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 Got my interview with Continental Express scheduled for April 7th. Similar to American Airlines, they are flying me to Houston for the interview and maybe a tour. Should be a lot of fun and I'll be even more prepared after American Airlines. Will keep informed.
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My multi-engine checkride was scheduled for Thursday, March 16th. As always, I never get to do the checkride when it's first scheduled. I've been flying a Piper Seminole (PA-44 / 180) since the start of the semester. I had 11.1 hours in the airplane by the time I took the ride. So anyways, Thursday comes by and I get to the airport. Turns out the FAA had come by and took one of the Seminoles somewhere for something (I don't even know what). The other one was down for maintenance, so I was like "damn" and all that. I did the oral exam, which lasted for about an hour and a half and went fine. Scheduled the flight for Sunday at 9am.
Sunday 9am comes by and the clouds are pretty low. One of the requirements of the checkride is to actually shut down an engine in flight, which has to be done at a high enough altitude so that if it doesn't restart you can glide to an airport. I needed to be able to get to 4,500ft, and the clouds didn't let me do it. My examiner is leaving town for the week on Tuesday, March 21 so there's not much time. Rescheduled flight for 7:30am Monday March 20. 7:30am March 20 comes and it's the same thing. Lake Effect is causing a lot of clouds pretty low. Examiner says he can do it later in the day, like 3pm. Waited all day for the clouds to rise. About 4pm they finally start to break up and we decided to go. The ride went pretty smoothly. I was very nervous before the flight, but once I actually start flying I'm always better. I ran through the maneuvers which were okay. Then we failed the engine, which was cool and probably the last time I'll see a stopped prop hanging out there for a while (hopefully). Then we did the VOR-A approach into KSU with a simulated failed engine all the way to the landing. After all that, we took off one more time and did a short field landing and I was done! There's nothing more satisfying than the moment when you realize you passed a checkride. Glad to be done. Now I can focus more on my Certified Flight Instructor work and it frees up about 3 hours in the middle of the day for me too. Woots.
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Since I have no plans for spring break, I was wondering if anyone wanted to do anything. I was thinking maybe we could fly somewhere cool for a day or something. Also, LAN Party on one of the days (or more) to be determined. Flying wouldn't be too expensive, especially if there are 4 of us. Anywhere people want to go? I just want to fly somewhere.
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Today started like most days out at the airport. I got there a good 7 minutes late or so, got an airplane, froze my ass off doing the preflight and got ready to takeoff. I'm in the CFI course at 9:00am, so I'm in the Cessna 152 2 seater airplane that we use for private pilot and the flight team competition. These days I'm flying from the right seat so I can learn to fly it when a student screws up. We started to take off like normal and everything seemed normal, but just as we were in the air the airspeed indicator dropped to 30 knots (which is below the stall speed) and me and my flight instructor were staring at it with jaws wide open. There was no stall warning horn, and the airplane was totally not stalling. Far from it actually, I had lowered the nose to get airspeed and we were cruising around at like, 100 feet. So we're all like "K, we gotta land I guess" so we raised the flaps, turned crosswind and then downwind. By this time, the airspeed is reading 0, and the altimeter was about 700 feet low. My instructor offered to land the plane, but I was all like "no, I got it". The airspeed moved a little bit up from 0 as I was descending for landing, but it never got to the real airspeed so I had to ignore it. First time I ever had to land with no helpful instruments. Since we didn't know our airspeed, we came in for landing a little faster than usual to prevent a stall but it was a pretty uneventful landing other than that.
Later in the day, I flew the Piper Seminole twin engine for the first time. Holy Crap what a difference two engines make! I actually felt pushed back in my seat. The airplane climbed to 5,000 feet before I could realize it. It was more work but a heck of a lot more fun than the 152. The Cutlass 172RG is good, but not as good as this. If we fly to Dallas, we are totally taking the Seminole. I have to get around 100 hours of multi-engine time before I can apply to an airline, so I will probably be offering rides at some times in the next two years.
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Today was mostly a day of waiting. I waited for my flight instructor to show up so we could fly in the morning, he was only half an hour late. We did almost a whole practice checkride and I had some of my better landings so I was in a good mood. I was supposed to go on the ride at 3pm, but the examiner finally got there and we were ready to go at 4. Started the ride off with the landings. I did a normal landing, then a soft field landing, then a short field(had to land within 100 ft), then a no-power landing(200ft). After that I started the cross country part and headed north over streetsboro. We broke off from that, and started the manuevers. Steep turns followed by Minimun controllable airspeed, then power off stall, power on stall, 1 lazy eight, 3 chandelles, a steep spiral, eights-on-pylons, an engine failure at 1000 feet (very low), followed by a simulated gear failure, alternator failure, and wing fire. After this, we headed back to the airport at 3000 feet, had the engine "failed" and did a steep spiral to land on the runway. The last one was a very ugly landing, but I got it down. 1.5 hours after I started, he held out his hand, I had passed! It was very nerve wracking and I was sweating a lot (he was cold) but now I am KSU's newest commercial pilot. Very much happiness! I feel awesome about this because he said he was never in doubt and that I had excellent control of the airplane at all times. He complimented my landings even though some were kinda close to the limit. The best part about all of it is that I earned it. Flight team felt good because we all came together as a team to win, but this is mine. I worked hard to do well in this and I succeeded! I wish I could write a better summary than this, but I am hyped up on adrenaline and exhausted at the same time. Maybe tomorrow.
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