Whoo-hoo!

It's DONE!

It really was touch and go, with bad weather in the offing. There were some significant storms developing west of us, but they weren't moving very quickly, but all the same, I was anxious as to whether or not the flight would be scrubbed (similar to my Private checkride.) But no, the weather stayed distant until shortly AFTER my ride! Can't ask for more than that!

So, this is how it went.

I had to meet the examiner, "Smitty," at 10:00ish at Addison Airport. So, I left early (around 8:30) to take a chance that we could start early.

Alas, THAT wasn't to be, as I met up with Smitty promptly at 10:00. I think he spent the first 15-20 minutes just telling interesting stories and lessons while he was reviewing my paperwork and applications. I guess I didn't realize that the verbal portion of the test had already begun until I noticed he had asked three different regulatory questions about my currency, experience, etc.

He asked questions about instrumentation, spending a lot of time on the static system. One question I remember was "Pretend you don't have an alternate static source, and that you didn't do a good preflight, and left your main static port nonfunctional. And you take off. What do you expect to go wrong, what will you see that tells you there's a problem, and then what do you do?"

I answered that airspeed won't indicate properly after taking off, but it will during rollout. VSI will stay at or near 0. Altimeter will stay at or near field elevation. Declare an emergency, circle and land.

"Ok, but what if you're in the clouds already. What do you?"

[ guessed at breaking the VSI glass. He said it was right. Then he told me a joke about a Navy pilot-in-training who did exactly that, and was washed out of flight school despite the fact that that procedure was in the emergency checklist. Why? Because he was in VFR conditions when it happened. Can't believe that's true, but seems like he's been around long enough to know!

He showed me some weather maps and asked me to describe what I saw (Highs, lows, fronts, radar returns, etc.)

He then reviewed my assigned Cross Country Flight Plan from Houston's Hobby airport (HOU) to McKinney (TKI).

I had used the Preferred Route as published in the A/FD (V477 CQY) to get the route of HOU IAH V477 CQY.DUMPY2, NO SIDS (because the only applicable SID had an MEA of FL180) at 8,000 feet, 2 hours 40 minutes, no alternate since weather indicated VFR, etc.

"Pretend that it's February, and your forecast said there was a cold front north of the area, heading south, but that it's not expected to be in the destination until three hours after your ETA. Current METARs are fairly benign, 1000 foot overcasts, temperatures in the high single digits. So, you launch.

"What do you do if that cold front beats you to your destination, you start accumulating ice due to freezing rain, and your destination ATIS now reports moderate freezing rain?"

You turn around! Descending won't help if the rain is freezing at the surface. Climbing won't help because you'll not be able to land.

Similar questions about vacuum failure and electrical failures followed. All of these were dotted with stories about real occurrences. He also stressed quite hard the fact that you have to IDENTIFY radio stations, and DOUBLE CHECK radials and all that stuff, showing magazine articles and NTSB reports of crashes that were the result of said mistakes.

All of this took about an hour and a half.

Then it was time for flying.

He gave me a rundown on what to expect, but didn't give any details just yet. He mentioned we'd head out on a VOR radial to an intersection of his choosing and hold, followed by this and that. I told him that during my flight planning, I saw a NOTAM that indicated CVE VOR/DME out of service effective from June 14th, 2007 at 08:00 AM CDT - June 14th, 2007 at 03:00 PM CDT. His response: "Oh my. Well. I have to figure out plan B then." So he buried his head in a JeppChart for a few minutes, and told me we'd use Maverick instead. He was amazed I'd caught that NOTAM.

So, we headed out to the plane. He told me to "abbreviate" my preflight as much as I was comfortable with, to try to beat the weather which wasn't looking too good. I didn't. I did the whole thing! We climbed in, and I got my "Clearance,":

N733NB Cleared to TKI via on departure, left turn heading 090 to intercept the Maverick 074 radial to TRISS intersection, Direct Bonham VOR, Direct McKinney..."

So we took off (I forgot the ATIS, but he gently reminded me before we taxied) and I went into the "clouds" pretty quick. I turned 090, and then he started giving me vectors which quite quickly showed we'd never get to the radial before getting to TRISS, so he had me pick a course to intercept. We got to the radial about 8 miles from TRISS, and I turned to follow it.

Then he had me "Hold Southwest on the Maverick 074 radial 27 DME. Expect further at [10 minutes later]."

I got my chart, and charted the hold. He said, "No need to look there, it's not on the chart." I said, "It is now!" he just laughed.

When we got to the fix, I turned outbound and started my timer. While turning inbound, I had a simulated vacuum system failure. Called "Departure," "733NB Declaring an emergency due to vacuum failure, no gyros." "733NB, turn left heading 360, expect VOR/DME A approach at McKinney, you will be number one when you arrive. Maintain 2500"

He asked me to make the turn using just the compass (I had to, since I was already in a turn at the time) and asked what heading I would be looking for to roll out. [30 degrees].

He gave me a few vectors and asked for a TIMED turn on the first one, then Pilot's Choice for anything else. So I set up for the VOR approach and SUPER double checked everything OUT LOUD. The VOR/DME-A approach was done partial panel with no problems, did a touch-and-go on 17, and I got my instruments back.

Next I was told to expect vectors for the GPS-17 approach. I started programming the GPS and was entirely freaked out by the fact that it would let me select DIRECT TKI, but when going to Airport Page 8 to select the approach, all the listed approaches were ADDISON! I tried three times. I think he noticed me struggling, because he kept giving me other things to do in the interim.

Ultimately I had to say "Smitty, this ain't gonna work. I can't seem to get the GPS to let me pick the right approach."

I really thought he'd send us back to Addison and end the ride at that point, but he said, "OK, fine, we'll do the ILS here and try the GPS at Addison."

So he vectored me for the ILS and told me, "don't even look up. Go missed at DA and do it exactly as published." I so advised the tower, and in we went. At 800 feet, he said GO MISSED, so I climbed out to 1500 on the localizer, then climbed and turned to FLUET via the ADF on up to 2400. Smitty called the tower and said something about halfway to Fluet, and tower responded "Ok, Smitty, I know what you're up to. No observed traffic, proceed at your discretion."

Huh?? Now I was worried something weird was about to happen... See, Smitty has been around a long time. It seems like EVERY controller knew him by voice, and must have also known what he was planning.

So, before we got to FLUET, he had me turn on rough course to Addison and asked to take the controls while I was to copy down the ATIS. As I was writing down the ATIS info, he said, "YOUR AIRPLANE!!" When I looked up, we were in a dive, and a steep left turn. What a surprise! I was NOT expecting that, but that "unusual attitude" recovery went well.

Then he told me to set up for the GPS approach, while he took the controls and contacted ATC. Out of the corner of my eye I could see he was covering the instruments again, so I was expecting the next unusual attitude, this time a hard climbing turn. We were at 40 knots when he told me to recover.

He explained that the reason he does those that way is because it's usually distractions that get people into trouble and necessitate an unusual attitude recovery. Good lesson.

I finished programming the GPS. Thankfully it fully complied this time. Approach gave us "Own Nav to Addison." Smitty thought that rather odd, but didn't argue. He just gave me vectors instead.

The GPS approach went well (it's actually less complex than McKinney's.) He told me to expect to transfer controls to him on reaching 1100 feet, and BEFORE the MAP, and that he would land the plane. So, on leveling out, we did just that. He said he HATES the GPS approach for Addison because it annoys the neighbors. After all, at 1100, you're only a few hundred feet above rooftops! He actually climbed back up to Pattern Altitude (1700 feet) and did a normal landing from there.

I taxied in, shut down, and it was done!

Of course, even though it's only a 20 mile flight, I HAD to file IFR back to McKinney. Why? WHY NOT!

So, to wrap it up, going in to my check ride, my experience had totaled:

• 255 Day Landings
• 49 Night Landings
• 67 Instrument Approaches
• 156 hours ASEL
• 4.5 hours in a Flight Training Device
• 18.1 Hours Night Flying
• 1.6 Hours ACTUAL Instruments
• 49.2 Hours SIMULATED Instruments
• 91.4 Hours Training Time
• 48.8 Hours Solo
• 119.7 Hours PIC
• 56.7 Hours Cross Country
• 32.9 Hours SOLO Cross Country
• 51.0 PIC Cross Country
• 13.9 Hours Night PIC
• 19.0 Hours IFR-Filed Time (Not Necessarily IMC)

So, what's next?

THE COMMERCIAL rating, OF COURSE!