Instrument checkride

This article was originally written on May 5, 2012.

N21051

I got to sleep in a little later this time, as the paperwork was already finished from Thursday, and I didn’t need to fly up with Rodrigo since the weather was nice. So I showed up at Oakland Flyers alone, only to discover that Rodrigo had left out the maintenance documents for N21051, whereas I had been scheduled to do the checkride in N14008. Only a handful of club members have keys to the maintenance documents, so I had to wait around for an hour until Jim landed.

The club was experiencing a shortage of oil; everyone was looking for 15W-50. It was generally assumed that N14008 had some in her baggage compartment, but other pilots were instructed not to touch it, as today was an important day for her pilot.

Thankfully there were donuts; I was worried about having enough time to grab something to eat by the time I got to Santa Rosa, and everyone’s been telling me not to do the checkride on an empty stomach.

When Jim landed, I swapped out the maintenance documents, and carefully went through and marked each relevant page. At 11:30, when I was confident everything was in order, I headed out to the plane to preflight. The checkride was at 1 PM.

N14008 did not in fact have any oil in the airplane, and was hovering right at 6 quarts, so I resolved to pick some up in Santa Rosa before the checkride. There was also a new checklist in the airplane, and one quick glance over it told me two things: It was not a checklist for a Nav III Cessna, and I didn’t like it. So, I only used the checklist broadly, mixing in from memory the G1000 items I remembered from the old checklist, which I much preferred.

Preflight showed nothing wrong with the airplane, so I was off by around noon, climbing out of Oakland. I had originally asked for 5,500 feet; NorCal cleared me into the class-B up to 4,500. When NorCal terminated radar services, I realized that 5,500 is not an appropriate VFR altitude for a northwest-bound flight, so I went up to 6,500 instead. The weather was perfect, and the air smooth, so I engaged the autopilot and just watched for traffic and enjoyed the view.

I saw Santa Rosa Airport a good fifteen miles away, and let Center know; she simply said “roger.” Some quick math told me I needed to start my descent 10 miles back, so when the GPS ticked down to 10, I instructed the autopilot to begin a 500-fpm descent, which it held reasonably well.

Center finally terminated services, and I flipped over to Tower after getting the ATIS. Tower told me continue straight-in for 32 and remain above 3,000 feet. I rolled up the altitude knob and the airplane approached 32 still high at 3,000. I was told to report a 3-mile final, which I did, but only right as the tower switched shifts, so by the time I got a response I was practically overhead the runway, still at 3,000 feet.

“14008, can you make a landing from your present position, or do you want an overhead and pattern entry?”

I thought quickly. I could probably do it. “14008, I can probably make this, if you let me do some S-turns.”

“S-turns approved, cleared to land 32.”

“Cleared to land 32, 14008.”

So I hit the autopilot disconnect button and began dumping altitude with some particularly aerobatic S-turns. Tower informed the other aircraft on downwind of my unusual approach, but with my aircraft’s planform nearly in the vertical, he had no trouble maintaining visual contact.

On short final I was still very high, but at this point I was getting uncomfortable continuing big turns at low speed so close to the ground, so I switched to a fat forward slip. I had floated over half of the runway when the wheels finally touched the ground, and stopped quickly in front of taxiway B. I parked in front of Sonoma Jet Center and told the attendant to fill her up and add a quart of oil. Normally we fill to the tabs, but I told the attendant to top off the aircraft. There were two motivations for this decision:

• gas is cheaper in Santa Rosa, and
• lately N14008 has been having problems with her right fuel level sensor, occasionally reading much lower than the actual fuel level. As the airplane burns fuel, eventually low-fuel warnings start to appear even when there is over an hour of fuel remaining.

The last thing I wanted during my checkride was any kind of warning, so I figured that with the aircraft brimming with fuel, I stood the lowest chance of giving Steve any reason to doubt the safety of N14008.

Only after I made this decision did it occur to me to make sure Steve and I would still be under max gross weight. I was pretty sure that a Nav III Cessna could carry two people, a G1000, and a full 54 gallons of fuel, but I wanted to be diligent. The extra fuel only added 96 pounds, so we were definitely OK. I paid for the fuel and headed for Steve’s office.

Steve invited me in immediately. After a dose of his trademark storytelling, we went through the maintenance logs for N14008, and I explained to him the minor differences between the two aircraft. He told me what we’d be doing today.

“OK, you ready? We’ll be doing the LDA at Napa, we’ll miss it, then we’ll do the GPS at Petaluma, and we’ll miss that too, and then we’ll do the ILS back here. So you do whatever you need to do on your iPad to get ready for that.”

I was already on top of it. Steve continued.

“We’ll do one of those approaches partial panel. Can your aircraft do coupled approaches?”

“Yes.”

“OK, we’ll have to do one with the autopilot too. You know what? Let’s do the GPS partial panel and coupled, just to get it out of the way.” Well, that would make the partial panel easy. “You know how to do this autopilot stuff, right?”

“Yeah, I can use the autopilot.”

“OK, great. How much time do you need to preflight? I don’t really need to see you do that.”

“About 15 minutes.”

“OK, I will see you outside in 15 minutes.”

And I was off. I was immediately wondering if I should have said 30 minutes, to give him the impression of extra diligence, but reminded myself that this checkride is about the instrument rating, not the preflight. The walk back to the plane was a mental exercise in remaining calm. It dawned on me just now that this was really about to happen.

At the plane I spent a few minutes studying the approaches Steve had given me. They were all very familiar to me; Rodrigo and I had shot each of them at least once, and I knew the tricky ROOSE minimums at Napa all too well now.

I did a quick walk-around and tested the fuel and oil, then, with 10 minutes still to spare, I completed a more thorough preflight. Steve joined me in the cockpit right as I finished.

“You ready to fly?” He said aloud his own personal checklist, verifying he had brought everything with him. “Now, I’ll be ATC for the first part of the flight. I’ll give you a clearance just like ATC would, and you’ll talk with me. After the first approach, I’ll stop being ATC and you’ll talk with the real traffic control. I need to see how you handle doing approaches while also talking over the radio.”

I started the airplane up, again using the old checklist from memory more than this new checklist. My nerves were setting in, and I thought twice over every checklist item. After I had started the airplane, and calmed myself down a bit, I told Steve I was ready for the clearance.

“You’re cleared to Napa via the FREES6 departure, Scaggs transition, direct. Climb and maintain 5,500. Frequency 127.8, squawk 1200.”

I read it back and wrote it down, then got the ATIS and talked to the real Santa Rosa ground.

“Santa Rosa Ground, Skyhawk 14008 at Sonoma Jet Center with juliet, taxi runway 32, practice FREES6 departure, Scaggs transition.”

“14008, taxi yankee 32, let Tower know about your departure.”

“Yankee 32, 14008.”

I pushed up the power and performed an immediate brake check. Steve took control of the airplane with a very clear and authoritative “I have the controls” and performed his own brake check, then yielded control back to me. I gingerly taxied the aircraft out of the ramp and onto taxiway Y.

“Where are you going?” Steve asked. My first instinct was to immediately stop the airplane in its tracks, so as not to make what was quite probably my first mistake any worse. It didn’t take long for me to realize that I had instinctively turned towards runway 14, not 32, where Rodrigo and I had taken off on Thursday. Crap. This is not starting off well. That could have been a checkride failure right there before we got off the ground.

Right as I started to turn the aircraft around, Ground came up over the radio and informed me that it would be a left turn.

“Why don’t you pull out a taxiway diagram?” Steve suggested.

“What a wonderful suggestion,” I said earnestly, pulling out a taxiway diagram. I was careful to make a full stop on the taxiway before working any buttons in the cockpit or on the iPad, as Rodrigo had suggested.

I performed the taxi checklist on the roll, and diligently called “clear left, clear right” before passing each and every intersection. I’m sure any CFI reading this would say, “Tim, you should fly every flight as if it were a checkride.”

Ground gave me progressive taxi instructions to runway 32, and I was at the run-up area without any further issues. After an unproblematic run-up, I began dialing the departure information into the G1000. I used every preflight prep technique I knew; I checked the before-departure portion of the IFR checklist, and did the G1000 left-to-right flow Rodrigo showed me, and triple-checked that everything was set. I studied and read aloud the departure instructions and performed an oral departure brief.

There wasn’t really a point when I felt like I had done everything and was totally ready for the departure; the closest I could come was a point where I just couldn’t think of anything else to do. So, having exhausted my preflight items, I got my takeoff clearance with the practice departure instructions, brought the airplane onto the runway, and took off.

Right as the wheels left the ground, Steve took control with another positive change of controls. He didn’t have to ask me to put on the hood, and at 200 feet AGL, I was flying the plane again with the hood covering my view out the window.

At 500 feet I began my first on-course turn for the FREES6 departure. The departure includes a hold over FREES that must be flown if you haven’t reached the MEA for the transition, which in this case is 4,000 feet. I was preparing aloud for the hold, even though I knew we’d be at 4,000 before FREES. I also narrated the climb checklist aloud.

Steve had his first instruction: “Let’s fly the hold anyway, just to get that over with.” So I began preparing for the hold in earnest, engaging OBS mode for the FREES waypoint and calculating the hold entry. It was to be a parallel entry, and I cross-checked that with a visual inspection of the chart, which clearly showed that a parallel entry made the most sense.

So I rotated the heading bug to the first heading for the entry, and was surprised to see that it involved a turn of nearly 180°. I immediately felt like something was wrong. I knew intuitively that parallel entries never involved such great heading changes, so I went back to the chart and double-checked myself. It struck me almost immediately that I had mixed up the inbound and outbound headings. I flipped the heading bug over to its reciprocal, and it now showed a much more reasonable 30-degree left turn for the entry.

“Wow, am I glad I caught that,” I said aloud. I couldn’t see or hear Steve, but I had the feeling he was nodding his head in agreement.

I made the turn entry and performed the five Ts, then began timing the outbound leg. After 60 seconds, I completed the parallel entry onto the inbound leg. The inbound portion took one minute and 36 seconds. As I rounded the corner back to the outbound portion again, Steve began quizzing me.

“How long will you fly outbound?” I knew the technique was to subtract half the difference between the actual time (1:36) and the desired time (1:00), but a combination of nerves and twin responsibilities of flying the plane and managing the hold meant that it took me nearly a minute to do this simple math. Finally, after apologizing for my slowness (“That’s OK,” he said), I came up with 42 seconds.

“Good. Continue with the localizer approach at Napa.”

I dialed the approach into the G1000, but was immediately confounded about how to transition from the hold to the approach.

“So do you want me to intercept this leg, or fly directly to the IAF, or…?”

“All I said was continue to the approach. That’s all you should need.” That in itself was enough of a hint for me. I took that to mean he wanted me to continue in the hold until crossing FREES, then turning from FREES to the FREES-SGD leg for the approach. Which is exactly what I did.

The turn from the inbound portion of the hold to the FREES-SGD leg was about 140°, which made me a little uncomfortable, but no matter how many times I rechecked the chart, that seemed to be what I needed to do, so I did it.

The leg from FREES to Scaggs is nearly 30 nautical miles, which gave me a long time to prepare. I briefed the approach, reading off every word on the page, got the ATIS at Napa, dialed in the frequencies I would need, and double-checked that everything was set up correctly. All of this didn’t even get me to the halfway point, so I started asking aloud, “What else can I do to prepare?”, hoping Steve would take notice.

I was up at the briefed altitude of 5,500, and as Scaggs inched closer, I realized that I’d have to dump 2,700 feet of altitude to be on the initial altitude for the approach. A glance at the G1000’s terrain map showed me that I was passing over some mountains, so I told Steve that I would give Center a chance to give me an altitude decrease after clearing the mountains, and then I’d ask them for one if they didn’t.

After flying about 5 miles past the hills with not a word from Center, I decided it was time to act. Now, I know as a private pilot that VFR pilots can fly at any (legal) altitude they want; they don’t need to ask Center for permission, and since we were technically only a practice IFR flight, this should be my prerogative as well — but I didn’t want to just pull out the power and dump the nose over without so much as a peep. So I settled for contacting Center, even though I knew in advance what they would say.

“Oakland Center, 14008, request 3,500.”

“14008, VFR altitudes are your discretion.”

Yeah, I know. I then asked Steve, “Are you OK with going down to 3,500?” and he immediately responded, “I approve.”

So, with Center OK and Steve OK, I could no longer see any reason not to descend. So the power went out, the nose went over, and down we went, with me being careful not to exceed 1,000 feet per minute. I narrated the descent checklist aloud.

Crossing Scaggs at 3,500, I then entered the localizer approach at Napa. This involved flying outbound on the localizer, a procedure turn, and then inbound for the final approach. I couldn’t remember at which point in time I legally had to switch from GPS navigation to localizer navigation, so I switched early just to be safe. I had no problems with the approach, hitting all the correct altitudes at the correct times. Center terminated radar services and handed us over to Napa Tower.

Tower called our missed approach early. I knew to accelerate and climb straight ahead until over the runway before beginning the first turn of the missed, but I encountered my next problem when running through the four Cs: The G1000 would not sequence into missed mode. I must have missed a step when I set up the approach, because it was steadfastly remaining in approach mode.

I narrated this problem aloud and immediately asked (aloud), “What are my options?” I had already climbed above the altitude for the first on-course turn, and I could feel panic growing inside me at a low level as I fell further and further behind the airplane.

“We’ll have to use the VOR,” I said. I quickly dialed the Scaggs Island VOR frequency into NAV2 and flipped the CDI over, flying direct to Scaggs. I was practically on top of it by the time I got my head back in order, which meant that I had to prepare for the hold at Scaggs after having already crossed Scaggs. It wasn’t Steve’s intention to do more than the one hold, but since Center hadn’t said anything to us, I had no choice but to hold a second time.

Let me step out of my narrative for a bit and give Past Me a little advice: Don’t feel quite so rushed next time. I know, Past Me, that it seems like you have no choice but to work the G1000 at a million miles an hour to make up for lost time, but you are the pilot in command — not what the chart says, not what Center does (or doesn’t say) — you. So if you need more time, yousimply tell Steve (or Center, or whoever) that you need more time, and ask for a heading.

This whole “pilot in command” mentality, the idea that the person flying the aircraft is making the decisions and setting the pace of the flight, is not one that can be taught easily, and comes only with comfort and experience. I had let the approach chart and Center let me feel rushed, and I was paying for that with mistakes that could have cost me my checkride.

The first of this new batch of mistakes was the hold entry. I had my thumb up to the HSI and was calculating the hold entry after having already passed the holding fix, and hastily calculated a direct entry. I flipped the heading bug to the direct entry course, and began my on-course turn. Immediately I knew there was a problem: I was turning away from the CDI. I knew intuitively that you should never turn away from a CDI in a hold entry. I said this aloud. I checked the G1000 overhead view: Even though the missed-approach mode never activated, it still portrayed the holding pattern on the map, and the little airplane on the screen was flying off away from it in some weird direction. I had definitely screwed this up, and I felt for sure this was the end of my checkride.

“What are you going to do about it?” Steve asked. This was his way of reminding me of the lesson from my private checkride: It’s not enough to realize that you made a mistake, you have to fix it. So I weighed my options and came up with a quick decision.

“I’ll fly direct to Scaggs and try the hold entry again.”

“Alright,” he said. I was surprised he approved of this maneuver, as there is no legal precedent for it. Center still hadn’t said a peep to me; they were way too busy with other aircraft. So I re-entered the hold, correctly this time, and flew the outbound leg.

“Since Center isn’t talking, I will clear you for the GPS approach at Petaluma.” Steve wanted to move along in the checkride. So I confirmed his instruction and prepared for the approach. The mistakes just prior had left me in an edgy state, and I forgot completely about Rodrigo’s admonishment to Fly The Plane First, and I almost lost control while working the G1000. The airplane beeped an objection when I drifted 200 feet below my assigned altitude, and I immediately snapped out of my user-interface trance and corrected the problem. That could have been another failure right there. I needed to calm down. (Thank god for altitude warnings on the Nav III Cessnas.)

With the approach loaded, I encountered my next problem: Scaggs was not an appropriate place to start the approach. I asked Center for vectors for the approach, and Center merely told me “fly direct Scaggs.” Well, thanks. I was already over Scaggs. So Steve, still wanting to move things along, had me fly direct to JIVLY, which was a fix where I could start the approach. Rodrigo would later tell me that this was another opportunity to think like a command pilot: I could have told Center that I wanted to fly direct JIVLY instead. I’m still having trouble with the idea that I can tell Center what I want to do, rather than accepting whatever they tell me and trusting that they will take me where I need to go.

So over JIVLY I was handed over to the Petaluma CTAF. I quickly got the ATIS and briefed the remainder of the approach. I definitely hadn’t caught up with the airplane yet, but thankfully this was a GPS approach, meaning it was very simple and quick to brief. On the CTAF, I announced my position.

“Petaluma traffic, Skyhawk 008 is over JIVLY on the practice RNAV 29 for the missed, 12 miles southeast of the airport, 3,000.” Comms, especially at untowered airports, were always one of my strong suits.

Steve took out a Post-It note and put it over the G1000’s attitude indicator; he then asked, “Is this how Rodrigo does it?”

“More or less.” He was simulating a failure of the attitude indicator; I told him I’d declare an emergency at this point. He approved.

He then said, “I can’t figure a way to cover the heading indicator without covering the CDI, so just don’t look at it.” It was an odd instruction. It was difficult to disregard the heading indicator when I needed to scan the CDI frequently, but I did my best to make a show of using the magnetic compass instead. I would announce my proposed headings and then tell Steve how they were working out. I probably did a lot better than I would have were there an actual heading indicator failure, but Steve seemed fine with my technique.

Somewhere around the final approach fix I had finally caught up with the airplane and was performing each subsequent step at the time (not after the time) it needed to be performed, though I had forgotten the pre-landing and descent checklists in my haste.

I remembered to call out the GPS precision (it was LNAV) before the FAF, and Steve congratulated me for remembering. Over the FAF I called out my position again over the CTAF, and Steve told me to go missed shortly before the MAP, so I pushed in the power and went missed, remembering this time to do my climb checklist.

“For the missed I want you to fly heading 250 and maintain 2,500.” This made it a lot easier to fly the missed, and I knew in advance he was vectoring me towards the ILS back at Santa Rosa. Steve removed the Post-It note from the G1000’s screen and I immediately started setting up for the ILS. By the time I had tuned in Santa Rosa’s ILS and switched the CDI over, I was already passing through the course, so Steve gave me vectors to re-intercept. Once established on the approach course, I continued preparing for the approach. When I had gotten the approach loaded and briefed, the ATIS, and all the other of the 5 As done, Steve told me to request the approach from Center. Center was finally talking to us again, so they cleared us for the approach.

I checked the GPS, which showed the next fix as MONES, so I began a descent to 2,000 feet. But 50 feet later, I caught myself, and halted the descent.

“Wait a minute,” Steve said. He had seen the problem too. I was 6.5 miles from MONES, far too distant. There must be another step-down fix that far from the FAF. That’s when I realized it: I had selected “VECTORS” on the G1000, meaning it only showed the FAF, not any intermediate step-down fixes. I told Steve I’d remain at 2,500 until I got this sorted out, and he said that sounded like a good idea.

So I reset the G1000’s approach, this time selecting LUSEE intersection and not “VECTORS.” Now the G1000 correctly showed me having just passed over LUSEE.

“I’ve just passed LUSEE,” I said. “So I can go as low as 3,000 feet.”

“What will you do?” He was asking this question a lot.

“I’ll stay at 2,500.”

“Good.”

We crossed EDOVE, the next step-down fix, at which the altitude drops to 2,700, and he again asked me what I will do. I again said I’d remain at 2,500.

Finally, after crossing EDOVE, the next fix was actually MONES, so I descended to 2,000 and waited to intercept the glideslope. Center handed us off to Santa Rosa Tower, and Tower told me to report a five-mile final.

Crossing MONES, I had intercepted the glideslope, so I followed it down to the runway, performing one final pre-landing check. I narrated my next steps aloud again.

“OK, normally I’d report crossing the FAF, but since Tower asked me to report a 3-mile final, I’ll talk to them then.”

“They said 5 miles,” Steve said dryly.

“They did?” I was already five miles from the runway, so I quickly keyed the mic and reported five-mile final. Thank you for the reminder, Steve.

“OK,” said Steve. “I will tell you when I see the runway.” He was pretending as if he couldn’t plainly see the runway in this beautiful clear day. “Right now it’s too foggy; I can’t see anything.”

As the altimeter wound downwards closer and closer to minimums, it suddenly dawned on me that Steve might test me by having me perform one last missed approach. He knew I was expecting this to be the last approach, so he might try to catch me by surprise by declaring a missed approach at the last minute.

To show him that I was prepared, I quickly re-briefed the missed approach in the last few hundred feet of altitude. Steve said, “Good.” Unfortunately, during all of this I let the airplane get away from me a little, and it dipped well below glideslope. I corrected as soon as I saw this, but it was yet another on a mounting list of concerns that I had for myself. The CDI was also starting to get away from me, and I briefly considered the possibility of being forced to go missed as it drifted towards the maximum allowed deviation of one-half-scale, but I got it heading back to center right at the last minute. Things were getting back under control again.

Right before minimums, Steve said, “I see the runway now. You can take off the hood.” I took it off and as my eyes adjusted, I was greeted with Santa Rosa’s runway 32 right in front of me, where it was supposed to be, in front of a clear blue sky and beautiful wine country. I put in flaps and ran one last pre-landing check before flaring and touching down.

With my wheels only inches above the pavement, waiting for the stall, I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember if I had been cleared to land or not. If I landed on a runway without permission, I’d be doomed for sure. But my wheels were already on the ground now, and Tower hadn’t said a peep to indicate that I had done something wrong, so I let myself exhale and trusted that it had happened at some point and I just forgot.

After exiting the runway, Steve said, “Congratulations!” Up until now I still wasn’t entirely sure if I had passed. I remembered from my private that Steve never actually says “You failed your checkride” until after one lands anyway. And even now, having heard him say this very word to me, I still couldn’t shake 100% of my doubt that I had passed.

“Let’s go back to my office; I’ll go print out your temporary certificate.” OK, now I was pretty sure I had passed. It was over. I was completely exhausted.

“Single-pilot IFR, man,” I breathed. “I tell you…”

I taxied off the runway and brought the airplane back to the Jet Center. There was no one outside to marshal me to a parking spot so I just picked one; Steve said that was fine. After I shut down the plane, he started on a big heap of advice he had for me. I listened carefully.

“You flew really well today.” (I didn’t believe him.) “I think your biggest problem is that you rush too much. You need to slow down and take things one step at a time. You work really well with this airplane. I can tell you understand it really well, and that understanding saved you from making more than one mistake.”

I was happy that he saw the real reason why I brought up a G1000. I was worried that he’d think I brought it up because it’s the “easiest” to fly IFR. I mean, yes, a G1000 is a big crutch when flying on instruments, but that’s not why I chose it: I chose it because of exactly what Steve was saying: I understand it backwards and forwards, and I know how to use every feature in the software to check and double-check myself, and fly myself out of problems and bad situations.

“It’s great that you understand all this stuff, but you have to fly the airplane.” He had the exact same advice for me as Rodrigo. I certainly try to fly the airplane first all the time … I just need more practice.

“I noticed you tried to stay way ahead of the airplane, saying things like ‘What can I be doing now?’ That’s good; keep that up.”

Steve launched into more stories of mistakes he’d made, and he’d seen other pilots make, and the lessons he’d learned from them. When he was finished, I grabbed my stuff from the plane, hastily noted the Hobbs time, and we walked to his office.

Back in his office, he recorded my successful completion of the instrument checkride and printed out my temporary certificate. He had already made a kitschy (and wholly unofficial) award for me; all he needed to do was pen in the date. He took my private pilot’s license and punched a hole in the hologram, rendering it invalid, then handed me the piece of paper from the printer that was my new legal right to fly.

I was all smiles as he chatted some more about the philosophy of instrument flying; he warned me to take it slow and not bite off more than I can chew. On the flight up I had briefly considered filing IFR for the flight back, “Just Because I Can,” but with my exhaustion level and Steve’s advice I easily decided to keep it simple and fly VFR back.

He shook my hand when he was done, and I thanked him and exited his office. I walked back to the plane exhausted but elated, and mostly just glad it was all over now. I got in the plane, took a minute to call Rodrigo and update the online world with my accomplishment, then prepared for the comparatively simple flight back to Oakland.

“Santa Rosa Ground, Skyhawk 14008 at the Jet Center with oscar, taxi 32, VFR departure Oakland.”

“14008, Ground, taxi Yankee 32.”

I taxied, did another quick run-up, and then asked for my takeoff clearance.

“Santa Rosa Tower, 14008, ready to go, 32.”

“14008, say requested on-course direction.” I thought I told Ground I was going to Oakland. Oh well.

“14008 is heading southbound.”

“14008, do you mean … southeast-bound?” See, I knew they knew where I was heading.

“Affirmative, southeast. 14008 is going to Oakland.”

“14008, cleared for takeoff, right downwind departure approved.”

I performed my takeoff and turned downwind. Already feeling very tired, I quickly engaged the autopilot and let it handle the rest of the climb to 5,500 while I casually scanned for traffic. On the climb-out it suddenly occurred to me that, as if some magic switch had been flipped, I could now legally shoot an IFR approach if I wanted to. The entire world of IFR flying was now available to me, just like that.

Upon exiting Tower’s airspace I contacted Oakland Center and asked for flight following to Oakland. The rest of the flight there was entirely uneventful, with the autopilot handling the flying and me scanning the sky and relaxing for once.

For kicks I let the autopilot fly almost all of the approach into Oakland. NorCal gave me the usual instructions to overfly the Mormon Temple, so I dialed VPMOR into the GPS and added it to a flight plan before KOAK. I added the desired altitudes and the autopilot easily brought the plane into the correct entry at Oakland. I only retook control of the aircraft on final, and made an easy landing on runway 27R. On the ramp were two restored WWII-era bombers, very unusual for Oakland, and more the kind of thing you’d see back at Santa Rosa (where today I counted no less than four warbirds). I snapped a quick photo.

I put away the plane back at Oakland Flyers and walked into the clubhouse to find Rodrigo adding my accomplishment to the club whiteboard. He asked me if I drove here.

“No, I took my bike.”

“Good. Let’s go get some drinks.” (He didn’t have any other flights that day.)

So we drove to Diamonds, a nearby sports bar, and we downed Stellas while I listened to him give advice. It was clear he felt that, though I passed the checkride, I wasn’t completely ready to fly in the thick of “hard IFR,” and advised me strongly to take it easy for the first few IFR flights. This advice was redoubled when I recounted the four or five mistakes I made on the checkride.

Rodrigo had me recount the entire story of the checkride, much as I have done here for you. After I described each moment of the checkride, I would listen for five or ten minutes as he would annotate the event with his own advice. He had both praise and admonishments for me, especially when I demonstrated how his earlier guidance on how to pass the checkride had paid off.

I was starving as well, my brain having consumed the bulk of my nutrition in the checkride, so I wolfed down sliders as I listened. When we had finished two beers and he had exhausted his supply advice, he took me back to the club. I was lightheaded from the alcohol and exhaustion, prompting Rodrigo to jokingly suggest we shoot a few approaches. He dropped me off, said goodbye and congratulations, and I rode my bike back home, a new class of pilot.