” Ashley shrugged. I was happy with using the heading indicator as a viable excuse for why I gave myself multiple opportunities to retry each maneuver.
“Yeah, I am terrified to fly that thing IFR,” I remarked. “I won’t be bringing it back for my instrument checkride.” Ashley agreed and continued.
“You were also off centerline for the entire taxi, out and in. The whole time, the centerline was off my left shoulder.”
I was flabbergasted. “Really?? My sight picture must be way off. From where I was sitting, I felt like I was nailing it.”
“Definitely not. To be fair, that’s one of the harder things about transitioning to the right seat. Some CFIs teach putting the centerline down the middle of the aircraft, or your left knee or whatever; I just keep it simple. Put the centerline through your body. Left or right seat, that will keep you close enough to the centerline to be within standards.”
In total, the feedback had been as expected, with the exception of being blindsided by her assessment of my centerline discipline. I remembered smugly thinking about how on-centerline I was during the taxi, too.
Ashley printed out my temporary certificate and reminded me that I could start training students right away, until my certificate expires, two years hence. She congratulated me again and asked me if she had talked about the instrument checkride yet. She hadn’t.
“Oh, it’s so much fun. I love giving CFII checkrides. I’ll propose an IFR flight and you teach me how to plan it, then we discuss a few systems, and then we go up and you fly two approaches. Sometimes I’ll fly a third as the student, making student mistakes, to see if you can catch me.”
This all sounded very doable, and it increased my confidence about passing the CFII. Nonetheless, I still wanted 1MA to be out of annual before I flew the II, so I asked her to reschedule it to February. We found a date in mid-February that worked.
I briefly struggled to find a checkbook before Ashley reminded me that I don’t owe her anything for the discontinuance, and with no other paperwork left to take care of, I thanked her again and returned to the aircraft to fly back.
An overcast layer was building again, and with it the threat of ice on the return trip, but the forecast was still optimistic. I wasn’t exhausted, thankfully, as the checkride had gone (relatively) quickly and smoothly; primarily I was relieved to finally fly from the left seat again. I’m not sure if every new CFI feels this way, but I was entirely sick of flying right-seat, and excited to finally get a head-on view of the primary instruments for once.
I filed my IFR flight plan and fired up the engine, intending to taxi across the field to gas up before leaving. The weather was deteriorating but my spirits were high. For me the journey has always been more gratifying than the destination, so even now, in bright afterglow of my accomplishment, I was still only looking forward, thinking about the CFII and ATP checkrides on the horizon.
