Blew the Ride :-(

I blew my first instrument checkride at about 45 instrument hours. I thought I could do it, but I went into it with a lot of trepidation. And I was putting a lot of pressure on myself - I've been staying home to fly while my family is in the lower 48 in our motorhome for almost 3 months. And I had some further training plans that I had tentatively scheduled on the heels of this with my family meeting me in AZ. And I had to go back to work out of town right away... so I REALLY thought I HAD to get this ride right and done that week.

The Examiner (DPE) intimidated me (and I let him, lol). He told me that I barely passed the oral and that he thought an Engineer (I don't know how he knew that because I didn't tell him) would take more pride in doing a complete professional job and not just "try to get by". I wanted to tell him: "Buddy, I have 2 college degrees, am licensed to practice Engineering in two countries and I think I f-ing know what I need to know. " Which I do.

Anyway, he had me so rattled and distracted that when we went to fly the first approach, I looked at the chart and just went blank. Uh.... turn and then turn again and something else... uh... :-) Really locked up. It was an NDB approach and I managed to get headed back inbound OK (not great) but flew through the inbound bearing, thought I had turned the wrong way to intercept (inbound to a NDB - can you imagine? The damn needle points the way and I STILL second guessed myself!), corrected the WRONG way because I was right to begin with and by the time I figured it out I was blowing by the missed fix about 40 degrees off. There was no ambiguity or subjective ruling by the DPE - I clearly blew it. In the real world, I would have gone to the hold and thought it through for a couple laps and made it fine on the second try. But the ride is one chance...

The deal is, you can repeat what you miss at a reduced examiner cost one time within 60 days. Otherwise you have to do the entire thing over. So I decided to try and get some more of the ride out of the way so I didn't have to redo the whole thing.

We went partial panel; unusual attitudes went fine, then headed for Big Lake for a partial panel VOR approach. BUT... it was getting dark and the compass light didn't work. You need the compass partial panel because the gyro heading indicator is covered up. Anyway, after some gyrations wandering about, trying to find a flashlight in my backpack (which I turned out not to have anyway) I said "Forget it - this isn't happening tonight". I maybe should have flown the ILS... I could have gotten ATC to give me my heading, set the heading indicator by that and the ILS would be easy without the compass, but I'd had enough so I didn't ask him if he'd want to try it.

Now.... as soon as I'd called it off the guy became all supportive and conciliatory. Told me I should get my commercial since I had so much time and how easy it would be for me since I was a good pilot.... I'm thinking "WTF? you just got through telling me I'm a slacker that lacks professionalism and I blew this ride but now you want me to fly for money?" Whatever. How about I give you the commercial DPE fee and you just get the hell out of my life? lol.

I was pretty disappointed when we got back on the ground. He told me he knew I could do it, explained how we'd retest and committed to working with my schedule (I'm out of town a lot) to make it happen in the time frame. Like he decided he'd pet the puppy after booting it across the room, lol. Although he did tell me that taking off 6 feet to the left of the centerline was further evidence of my lack of professionalism. Got that last dig in!

So, what I got out of the way was the oral and the unusual attitudes. I need to re-ride and demonstrate 3 different approaches, one partial panel, and a hold. No problem :-)

This will have a happy ending, one way or another. I'll pass the re-ride or I'll take a couple months off and do the whole thing again... with a different DPE.

But for now I have more dual scheduled so I can convince my Instructor that I'll pass on the 2nd try, and I'll be back in town in a month to do just that.

Beats Driving

Coming out of Palmer one nice afternoon...

I saw the freeway traffic was backed up.

There was a wreck on the Knik River bridge and traffic was stacked up from the edge of Anchorage to the Knik - about 40 miles!

Glad I was flying :-)

Cross Countries (Country's ?, Countrys' ?)

I'm required to fly a few XC's for the inst rating. A couple short ones and a 'long' one.

My instructor had never been to either Kenai OR Talkeetna which was good, because those were obvious choices for the 'short' ones. We went to Kenai one day and I showed her the restaurant in the terminal. It's a real nice little 'diner' kind of place, and the Kenai terminal is fun to stop at. Alaska decorated, nice bathroom and I usually see someone I know passing through. It's also unsecured - imagine! You can park in transient and walk right into the terminal. Pretty unusual in this paranoid day and age. And there is a C-47, DC6s, Beech 18s and sometimes DC-3s around, too.

Flying the short cross country was a lot of fun. It was my first real experience "in the system" and I was surprised how well I was treated. They sure go out of their way to accommodate you when you're IFR... as opposed, for example, to when you call up on the edge of the airspace and ask for a low pass over the international airport :-)

The trip was pretty much uneventful other than, even at only 50 miles, it's pretty fatiguing to hand fly on the gauges all the way.

Next we went to Talkeetna. No terminal but we went into the FSS and talked to the guy.... "lower 48ers" eat your hearts out. Say what you will about Senator Ted Stevens, but thanks to him we still have a lot of Flight Services Stations active in Alaska. Compared to what? About 13 in the entire contiguous US and going down to 6 soon? We didn't have time to walk around town but the FSS had a map that showed the town and my instructor took one... I think she plans to have future students buy her lunch in town, lol. Nothing wrong with THAT! Talkeetna is a popular destination for my family and flying friends - a short walk to decent food and a very cool little town.

For the "long" XC we went to Homer. Merrill/Homer/Kenai/Big Lake/Merrill. This one was quite a bit of fun, flew the DME back course into 03 and had some actual on the way down and on the way out. We even picked up some ice which was interesting to see. Neither of us was at all worried - it was just a bit of both rime and clear (OK, I know it's called 'mixed') and we had seen the tops 1000 above and knew we had above freezing with a high ceiling below, but still, a lot of guys get their rating without even seeing actual, let alone ice.

It was a REALLY long day - 4.5 hrs in the air, approaches everywhere we went and refuel in Kenai.

Next.... the checkride!

Cabin Helper

I went to help some friends unload a DC3 at their cabin site near Lake Creek. There's a link to a news video in this story - you can see my plane in the background when the DC3 lands and takes off and a couple pictures of me - riding on the back of a 4 wheeler and moving lumber in a green shirt… When they say her engines start on her own terms, no kidding - it took them 3 hours to get one of them running. It was a lot of fun, but turned out to be a long, wet, cold day after everyone else split and my friend and I relocated seemingly most of the 7000+ pounds of stuff to get it under tarps. I flew home in the dark exhausted and woke up pretty sore :-)



This guy made a really impressive short landing.



My plane on the strip.


Airstrip view.


View from the cabin site.


Owners Cubs.



This tent has an electric bear fence around it.



Cool storage - this thing was only $200 at Costco and is really well made.


From the air.


Video I took of the DC3 takeoff.




Link to Channel 2 News story about the delivery.

Short Flights by Necessity

The only flights I have been able to do in my own plane lately are to and from Merrill field. I quit taking my plane to my instrument lessons for a while because I would occasionally be nauseous afterwards and not too enthused about flying mine home. And I got chewed out for a perfectly acceptable parking/tiedown job I did on my plane when all their tiedowns were full. But, I've gotten over the nausea and decided that after 25 years of Alaskan plane ownership they can kiss my ass if they think I don't know how to protect it from the wind, lol.

Lots of GPS tracks to and from Anchorage...


This day started out nice enough... Looking toward the Knik.


Heading up toward Birchwood.

But got a little worrisome at Eagle River...

My Instructor was on the radio talking to Approach and recognized me when I was telling them I was coming in from the East... so she said "Approach, it's wide open to the West we just came in that that way", which was cool of her. But I didn't want to go the long way around if I didn't HAVE to. And it would have made me late. :-)

I had to jog about a bit and drop through a hole, but came out lined up nicely in the rain if a bit low...

Heading home it had tightened up even more going East, so I headed over to Point MacKenzie and went home over the Susitna flats...


And it opened right up before I got home :-)