Final Stage Check (redux)

 

After three months of weather, scheduling, and maintenance conflicts, the day finally came for my final stage check. This was it. Pass this, and the next step is my check ride with the FAA examiner. I was ready! I said that last time, which was over a year previous. That weighed in the back of my head. Was I going to screw things up again? I sincerely hoped not. We had already done the oral part of the stage check last time, so my examining instructor was cool letting that ride. This was the flight portion. After a year of extra flights, I felt I had a good handle on things. I had flown mock stage checks my previous four or so flights and felt pretty confident. But--again--I felt that the last time. Was I in for a repeat? 

Centennial was not allowing pattern work, so we decided to hold the landings until later, instead just heading out to the practice area to run through the maneuvers. Things were clicking. I was on my game today. Steep turns, no problem. I came close to losing 100' of altitude, but I corrected before I did, so--within standards. Win. Turns around a point? S-turns? Good to go. Slow flight? Solid. Power on stall? My examiner threw me for a loop with this one. He wanted me to do a stall in a 10-degree banked turn to the right. I had never done a stall in a banked turn. When you read the FAA's standards, the examiner can ask for the stall in straight-and-level flight or in a banked turn. We'd just never practiced them in a banked turn. Now, stalls were where I totally bit it last time. I damn near put us in a spin. Was my examiner asking for a banked stall on purpose, knowing it had a higher potential for inducing a spin and wanted to see if I learned my lesson? I don't know. I told him I had actually never done a power-on stall in a bank, but confirmed what he was looking for. Just keep the plane in a 10-degree bank to the left, stall the plane, and recover. Don't worry about altitude, don't worry about heading. Just keep the bank steady and coordinated throughout. Okay. I can do that (I hope). 

Son of a gun, I did! It felt like forever, but the plane finally stalled and I recovered. Not gonna lie, that was a total confidence boost. I had never done one before, and I nailed it first time when it mattered. We decided to head to Spaceport to do the landings. Here's a hint - when you're joking with your examiner about not "busting a bravo" (entering the Class B airspace surrounding Denver International Airport without authorization), make damned sure you don't bust the bravo on your way to Spaceport. I didn't, but I almost did. Here's another hint - let autopilot hold your altitude until you have to fly manually so you don't bust that bravo. I turned it off long before I needed to, and gained more altitude than I should have while setting the radios to talk to Spaceport. Use all the tools at your disposal, and autopilot is one of those tools. Examiners like to see you take full advantage of the tools at your disposal. As my instructor says with regard to the fancy avionics in the plane, "you're paying for it, you may as well use it." 

We entered Spaceport's airspace, and things went well enough. My forward slip to land (a technique where you drop a whole lot of altitude very quickly while keeping your airspeed slow) was ugly, but not unsafe. My examiner "gave me a freebie" the next time around, showing me how he would have done it--because he said he loves teaching forwards slips because they're fun. He transitioned from the forward slip to a soft-field landing, which by his own admission wasn't exactly "soft." He asked what I would have done to make it softer, and I suggested leaving a bit more power in. He agreed. Not sure if that was an intentional test, but on my next pass, I managed to do a better job with the slip and my soft field landing was soft(ish). We decided to call it there and head back to Centennial. Only one more "task" on my list, the dreaded short-field landing. This is where you have to set the plane down on the ground within 200' of a designated point. 

As we approached Centennial, ATC gave us runway 28, which is typical for inbound traffic coming from the east side of the world. I have a love-hate relationship with this runway. For whatever reason, my landings are always a bit off when I land on this strip. Not bad, just not nearly as on-target as I like them. So--yeah--a little nervous going into this. Everything else had gone very well, so it really felt like it was all coming down to this. I set up a nice, stable approach. A bit high, but that's normal for me, especially on short filed landings. Get over the numbers, start my flare, and touch down about a stripe after the 1000-foot markers, which was my touchdown zone. A stripe is 120', so within the 200' space I'm given. My examining instructor said "good enough," so I took it. 

As we taxi'd back to the hangar, he asked me how I felt compared to our last outing. Obviously I felt better. But it wasn't just that. It was more "you don't know what you don't know." My previous try, there was a lot I didn't know I didn't know. Did that mean I shouldn't have been signed off back then? I flew with four different instructors prior to that first stage check who all said I knew what I was doing. I was confident. But that first stage check let me know what I didn't know. 

And I am a much better pilot for it. 

Now, we wait (and wait, and wait) for the final check ride with the FAA's examiner. 

Lesson (well, it's been a while)

 Wow, have I left this iron unattended for a long time. So, an update is in order.

In February of 2024, my instructor signed me off for my final stage check. This was it. I needed to pass this in order to get the endorsement for my check ride. I was ready. I knew what I was doing. Nothing could stop me! 

Oooooorrrrrrrrrr so I thought. 

After a reschedule or two due to weather, my evaluating instructor had a 7AM time slot available for this check ride. Did I mention I'm not a morning person? Nonetheless, I was confident. I had this in the bag! Take off went well. We started on the cross country portion of the check ride. My instructor asked me to tune in a VOR (navigation) frequency. My mind went blank. Poof. Nothing. He may as well had asked me to recite "Hamlet" in the original Klingon. I knew there was a way to do it, but, nothing. He pointed out the simple button that I had completely forgot. Duh. I tuned things in and we proceeded, but that was pretty much indicative of how the rest of the flight would go. My mind simply was not in the game, one thing compounded the next. We flew a bit. None of it pretty. We went to do stalls. U-G-L-Y, and I didn't have an alibi. When you almost put the plane into a spin on your first stall, that puts a pretty quick end to the stage check. He asked if I wanted to continue and I said yes. I figured I'd at least get past the rest of the requisite maneuvers if for no other reason than to get an appraisal of how bad I had jacked things up.

We landed. We debriefed. It really wasn't as bad as I had thought it was, but it was definitely NOT up to snuff for being signed off for a final check ride with an FAA examiner. I couldn't argue. My evaluating instructor was spot on. Tough, but not at all wrong. It was not a good day for me. Was it just a bad day? Or was it something more? We agreed that a few more flights with my instructor to tweak things, and we'd try again in a month or so. 

Did I mention Spring in the Rockies is a miserable time to try to fly? I got up solo a few weeks later, but then it was maybe once a month until late Summer that I got to flying with any regularity. What followed was 6 months of flying every other week or so, sometimes doing pattern work, sometimes heading out to the practice area to work on maneuvers. Every time, just a little more confidence. I felt like a kid asking "are we there yet?" with my instructor on whether he thought I was ready to have another go at the stage check. At times I was beside myself frustrated because I felt ready. For whatever reason, he was reluctant. I never asked why. I just took it as a challenge to do better the next time. 

Finally, around September or October of 2024, my instructor said I was solid and ready to have another go at things. I couldn't have agreed more. The hitch, the evaluating instructor I had flown with in February was now part time, so I would have to wait for his availability. We originally picked a date in the end of November, but weather would cancel this. So I flew with my CFI ever few weeks to keep skills sharp until we could finally get a chance to fly my final stage check again.

Lesson 74 - Long Cross Country (redux again)

 If at first you don't succeed... Okay, technically speaking, this was our 4th attempt at flying my long cross country route to Pueblo. The first attempt was cancelled due to maintenance on the plane. The second attempt was thwarted by hot weather and an underperforming airplane. The morning of our third attempt, my instructor calls me saying he was sick as a dog and nearly vomited in the cockpit during his morning flight. I'm not a huge fan of flying in a vomit-filled airplane, so we both thought it best to reschedule. So we did. Six o'clock the following morning. 

I am not a morning person. I can function well enough to let the dogs out and maybe get the kids to school, but please don't ask me to do anything complex. Like fly an airplane. And my daughter was going to join us as well, and she is not a morning person, either. Unless she is, which randomly happens when she decides she wants to watch the sun rise. (I assure you, she is my kid, but I don't know where that comes from.) However, I'm trying to push through this process as quickly as possible right now, and I need to get this flight out of the way sooner rather than later. So we agreed to meet at 6 the following morning. 

Adrenaline and energy drinks do wonders. I was surprisingly alert when we arrived at the airport. The sun was just thinking about peeking over the horizon, and the weather looked beautiful. My daughter and I met with my instructor, we looked at the weather, talked about the flight, and everything looked good. We got out to the plane, prepped it, pulled it out, and by 7 am, we were airborne. Cooler temperatures and a plane known for its superior climb performance made a world of difference compared to our previous attempt. This was my first time in this plane, and it handled remarkably well. 

I was in my element on this flight. Things were just clicking. The skies were smooth, ATC along the way was not at all busy so it was easy to get calls in. We first flew to Colorado Springs. My in-laws live there, just north of the airport, so it was fun to point out their neighborhood to my daughter as we flew over. Landing at the Springs was pretty textbook. Unbeknownst to me, my daughter took video of my landing, so I'm glad it was smooth. we just did a touch-and-go in the Springs, then headed south to Pueblo. 

This was my first time flying down to Pueblo. While I had visual landmarks picked out for the trip down, ATC had me fly east, taking me away from the intestate which was to be my reference. So much for that, but Pueblo isn't that far from the Springs, and by the time ATC directed us to turn south, we could pretty much see the general area where the field is. I just scratched my visual waypoints off the list and pretty much flew direct to the airport. If we were to have more time available, we would have stopped and gotten food in Pueblo, but I had to be at work at 10, so we just landed, taxied back, and took off again. 

Here again, my landmarks for leaving Pueblo were behind me on our departure, so I scratched off the first waypoint and redid our course to match our departure. Once we passed over Colorado Spring East, which is a small airport not surprisingly east of Colorado Springs, we were pretty much home free. I was thinking about pulling out my foggles and doing some instrument work, but I just wasn't feeling it. I wanted to enjoy the flight. As I was contemplating that, my instructor suggested that he teach me how to use the autopilot. Well, yeah. I can do that. I had flown with a more basic autopilot in an older plane a few flights previous, and this one was a definite improvement. It holds airspeed and altitude in a way that doesn't roll in a bunch of trim and unwittingly slow you to nearly stalling. We flew with the autopilot engaged for nearly 25 minutes, just sitting back, taking in the sights, and really doing not much more than remembering why I torture myself. When we reached Castle Rock, we shut off the autopilot, contacted Centennial, and came home.

All in all, this flight was everything I had hoped it to be. I was confident in every phase of flight. My landings were solid. Not perfect, but solid. My instructor saw that I had a good command of the entire process, and I was able to give my daughter a good introduction to flying. We simply had a grand time. It will be fun to fly this again by myself once I get past my stage check (again), which is now the singular focus of my next few lessons.