CPL Test Surprise
I took my check ride last week and got one surprise. This was on the Nav and just after my half way point - but a long way from the three quarter way point I was asked to divert "directly from present position" to a nearby town. I had been expecting some time to plan this and instead of looking for a known visual point (actually there wasn't much and that was to my left the opposite way to my diversion point) . Sadly I panicked and just blundered in roughly the right direction until I had worked out wind drift, distance etc.
I then flew the leg perfectly - sadly a good 5 miles from where I should have been and paralleled the correct path.
I thought about this afterwards (I got a partial) and reckoned if I had been expecting this I could have known just from time where I was on my track and used that as my fixed point and taken a minute or two to work things out properly. I could also have just curled back over the half way point (about 2 miles behind me) - I asked the Examiner later if this would have been OK and he said "Yes".
For the record I retook the Nav section - flew it to bang on heading and arrived at my diversion point to the second of my stated ETA.