© C Blythe 2004

Checkride Day

Friday morning I was up at 5.30. At least I had slept. It was just another flying day like all the rest I told myself as the shower blasted any remaining weariness from the system. All being well I will be back at the hotel after lunch and I can sleep for as long as I wanted. I would be going back to the UK on the following Tuesday so there will be a bit of time for some sightseeing and relaxing.

By 6.30 I was packing away a good breakfast. By 7.00 I was at the airport. I let myself in via the number pad on the airside door. The work I did the night before I reviewed. I rang Flight Service for the latest briefing for the route. It was to be from Middleton to Central Wisconsin at Mosinee although it was not the route we would fly.

Planned route for oral exam

At 7.30 Rich came in and asked how I was. He could see from the grim look on my  face the answer. Next  came Dax from the workshop with the plane’s logbooks and took me through the various bits I needed to know; the ADs, the pitot static test, the transponder test. As to the VOR test record that was in the plane so we went out and had a look at that.

I lost track of time then for a bit and the next I knew there was a tap on the shoulder. I looked around and there was this chap wearing part of a  uniform. “I’m Chris” he said. It was the examiner. “How you doin’? “ he said. “OK” I croaked. “Relax” he countered, “we will get started when you are good and ready”.

We began straight away firstly on the paper work, all the forms had to be filled in and the fee paid. Chris was a relatively new examiner and was very careful with the paperwork especially as he was doing a foreign pilot for the first time.

An hour later the paperwork was done, we slipped into the oral and I had barely noticed the transition from paperwork to the guts of the oral. The first question he asked was about the validity of the ratings as he was filling in some form. We then went onto the logbooks and then some questions about the pitot static system as we were looking at the entry and what happened when the different bits of the system got blocked. This then took us onto icing and what the various kinds of icing were, what to do when encountering icing.

This led us naturally into the types of weather charts and how to find the various bits of information one might need. I always had difficulty in remembering the chart names so he asked what they showed, which was easy.

Before long we moved onto the route I had prepared. I thought that I had prepared well but, he had the edge on me. We were going through the Notam sources and I had missed one. Anyway we carried on and went through how we might land what would be the alternate if we needed one. Looking at the enroute chart, he asked what this symbol meant and so on.

All of a sudden he sat up straight, stretched his arms and said “let’s go fly now, huh!”

“Fine”, I said a smile coming on my face, the oral was over and it had been so well done, I hardly felt it. No third degree, but a pilot to pilot discussion over what was important and vital in being an instrument pilot.

Chris briefed me on what we were going to do for the flight and asked me to file a VFR flight plan  taking us from Lone Rock to Madison with requests for various instrument approaches. First we were going to fly to Lone Rock with him acting as controller and return to Madison from there.

Flight Service were really helpful until the point when they said that the TFR might have an impact. According to the TFR Madison was just on the edge of the restricted area.. He said that TFRs are closed to training flights amongst a list of others. I said this was a checkride and was not a training flight. OK, he said but call Madison tower and see how they wanted to play it as it would not help the checkride with a couple of F-15s escorting me around the sky.

Madison (KMSN) on the edge of the TFR

I went back and relayed the message to Chris who rang someone he knew in the Madison tower. The news was not what I wanted to hear. Madison was closed to us. We could fly one approach in but we could not fly a miss and we could not leave until 16.30 that afternoon when the restriction ended.

Chris had his job to go to later as a captain with an airline. There was not time to fly to a range of airports to do the various approaches he wanted to do as this meant there would be a lot of dead time flying between airports. It was agreed that we would have to reschedule the flying test. Chris had a duty slot from that afternoon until mid afternoon on the following Monday. We rescheduled the resumption for 3 pm Monday. Chris wrote out a notice of discontinuance due to Presidential TFR explaining what it meant.

I said goodbye and see you Monday. It was by now 11am.   I felt absolutely gutted. It was not quite despair but it felt pretty close. It was scant consolation having passed the dreaded oral. The job was not done.

Today was to be the first no flying day for 10 days. The aircraft was put back in the hanger. Everyone came to offer their consolation. But it was no good. I decided to review the oral and the bit about the notams.  I looked up the references he gave me and made sure I had it sorted. I went through the same for the actual flight test. I had to do something to keep going. I had all that sorted by mid afternoon, so I went back to my hotel, not as an instrument pilot but an extremely disappointed pilot. It was just as well I did not have a vote in the election and there would be no surprise who I would not vote for.

I switched on the TV and there was a report of George Bush electioneering in Janesville. God I swore. My checkride, screwed up because of him.

The weekend was a complete washout, not because of the weather but because I could think of nothing else but the delay. The Monday had been my reserve day in case I had to have any remedial training. Now it was all or nothing. No margin for error.

I was left doing my laundry, looking for any task to take my mind off what had happened.

Saturday I did a bit of sight seeing. Saturday night I was invited to dinner with Rich and Sharron. They had also invited Steph and John who both worked part time at Morey. Steph had done the WCA herself. We had a turkey dinner and it took the mind of the next day or so. However I arranged with Rich to fly on the Sunday morning at 7.30 to keep in touch.

That proved a waste of time. I was hopeless, Rich said I was distracted - no kidding! Two hours later I worked out why. That morning was the first time I flew without breakfast. The tip for Monday was to get a good lunch inside me before going flying. Knowing why I was so bad helped me write the experience off. I knew I would fly better the next day. The rest of Sunday was spent driving around Wisconsin and I even got near to the resort hotel where John Kerry was preparing for the first presidential debate.

But whatever I did the mind would wander back to the Friday and forward to the Monday. I asked myself why I wanted to put so much pressure on myself!

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