Matt Whiting wrote in message ...
Dave Jacobowitz wrote:
I did make some mistakes on the checkride. One of
which was flying on a vector right through the FAC
on a partial-panel VOR-A approach to TCY. I was
behind the plane, had not dialed in the OBS as
quickly as I should have, when I did, the needle was
already on the wrong side.

I'm just refreshing myself on the regs getting ready to re-enter flying
after several years off, but I seem to recall that you could have
something like 2/3 or so needle deflection before you are out of
tolerances on VOR tracking. Unless you had FS deflection, I don't see
why the DE would have or should have failed you.

I think it's a judgement call. Yes, it was within the deflection
allowed on the PTS during an approach. However, I didn't even
know where I was relative to the FAC prior to twisting the
OBS appropriately, and then it took me, maybe five seconds
to mentally accept the fact that I was past where I wanted to
be. So, it was a short loss of situational awareness,
which he could have failed me for.

On my instrument ride, the day was very windy giving moderate turbulence
down low and probably a 40K wind higher up. It took me about 3 circuits
to get the holding pattern nailed on both wind correction angle and
timing, but the DE saw that I was getting it closer each time and that
was all he cared about. I think demonstrating good judgement and good
situational awareness is much more important than holding the needle
centered all the time.

Ah, I've heard several people say that a windy day is better
for a checkride because it's hard for a DE to know the
difference between pilot-induced and weather-induced
sloppiness. I think there might be something to this, but
only people who have tried it both ways can know for sure.



-- dave j