it went something like this:
skills test scheduled at 14:00 8th Jun 2005.
checked weather throughout the week... by Sunday forecasted 8th to be sunny. and the forecast was absolutely spot on and have confirmed by the weather report by BBC 24 hour forecast just before i went to bed.
nervous as anything, read up on procedures and knowledges with flipping all 5 books, checked on Met office for 214 and 215, WHAT?? not updated. so called the customer service. and have sent me copies of 214 and 215 via e-mail and acknowledging an online update problem. looking at the 214 and 215. i smiled as i could not ask for a better weather 2000ft and 5000ft VBR 5kts. Confirmed with various METAR CAVOK and many of them at the 0852 reports all over.
went to NSF Sibson early at 11:30 as i was supposed to be there at noon. spoke to my RT instructor, the most wonderful and helpful guy in the world. talking about how lucky i get such weather for a skills test. and i must agree, for my QXC and today, best weather i could have asked for. and at NSF Sibson, i was shown 6 evenlopes with 6 routes, and i had to pick one out of the six. i picked Route 1, LARS and MATZ. involving to plan depart from Sibson, climb to the Morbourne Mast (Local starting point for all our nav) to Wells (Northfolk Coast) to Ipswich. So i went away with all METARs, 214, 215 for the afternoon, and the NOTAM (which i didn't have enough time to read) to the quiet (er as parachutes training room next door, screeming FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE JUMP) room to plan my NAV.
CAVOK so i planned to fly at 3000' noting all MSA. FIS at Cottesmore, FIS at Marham and MATZ PEN for Sculthrope (but later critised by Marham ATC guy when airbourne: as notified by NOTAM Sculthrope is Cold) then overhead wash set southly heading towards Ipswich. I looked at Ipswich, there was only a strip... closest Class G airfield was Clacton... so i knew there will be a diversion (having read up the JAR-PPL requirements from the CAA) from the 2nd leg.
all planning sort of went well. did all calculation... weigh and T/O CofG and all that... Mr Examiner (not mention name), another nice guy, came in... talking about how the test will be conducted... structure, requirements, what he wants to see, and responsibility etc. all went as expected. checked Medical Cert., looked at my Logbook. ... em... looking for ages asked me if that was all the flights in the logbook. and took it away for 5 mins for examination i guess... i thought oh sh!t... what is not right? he then return explaining i have a few entries Remarks as REVISION, and no hard evidence on enough XC hours. so i clarified and of he went upstairs to book out and off i went to perform the external check.
I was put in a 152 that i had not flown for many times and the once i flew, and found the engine is rather... not so efficient... and the examiner knew and so we went on. external check complete. no questions. in the 2 seats. plugged in the headphones. he sat in, i went thru the emergency procedure. confirmed my planned altitude and joked lets see how loooooong it would take us to get to that height. and i thought... last time i flew this old bird, not tooooooooooo bad... but will see. Radio Checked. all items read out from the checklist. and there i was, Ready for departure, No WIND... have NEVER took off in ZERO WIND condition. there we go... rolling... 50 knts, rotated... 60 kts.... climbing... what THE... full power... showing 2400rpm... with a label adjacent over reads 100rpm. and took ages to get to 300ft climbed with the VSI telling me 300fpm... so eventually flaps up landing lites off. took AAAAAGGGGGEEEESSSSSS to get to 3000ft, 3 circles before setting off from the Mast and request FIS.. poor guy at Cottesmore but very helpful understoond my mumble jumble RT and approved my FIS and Squak. on track spot on... not deviated at all... all the way to the Wells, Wells looks quite a way in from the shore on the half mil but in fact not at all. set heading south... lots of FREDA checks now and then. and have been told to divert just passing East Derham at Shipdam towards March. Planning in the air is not the easiest thing to do... drawing the line while maintaining heading, height with your head down... is quite impossible but managed to crack it with an ETA, heading and distance. Examiner agreeed and we proceed. when overhead Marham, 2 Tornado were lining up for a formation take off... then over took me by my left hand and saluted... na... just looked good. the examiner starting to chat about things when the nav was going so smoothly... about fly by computers in those, speed, etc... and he then took control after a successful arriving March overhead with 2 mins late.
Froooooggle time... oh... demonstrate rate one turn left 180 degrees. he was happy that i had my Carb heat on (when debrief, he pointed out that was good, but it may not have been my intension)
slow flight, fly at 50kts turn to heading with no loss of height. fly at 45kts, 20degree flaps and manuver with no loss of height all seems fine
then stalls... i forgot to do HASELL, and examiner reminded me, any checks before commencing??? then immediately i thought sh!t i have failed. stall clean config, HELL check, stall with landing configuration and recovery. stall recovery at landing configuration simulating base to final relisation of stall and recover when the symptoms occurs. (debriefed he was happy with all those with min height loss but rectifying turns should be done with max 10DEG bank and slow flight)
next intercept VOR track and fly it, later find position fix with another VOR and have cracked that spot on with a fix (debrief normally people would use a ruler and i only used fingers and eyes hee... he said that was done rather cleverly.) what left PFL. he took control climbed to 3500 ft... took ages. yes. then pull the throttle and handed me the controls for a PFL. usual procedure... no problem. problem was finding A field. there were millions of fields. picked first one, approach could not go all the way round so nominated another field and then the third one. and proceeded. (i though i did really Sh!t but at debrief, examiner said it was ok and explained how i could have done with the first selection) then rejoin circuit, did pre landing checks at 1800 ft... then examiner asked me what is the circuit height. then i thought SH!T this time... must have failed. then we proceeded for normal approach, one Tiger Moth in Circuit very slow... gone around. for a flapless, nailed it but the examiner took control to give seperation to the Moth, and lastly for a glide approachnailed it touch and go went again for a low level bad weather circuit again moth in the way, examiner took control and right hand orbit twice, moth still RIGHT in front of us, saying we must work round this.... totally crap at low level, flying too fast, inconsistent height etc. and i thought must have failed and finally short field landing for full stop landing. landed ok. and examiner took control for taxying after all my checks. i thought unusal that i do not taxy. i must have failed.
at debrief with a cup of coffee, first of all without telling me result. he spoke for a while. then he said to help me concentrate my debrief, he told me i have passed. i was like WHAT REALLY???
he then debreif what i did right not quite what he wanted etc etc. and have suggested me what to do next. IMC
and lots about flying. very nice talk. he has highlighted that i was swimming for the nav and must have got tired. so... tolerated some mistakes stressing everybody make mistakes.
i was then again amazed with the outcome. and he said with the number of hours, i did a gr8 job.
grin on my face...
very good experience!!! now with 46.3 hours T/T i am now waiting for the CFI to examine my log book awaiting to sign a paper work to be then sent off to the CAA for me JAR-PPL licence.
cannot wait to see my licence.
happy flying all. hope you guys are still awake after reading such a boring log.
nelson
