Thanks for the report! Getting ready to do my checkride at the end of the
month and getting nervous. What's more frustrating is when you ask five
pilots who the best DE is, and one guy recommends one and another says to,
by all means, avoid that guy. Congrats!

"Wizard of Draws" wrote in message
news:BD3C4654.1B2E1%jeffbREMOVE@REMOVEwizardofdraw s.com...
Background: July 11 was my first attempt at the IFR checkride. I failed
the
partial panel VOR with a full deflection, in part due to inattention and a
heavy left foot. The examiner, Mr. Jones was leaving on vacation the next
day, so a quick retest wasn't going to happen. Today I took the retest and
tried to keep my feet off the rudder pedals.

August 8, 2004 9:30 1.2 hrs.
Mr. Jones is back. The weekend was forecast for beautiful fall-like temps
and turned out to be just that. Saturday was a southeast wind out of
mostly
blue skies and Don had said that we would do the VOR partial panel retest
at
Toccoa (KTOC) instead of Knoxville if it stayed that way. The forecast was
pretty firm for that so I flew the heck out of the Toccoa VOR/DME 2
approach, thinking that was the one that he wanted to do since I thought
it
would be faster. Doh! As it turned out the VOR or GPS 20 was today's draw.
Not a disaster, but I had only studied it for a little bit and didn't fly
it
at all on the simulator. Hell, that made me even more nervous than I
already
was.

I arrived at the airport early and preflighted the plane. It needed
topping
off, but when Randall and I pulled it down to the pumps, they weren't
working. So we went looking for the gas truck driver and found him in the
main FBO. We asked for and got, a priority on our plane. Well, it almost
seemed that 'someone' didn't want me to take the test today, because now
with the truck nozzles in the wings, the truck wouldn't pump either. The
driver fiddled around a bit in the cab, then came out and realized he hadn
't
flipped a crucial switch. Voila, 18 gallons of avgas.

I jumped in and took off from runway 4, flipped up the gear handle and...
nothing. No transit light, just three greens still glowing brightly.
Toggle
the handle, nothing. So I call crosswind and then downwind while I toggle
a
few more times. Since Andrews-Murphy (KRHP) is in nearly the opposite
direction, Randall came on the radio and asked if I was coming back in.
Just
then the gear came up. I quickly explained and peeled off from midfield
back
to the north.

At Andrews-Murphy, Mr. Jones and I really had nothing to do before taking
off for the test except brief the approach and give the plane an
abbreviated
preflight. So we climbed in and did an intersection departure. Down with
the
hood and he gave me mock ATC vectors to intercept the Blairsville VOR 118
radial to Foothills VOR at Toccoa. At about 9 miles from Foothills VOR he
failed my attitude and DG instruments and the test began in earnest. Deep
breaths and try to remember to relax. Surprisingly, the wind was pretty
strong at that altitude and I was having to hold a big correction to
maintain the needle, so I was making mental notes about the correction I'd
have to hold once I was established on the approach. We arrived over the
Foothills VOR, turned outbound and it took a bit longer than I'd like for
the needle to come back in (I saw him glance at his watch), but it did and
I
captured it to about a dot off center. A procedure turn that went very
well
with the wind pushing me back in and on course right quick. But it took
nearly a 30 degree crab to hold the needle, and I was sweating bullets by
now even though I was able to keep the needle within 1 and 2 dots of
center.
A quick 8 second left dogleg over the VOR, turn, time, twist, throttle,
talk, gas, undercarriage, mixture, prop, and I was on the home stretch. I
leveled off at 1900' right where he wanted it to terminate, and then he
had
me lift the hood. There was the airport and (I assumed at this point) my
ticket. Down came the hood, off came the stickies and he told me to
execute
the missed, a climbing left turn to 5000' and back to the VOR.

After the VOR was behind us, he played ATC again and vectored us back to
RHP. Once he got me back in the pattern, I 'broke out' and I was able to
do
a fairly smooth landing on 26. When I taxiied off and shutdown, he held
out
his hand and said, "Well done, congratulations".
--
Jeff 'The Wizard of Draws' Bucchino
Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
www.wizardofdraws.com
www.cartoonclipart.com