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.