Sorry for the delay. The head has now recovered, and the communications problems seem to be resolves, so here's the report.
Before I start, though, I'd like to add my voice to those urging Keygrip to continue. I can write about (what I remember of) the most relevant points of my own experience, but that may or may not reflect a more general case, and Keygrip is far better placed to talk about the skills test in general than I am.
Anyway, here goes!
Skill Test - Wednesday 26 November
I arrived at Fort Pierce to find the Arrow parked in maintenance with its cowling removed. The vacuum pump had been replaced, as promised - but the tach cable had subsequently broken.
With promises that it would be fixed by the time I was ready to fly, Keygrip gave me a route to fly, I asked him his weight, and it was time to start planning. The route was to Escape, a grass farmstrip that I'd never been to before. The first half of the route was relatively tricky - there were a few roads which would be largely indistinguishable from each other, and a big canal that would make a good time-fix, but wouldn't tell me if I was left or right of track. After that, though, it became much easier. I would fly right over the middle of Blue Cyprus Lake which would give me a good fix for both my position and my time. Then I'd fly past the corner of a large reservoir. As I got close to the destination, there would be a couple of minor roads which I might not be able to spot - but if I did spot them, their shape would identify them and they'd lead me to the field. Otherwise, the field was roughly abeam the tip of Lake Marian, which should be easy to spot, with the Turnpike just past it, and a couple of roads which I could follow backwards from the Turnpike.
I finished the route planning, did the weight+balance calculations (had to shift my flight back from the back seat into the luggage compartment to keep the C of G within limits, with two fat gits sat up front!), got the weather and did the performance calculations. IFR conditions were reported along a line from north-east to south-west Florida. These conditions were expected to burn off as the morning progressed, and in any case I figured that our destination was probably just before the IFR weather so we'd probably be ok. But even if it did stop us getting there, it wouldn't block our route back, so I was happy to go.
Keygrip gave me a detailed brief on what we'd do during the flight (don't worry, he said, he'll remind me of everything in the flight so there's no need to remember anything now) and asked if I had any questions. Keygrip's expectations were pretty much what I'd been prepared for. During the navigation, he wanted to take his role of a passenger further than my instructors have done in the past. He didn't expect a take-off brief, for example, since the average passenger doesn't really care what runway we're on or where the cross-wind is from. But he did ask me, on the ground, what I'd say in the take-off brief - so although it wasn't required as part of the flight, I was still tested on it. But I would obviously be required to inform him of all heading, height and ETA changes, since he wouldn't be able to do his job as an examiner otherwise.
We were ready to go! Unfortunately, the Arrow still wasn't fixed. So we went for some brunch instead.
And when we came back from brunch, the Arrow still wasn't fixed.
Once the cowling was eventuall back on, we hoped there wouldn't be any more delays. But it seemed that whoever had planned to fly it before us in the morning (but hadn't been able to because of the tach cable) had filled the fuel tanks to the top. I got the calculator out, and found that the weight was now too high for our forward centre of gravity. No amount of balast would bring the C of G back to point where the extra weight was ok, so we'd have to de-fuel. Another delay!
We did eventually get going. It was early afternoon, the temperature was just starting to move from "hot" to "unbearable", and I was expecting to be de-briefing by now, not starting out. That, together with skills-test nerves, meant that I didn't fly as good a flight as I'd have liked - certainly not as good as the previous day. But I didn't really screw anything up either, and that's all that's expected on a skills-test.
The navigation was good. Miami were too busy to talk to us, but I got the marks for trying. The only mistake I'd made on the VFR leg was actually on the ground, and that was planning to fly over the top of Blue Cyprus Lake at 2000'. As we got closer and closer to the lake, I became more aware that the shore would be out of our gliding distance. It's nowhere near as big as Lake Okeechobee, but it's still a couple of miles across. I told Keygrip that I'd divert around the northern edge of the lake.
As we approached Escape, I managed to pick out all of the roads that I was hoping to pick out. I told Keygrip I was looking for a north-south runway just south of the road... and then I saw it. Tucked up next to the trees was a smooth grass strip. Keygrip asked how I knew the runway was north-south, and seemed pleased when I said I'd looked it up in the "private airports" section of my airfield guide. Apparently, many candidates don't know that section exists. But I did like the story he told of one past candidate who had phoned the owner of the field and explained what he was doing, and asked the owner to park a tractor on the runway with its lights on!
The diversion was to Sunset Strip, a private airfield a few miles from Okeechobee. I turned on track, put on the foggles, and began doing my checks and getting VOR/DME fixes. It was only when I plotted the first fix that I realised the line I'd drawn took me right through the Marian Military Operating Area. I was getting pretty close, so I said I'd turn away while I established whether the MOA was hot, but Keygrip told me, with his examiner hat on, that he was happy that we were safe to fly through there. He didn't think we'd be able to get an answer from Miami because they were too busy, but the fact that I'd noticed it and would have tried to contact Miami was enough to satisfy him.
We didn't have to go too far before I'd convinced Keygrip that I can fly straight and level on instruments and plot nav-aid fixes, so the foggles came off and I continued the leg visually. Immedately I had a good position fix from the Turnpike, which we were just passing abeam, and after that I saw Okeechobee town, then Okeechobee airport. The roads alongside Sunset Strip were soon visible, and the airfield itself turned out to be an aviation community with a runway down the middle of the houses. No problem.... except that Keygrip asked me later why I didn't carry on using navaids during this part of the flight. Well, I was confident of my position, flying visually, and the idea of using navaids in that situation didn't occur to me. I've never used navaids when I've known where I am (except maybe a DME to give ATC a more accurate distance than I could do get with my eyes)! Apparently, no one ever uses navaids once the foggles come off, although there is no reason not to - and as a commercial pilot we should, of course, use every means at our disposal to navigate accurately!
Next we moved on to circuits, and we flew to Okeechobee to do these - an airfield I've flown over many times, but never landed at. In fact, this was my first time at an uncontrolled US airfield with a Unicom frequency, and my first time doing a 45-degree join, for nearly 2 years. Someone was using runway 5 (if it was in the UK it would be 05, but in America it's 5!), so I joined for that runway (over the houses, which was a mistake - I should have joined from the other side where there were fewer houses). On final, I assessed the wind as being almost totally a crosswind, but so light as to barely be a factor. But by the time I was over the numbes, the wind had swung around and become a tailwind, and I drifted well down the runway. I decided I could land safely, but I would throw away the touch+go and turn it into a full-stop, before switching to 13, the into-wind runway. This runway was pretty short, and since I didn't know the airifled or the aircraft very well I decided to stick with the full-stop and taxi-back. The next approach was a glide-approach which I totally screwed up, and decided to go around when I was still at about 300' as I was approaching the numbers. The next glide approach was fine, though. The wind, by now, had swung round again, and we changed to runway 25 for the bad-weather circuit. I considered using runway 31, just so I could say that we'd used all four of the runways, but Keygrip was happy with the circuits and we moved onto other stuff!
General handling all went pretty well. During the stalls I moved all the levers in the right direction at the right time, so the chair-flying I'd done had worked out. We had a practice engine fire, during which I shut the engine down and then entered an emergency descent when the fire didn't go out. Once the fire was out and I'd picked a field, Keygrip told me to return to straight and level flight, but soon after that he gave me an engine failure and this time I had to take the Arrow right down to the ground. I'd have made the landing safely, but Keygrip would have preferred me to have spotted the farm-strip just behind the left wing! Steep turns went well (I gained a bit of height in one, but within limits) as did the instrument flying. While I was on instruments, partial panel, Keygrip took control of me, because he'd apparently heard a Learjet on the ILS at Fort Pierce. He started manoevering the Arrow quite aggressively - I wasn't quite sure if it was to get out of the Lear's way or to get a better view of it - and then gave control to me. This isn't right - the instruments are all over the place! My brain couldn't quite put everything together, but I knew I had to act! Airspeed is high, and rising, so close the throttle. We're turning, stop the turn, and then pull the nose up because we're still descending with high airspeed.... and then I realised that Keygrip had given me the unusual attitude recovery in the most sneaky way! The aircraft was now the right way up, though, and a moment later the power was set, everything was trimmed, and I was turning the air blue!
There wasn't very much left to do now, and before too long we were heading back to Fort Pierce. We got too close to the aircraft in front, and on short final my hand was on the throttle ready to go around, when ATC beat me to it and told us to go around. We landed off the second approach.
The mistakes that I made generally fell into the category of "oops - nearly forgot about that". Things like coarsening the prop during the engine failure, weaving or dipping the nose to look out during a Vx climb, retracting the gear immediately on the go-around at Fort Pierce. But I had satisfied Keygrip that I did really know how to do these things, and a bit of test-day nerves was the only reason that I was a little slow in getting them done. So the only thing left to do now was taxi back and shut down, then sort out the paperwork so that I can let the CAA relieve me of more money!
Conclusions
As I said at the start of the thread, I didn't really know what to expect from a course which I was told was "just a more precise PPL". If all that's needed is to be able to fly more accurately, I can go out by myself and practice that - I don't need 25 hours of dual instruction to learn to fly accurately. I knew that I was missing something, but I didn't know what.
I think the vital part of the course which no one told me about was the emphasis on captaincy. This extends from the pre-flight decisions about whether the weather or the badly-worn tyre or anything else are going to stop me from flying, through to the way the passenger is briefed and kept up to date with changes in ETA or told what it going on during an emergency, right through to coming across as being confident in navigation even when there are no features nearby that allow me to be confident.
I have talked, more than once, about the navigation methods which are taught. I will never use these methods again if I can help it. Drawing key features on your plog rather than looking at a chart is just stupid. Plotting accurate nav-aid fixes on a single-pilot flight is, IMHO, dangerous, whether in VMC or IMC. But what they have done is improved my flying. The VFR navigation has taught me to become more aware, both prior to and during the flight, of what features I might encounter. The nav-aid plotting has undoubtedly improved my handling skills. The attempts at modifying the tools I had have proved that a bit of lateral thinking can make the task easier - in fact, another student has asked to buy my tool from me since he's having the same problem as me.
I hope that this diary will help others understand what the course is all about, so that they don't have the same problem understsanding what they're getting themselves into as I did. The feedback I've had from you guys suggests that I've succeeded in doing that - but even if I haven't, I've helped myself by writing this diary, and enjoyed doing it too.
I want this thread to be a thread about the CPL course. I don't want it to be a thread about EFT. But there will inevitably be questions about EFT, so I'll say a few words about them. The instructors there are great - very professional, very good instructors, and they did everything to ensure that I got my course completed in time. The school itsself was a bit of a culture-shock to me. I'm a bit of a "club flyer", and EFT is a total contrast. The school is almost entirely geared towards commercial flying. There is no club atmosphere there - people go there to get a job done, not to socialise. That's not to say that it's not a friendly place - the people you will meet and talk to there are as friendly as you can get. But it's not somewhere that you'd ever go "just to hang out for a while" in the way that my home club is. They have a Piper Super Cub there, although I don't believe it's been flown for many months... why would it be flown, since it's no help at all in getting an fATPL? There is talk of them buying a C150 Aerobat to do some aerobatics training, so I don't know if that will change anything, but I doubt it, because this is the way they like it. I also don't like having to wear a uniform when I'm a paying customer. But their system works, and it works well. If you want to get any kind of commercial license or rating, then they will get the job done with minimal fuss and minimal distraction - and if EFT happened to be the most appropriate school for me to do any of my future ratings at, then I would have hesitation in using them again.
There has been some criticism over some aspects of the school on these forums - although never, as far as I'm aware, about the flying side of the school. I didn't personally experience any problems, nor see anyone else experiencing major problems while I was there, but it's clear from reports on the forums that this is not always the case, so be careful out there, check all the paperwork, and if you're relying on EFT to provide you with accomodation or transport it wouldn't hurt to have a backup plan. But the only issue that I had was one particular flight which I wasn't charged for but should have been.... mistakes can work both ways. They have now hired an admin assistant, and I'm sure that once she gets settled in there will be fewer mistakes made, and this will be reflected by future students' comments on PPRuNe.
Now then, as for everyone who wants me to write an IR diary... hmmmmm
If I were to do it, it would be for a different reason. Unlike the CPL, I think most of us understand exactly what is involved in an IR course before we start, so any diary I wrote would be mainly for my benefit, to gather my thoughts at the end of a day. But don't hold your breath, because I don't know when I'll have the time or the money to do the IR. I may well do an FIC first, or possibly an FAA IR followed by the JAR conversion - I just don't know yet.
There have been a couple of questions about what I'd have done differently during hour-building. The IMC was a big help, it made most of the IMC training for the CPL a non-event. (To answer Simjock's question, the course requirements for someone who doesn't hold an IR call for a minimum of 10 hours of IMC training.) Towards the end of the hour-building, it probably would have helped to have practiced steep turns, stalls and PFLs a little more (I practiced these on my last flight before heading off to EFT, but only succeeded in proving to myself that I'd forgotten how to do them, temporarilly at least!) The big problem, as I'm sure you're aware, was plotting nav-aid fixes in flight, and this is somethng which could have been usefully practiced during hour-building. However, I would only do this with a safety pilot - in VMC, I wouldn't want my head inside the cockpit for that long, and in IMC there's a real danger of an accidental unusual attitude if you haven't practiced it sufficiently.
YYZ - the total cost was about $700 more than I was quoted as the minimum. A small part of this was due to me having to redo part of one lesson, but mostly it was due to the pre-CPL - something which I think is a very good idea, but I'd have preferred to have been told about it, and given an estimate of how much it might cost me, beforehand.
And finally... some quotes for the day
Just to keep you amused!
Keygrip:
"It's me who should be nervous, not you. You know how well you can fly, I don't."
Me:
"Holding short runway niner, 87U"
"Lining up runway niner, 87U"
"Cleared take-off runway niner, 87U"
"Expect left base runway niner, 87U"
"Cleared land runway niner, 87U"
And several other single-digit runway numbers, just to amuse Keygrip!
ATC (Miami Centre):
"All aircraft, please avoid Stuart for the next 10 minutes, they're about to throw some people out of a perfectly good airplane."
Maintenanace at Fort Pierce:
When asked (at around 13.00) what time the Arrow was likely to be fixed, so that we could plan accordingly:
"I promise you It'll be fixed by 6pm tonight. It should be fixed before then, but if I give you a time something will go wrong."
(It was actually fixed at 13.30.)
FFF
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