Instruement checkride...for real this time (long)

The short answer: I passed :-)

The long version:
After last weekend's check ride was postponed with the examiner coming
down sick at the last minute, I had an extra week to fly and study. It
turned out that I was only able to fly once but had plenty of time to
hit the books.

I didn't sleep very well Friday night and just like last Saturday
morning, woke up before my alarm went off at 5:00 am. Get up, make
coffee, fire up the computer and start looking at the weather and
printing up everything I'd need. The weather from LHM to SAC was good
with no early morning fog (quite common at SAC). Looking back, it was
nice to go through the drill last weekend as I knew exactly which charts
I wanted to print out this morning.

Off to the airport at 6:30. It was a beautiful morning with some high
clouds turning pink/purple in the early morning sun. I had to fly from
Lincoln (LHM) to Sacramento Executive (SAC) to meet the examiner and my
CFII. My plan was to leave early enough so I could practice an ILS into
SAC (Look Mom, no hood!).

Wheels up at 6:45. It was pretty hazy with visibility around 8 miles.
No clouds but less than wonderful visibility up and down the central
valley. I requested a practice ILS approach at SAC so that I could go
through the procedure once by myself and generally loosen up. I also
had a chance to figure out the winds at 3000 ft. so I'd have an idea
what I'd be up for later on. I managed a pretty decent ILS approach and
I'm glad I had a chance to practice as it required 15 degrees of
correction to the right to keep the localizer centered.

Met my CFII and the DE and things got underway in fairly short order.
First up: Going through the 8710 and my log book and aircraft logs.
After 15 minutes or so, my CFII gets to bail out and the real fun begins.

The oral lasted about an hour and a half and the DE used my cross
country plan as the basis for me explaining things on the enroute chart
and the approach plates. We went over the entire route covering lost
comms, a bunch of chart and approach plate symbols, how would I fly to
my alternate. He also had me review the prog chart and DUAT generated
weather text I'd printed up for the flight. I had a bunch more charts
printed but he never asked about them.

Other things we covered. I'm sure there is stuff I'm leaving out. My
brain is toast:
- What would I do in a total electrical failure?
- What do the regs. say about icing?
- GPS CDI sensitivity on each different scale?
- What is RAIM, how can you do RAIM predictions, how long are they good for?
- Which instruments operate on the pitot/static system, which are vacuum
driven?
- What happens to the pitot static instruments if the static port ices over?
- How do I get my weather information?
- How would I pickup an IFR clearance at a non-towered field? I love my
answer to this one. "Call up Norcal Area E from my cell phone". Nice
to have partners in the ATC world.
- What is the benefit of flight watch vs. a FSS for in flight weather?
- What's a SIGMET, what's an AIRMET?

Ok, oral done, it's time to take a break then go fly. We talked about
the approaches we'd do, where we'd deal with unusual attitudes, and a
DME arc.

Pre-flight with the DE present and we're pretty much talking airplanes.
He pointed out a couple of things they've experienced with their
club's Arrow. Good stuff to tuck away for future reference.

Time to fly. Crank up, get the ATIS then call ground for an IFR
clearance to Mather (MHR) just a few miles away. The plan was to do the
MHR ILS 22L, published missed, cancel IFR, do unusual attitudes, a DME
arc at SAC, pilot nav VOR 2 at SAC, then vectors to GPS 2 at SAC.

Taxi out and am given my clearance just as I stop in the runup area.
Copied and read back correct (I love hearing "Arrow two one zero four
tango, read back correct"). A few more minutes of setting up all the
nav equipment and we're ready to go.

First mistake (which I'd hear about later)...turned at 400 MSL vs. 600
MSL. I had "diverse departure" in my brain but had neglected to read
the noise abatement procedure for runway 20. Something that I won't
forget again.

I get vectored to the ILS at MHR and it takes me a few swipes at the
final approach course to get the localizer to stick in the center.
Things start to happen pretty fast as we intercept the glide slope. The
trick of dropping the gear and first notch of flaps when the GS is at
the top of the donut work like a charm. Power to 16 inches and we start
down. I kept things centered up pretty well, got outside the donut a
few times but nothing that I wasn't able to fix fairly quickly. At
minimums, we execute the published missed and it's off to COSKA
intersection to hold. Direct entry right off the SAC 058 radial...nice.
One turn around the hold and the DE is happy so we cancel IFR and fly
South a bit for unusual attitudes.

I'd been practicing unusual attitudes with my CFII, doing both full and
partial panel. We'd always done them where I put my head down, close my
eyes, and take my hands off the yoke. CFII then messes things up and
says "Recover". With the DE, it's different in that I keep my hands on
the controls and follow his instructions to turn left or right or climb.
It's amazing how your butt tells you one thing then when you look at
the instruments see that the plane is doing something completely
different. Recoveries went well. On the last one, we were just going
from a nose high to nose low attitude when I was told "Recover". I
didn't pickup the fact that airspeed was starting to increase. Rather,
I saw that it was low and prematurely applied power. DE said I
recovered ok but did ask if I thought I was nose high or low then told
me what was really going on.

Next up: fly direct to the SAC VOR and fly a 10 nm DME arc to the South.
We're about 17 nm from SAC at this point. At 11 nm, I turn 90 degrees
left, roll out and DME says I'm at 10.5. Twist 10 degrees on the OBS,
turn 10 more degrees right, then wait a bit. DME still showing 10.5 by
the time the CDI centers so I turn 15 degrees right and twist the OBS
another 10. When the CDI centers, DE says "Ok, that's good". This was
the shortest DME arc I've ever done.

Next, pilot nav for the SAC VOR 2 approach. Ooooh, I get a choice on
the procedure turn. Direct or parallel?....choose wisely young
Skywalker. I opt for the direct. We hit the VOR and I turn right.
Roll out abeam the VOR on my outbound heading and, yikes, I'm really
close to the inbound course. Turned left some (not enough I would find
out later). At a minute outbound, I turned back inbound to 016 but was
pretty far left of course and about 2.2 from the VOR. I correct to the
right but by the time I cross the VOR, I'm still too far left. Enter
cone of confusion (the VOR and me at this point). I drop the gear and
10 degrees flaps, we cross the VOR and I wait for the needle to come off
the peg...it doesn't. Crap, we have a full scale deflection inside the
VOR. DE says we shouldn't see that when we're inside the VOR and
immediately I replied that this is where I'd execute the missed
approach. He says we'll have to go do another one. At this point, I
realize that I've just been tossed a very nice bone. I get the 016
radial back and we execute the missed at 3 DME from the VOR.

Next approach is a partial panel GPS 02 at SAC. Just as I level off at
1500 and ATC gives me my first vector for the downwind, I start to setup
the GPS for the approach and realize I don't have enough time as I'm
most likely going to get another turn soon. Ah, but I know the answer
here. "Norcal approach, Arrow zero four tango requesting a delay
vector". Granted...I get to continue my present heading and let them
know when I'm ready. Sweet! DE then tells me I made the exact right
decision. I activate the GPS approach and tell ATC I'm ready for my
vector. The rest of this approach goes well and I execute the missed at
the same 3 DME from the FAF.

Last approach, take-2 at the VOR. I get to do this one full panel and
via radar vectors. It goes *much* better as I maintain the inbound
course within the donut. Circle to land runway 20 and I land. As we
taxi off the runway, I hear the best words all day. "Well, if you can
get us back to parking without hitting anything, you'll have your
instrument rating".

Taxi to transient parking, shutdown, shake DE's hand, make obligatory
phone calls to my wife and CFII (yes, in that order), and then debrief
with the DE after he's written up my temporary certificate.

Random thoughts for anyone either in the process of getting an
instrument rating or considering doing so:

- It's a lot of work but very much worth it. As others have said, it's
a tough rating, much more difficult than the PPL.

- Better to over prepare for the Oral. As with the PPL though, know
where to find stuff when you have to say "I don't know" (and you *will*
have to say that during the oral)

- Stress safety when talking to the DE (Thanks to Jim Burns for this
suggestion). Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should
do it (like a 0/0 takeoff under part 91).

- Talk your way through everything. I pretty much do this anyway but
made sure to verbalize even more today. IMHO, it lets the DE know what
you're thinking and why.

- If you fly the airplane well and screw something up, fix it
immediately or have the right answer.

- It pays to do well at the basic tasks of heading/altitude and the
airwork tasks. I fully believe that had my flight not gone as well up
to the point of my messed up 1st VOR approach, I wouldn't have passed.

- If you can fly the same plane, do it. If you can fly your own
airplane, that's even better. The DE commented that I had very good
command of the plane during the flight. Gee, that's because I've been
flying the wings off the thing since buying it last year.

- If you can get some actual IMC time with your CFII, do so as often as
possible. I was fortunate in the time of year that I've been flying
that we were able do so.

- As with the PPL, try to fly as often as possible. Instrument flying
makes your brain hurt sometimes but you've got to keep at it
consistently for things to sink in. I found that if I could
consistently fly twice a week, I was able to make pretty good progress.

It feels good to be done...but I can hardly wait to start flying IFR on
x-c trips even when it's a CAVU day.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice along the way. It's been a long
road as I started this in November of '04. Buying a plane and having my
CFII go work for the airlines for a bit didn't speed things up but I'm
very happy with the outcome. I had a great CFII and the chance to log
even more time in my own plane. Not a bad combination.

Ah, and last but not least, the updated sig. line. Cool! :-)

--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Arrow N2104T

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the Earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there
you will always long to return"
- Leonardo Da Vinci

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