Busted IFR Checkride

Dave Jacobowitz wrote:
Hey, try not to sweat it. Not passing a check ride
is not a big deal. You take it again.

I blew my PP checkride the first time around. I flew
fine, but exercised poor judgement by flying too close
to a cloud. I believed I was outside the 1000/500/2000
rule, but he didn't, and that was that. I don't blame
the DE for failing me.

I think the hardest part of the whole episode was
looking my instructor in the eye, telling him how I
busted. He knew I was ready, I just f**'d up.

When I took my IFR checkride, my instructor once
again admonished me that "these things are really
harder on the CFII than they are on the student."
I did not want to screw up, and luckily, this time
around I did not.

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 caught the problem right away, correcting right
away, and said so out loud. The rest of the approach
was sloppy by my standards, but within PTS limits.
Still, the DE could have failed me right then and
there. He elected not to. Luck.

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.


Matt