Chicago Aviation

Leading up to my checkride, I received my checkride endorsement & electronically submitted my 8710. I received three hours of dual instruction last week, so my pre-checkride instruction has been satisfied as well.

I received my solo endorsement to fly to La Porte, IN for my checkride and I also made sure my solo endorsement was valid. It's good for six days after my checkride, so I'm cutting it close.

As for the plane's documents, I made sure I knew right were the Registration, Airworthiness doc, POH, and Weight & Balance documents were stored in the plane. For the maintenance logs, I had to be sure that the  Airworthiness Directives were noted and complied with (ADs have different maintenance requirements), I also had to make sure that the 100 hour and annual were valid. I was within a few hours of the 100 hour, so again, I'm cutting it close. Lastly, I had to make sure that the ELT, Transponder, and everything else is noted and has been checked as defined by the FAA.

Once my DFE approved my 8710, he provided me with my sample cross-country scenario. I was told to determine the nav log, weather (on the day of), and weight & balance for a specific situation. I won't go into full detail of this, but I will note that reading the POH is very important to determine weight restrictions to storage areas. Improper loading of the baggage areas is something that will throw red-flags on your checkride. Next was determining the max fuel I could carry while keeping the allowable CG.

After figuring that out, next was to review the route. Look out for any terrain or airspace that would require extra attention. My route included several MOAs. MOAs are acceptable to fly through, but it's probably not the safest option. For the day and time of my checkride, the MOA was inactive, but I decided to create a backup plan showing a route around the MOAs. That way, if anything unexpected occurred, I would have a route prepared that would keep me out of all airspace.

I had all of this prepared before the day of my checkride. I felt prepared. All that was left was some practice time I allotted before my checkride. I scheduled the plane from 10am to 6pm. My appointment was at noon, so I should have plenty of time to practice.

Now, the day of my test...

Preparation --

I woke up feeling decent. I got myself ready to go, then I called flight services and got a briefing. I was browsing the online resources (weather.com, aopa.org, noaa.gov) while dialing in and saw that there was no weather to speak of, but there was some coverage on the satellite maps. There were some fronts in the region,  the wind was calm, and cloud coverage over the city looked 2/8 at worst.

After getting the weather & updating the nav logs, I was running behind. I would now have, at best, thirty minutes of practice.

While driving to Lansing, I noticed that the cloud coverage was pretty bad. 5/8 at best and easily could be 7/8. the local AWOS was reading clear to 12,000 ft, but this was a lesson in reality being much different than reported.

It turns out that the lack of wind was causing the clouds to stagnate and the haze to build. When I got to the airport, I was seriously doubting that I'd be able to make it to La Porte. The ceiling was at 4,500 along the route. I saw that the cloud coverage to the West was much clearer, so I thought that there was a good chance that the clouds would clear by the time that I complete the oral portion of the test.

Well, after checking and double-checking the weather, I had no time left to practice. I had to either head to La Porte, or push back the appointment. I decided to head to La Porte.

The flight over --

The flight over was very hazy. This was easily the most haze I've dealt with. There was probably six to ten miles visibility, which really doesn't look like much. What's worse is that I couldn't raise South Bend approach on the radio. I heard their traffic but I never received a response from them.

I made sure to avoid Gary's Class D airspace while I was heading over, but I wanted to see the coast to ensure that I was tracking my checkpoints correctly. After about 20 minutes, I saw the lakes that mark my last checkpoint. I veered south a bit as I was expecting the airport. I did see the airport, but it was a bit further south than expected. I made my traffic calls and headed for the pattern. At about six miles away, I noticed that the runway configuration was wrong. This airport had a 36/18 & 09/27 in a T shape. This was KVPZ Porter County Airport. I quickly called on the local frequency and gave my location. I then checked my map to see where I was in relaton to La Porte.

It turns out that there are three smaller lakes just northwest of Valpo, similar to the lakes just north of La Porte. The limited visibility was my issue, but the location of the Michigan City cooling tower & my time en route both contradicted my proposed location.

I had to find my way to La Porte. I noticed that there was a railway just north of KVPZ and it ran just about six NM south of KPPO. Also, there was a highway that ran directly north through the railway straight to KPPO. I followed the railway. I saw it cross a second railway. Then, I saw the highway with an airport in the distance. That was La Porte. I landed without issue.

Meeting the DFE and preparing for the test --

I went inside and met my DFE. Very nice guy that appeared to be all business. After a while, I found out that he was quite amiable, but that was not my first impression due to my test anxiety and my general understanding that two years of testing has led to this exact moment...

He gave me some time to get some water & relax before we started, but I was ready to get into it. The first thing we did was review my paperwork. We went over all of my hours to make sure I met the minimums required by the FARs and there were no issues there. Next were my endorsements, I had everything required except for one.

The missing endorsement was to state that my instructor reviewed all questions missed on my written exam. I thought that I only needed a review if I had to retake the written, but that's not the case. To make it more difficult, there's no template for this endorsement in the log book. I told the instructor that we did review the missed question, but I didn't have it in writing. The DFE made a note of this and we continued.

Next was the review of the plane documentation. We reviewed the ADs, the maintenance logs, and the certifications for all of the components requiring examination. There were some questions about what some of the mechanic's  notations were, but these appeared to be mostly for my understanding. For example, "c/w" was written in the logs a number of times. This represents "complies with".

After reviewing the plane docs, the DFE said that he accepts that I've satisfied all of my requirements and the plane is satisfactory for flight. He then says that we're ready to start the test. The flow will start with a number of questions around a specific part of the required knowledge, then I'll get to ask questions about anything. If anything is vague, I should speak up instead of trying to answer.

I say that I'm ready to start the test...

We start with questions about what a Private Pilot certification allows and disallows, then we talk a bit about the plane itself. The questions around the plane are mostly general (e.g., what does the white/green arc represent), but some were more specific (e.g., where are the fuel vents, what are my V speeds), but there are some specific questions about the electronic and vacuum systems. I needed to be able to troubleshoot problems with individual instruments. That line of questioning allowed the DFE to see if I knew which instruments used gyro, static, pitot, electronic, and/or vacuum systems. Finally we wrapped the plane questions with some general physics of flight.

We continued with some airspace review, VFR weather minimums, and eventually made it to my weight & balance and navigation log. We reviewed everything and it looked fine. We also reviewed take off and landing distances required for the plane. While reviewing the nav log, the DFE pointed out a number of areas on my sectional (which was checked to ensure it was current) and asked me to explain them. There were a few scenarios involved such as " if you were here and weather arrived, what would you do". There were a few SVFR questions as well.

And, after about 120 - 150 minutes, the oral portion was over. I only stumbled in a few places, of which, all I can remember is that I said you'd need a High Performance endorsement for a constant speed prop & retractable gear. I believe I said it like this: "you need a HP endorsement for complex airplanes". I said complex, but in the wrong place. This was early in the oral, and my nerves were still showing. The other mistake I remember was that I said that MVFR was actually below VFR instead of just-above VFR. I did say that a prog/outlook chart would have it well defined in the legend. I felt very good at this point.

Preparing for the flight portion --

It was about 3:30p at this point. There was nothing but clouds above La Porte. The AWOS was showing three layers of clouds, all broken below 5,000 and as low as 3,500. Although this is acceptable VFR weather, this wouldn't give us enough room to preform the required maneuvers above 1,500 ft AGL. Although all of the area airports were showing clear or 5,000 scattered clouds, it was obvious that there was a heavy cloud coverage in the area.

We waited sixty minutes for some sign of what was to come, but the clouds didn't budge. After reviewing weather, checking AWOS around the area and staring at the La Porte AWOS readout (which kept changing from scattered/broken to broken/broken), I finally decided to discontinue the test just past 5:00p. At this point, even if the clouds broke, I would be pushing it for getting back to Lansing before nightfall (5pm plus two hours for the flight portion, then any post-test debriefing could get me close to eight o'clock).

The last thing we did was preflight the airplane before officially discontinuing the checkride. This went pretty much as normal. The only thing that was throwing me off was that the DFE was also reviewing the airplane while I was preflighting. I didn't know if he saw anything that concerned him, if he was just trying to throw me off, or if he was actually doing his own preflight. In any case, I didn't know whether to check with him, to explain what I was doing, or to just continue as it didn't appear that he was scrutinizing me as much as I expected. I opted to just vocalize everything I was looking at and for. While I was working on the second wing, he called me over to the breaks to show me the break pads. He said that it's good to check the break pads for wear even though it's not listed on the official POH preflight checklist (this is coincidental as my car had horrible breaks and warped rotors). After checking this out, I went back to the aileron I was checking out. This was a distraction and he told me that he wanted to see if I'd return to where I was in my preflight.

At this point, we did some paperwork to discontinue the test for now. I then rescheduled for next week.

I got in the plane and departed for Lansing. Now that I was in the air, I knew that it was a great decision to postpone the test. There was no horizon and seeing checkpoints was almost impossible. I caught a radial to the CHT VOR and followed that back to Lansing. As I approached Gary's airspace, I went to the southern side of the 270 radial to make sure that I didn't slip into class D.

Most of the flight I was at 2,300 ft. I tried to climb out of the haze, but I went to 4,500 and didn't see much improvement so I went back down to 2,300 ft. I didn't see Lansing until I was about three miles out. It was very hazy out.

So, 1/2 the test is over. I was expecting to have this done today, one way or the other, but instead it continues...