Day 6
Thankyou Keygrip!! it was not a matter off luck it was a matter of you know how to fly commercially or you dont. As you know today i had my 170A cpl mock exam. I will tell you all about it when i finish writting the past God knows how many days report.
OK lets get on with it. last Wednesday was very terrifying, as i had my C-172 internal skills test before i could move on to the arrow. This flight included using all the skills i had learnt over the past 4-5 days, and seeing if i could execute them in a proffesional manner showing competency and airmanship. The flight was conducted by the CFI. So already on my best behaviour. You are given a route to plan using navigation procedures. Making sure i had checked the weather and Notams, planned my flight did my pre-flight check. I went back inside the school sat with the CFI who briefed me on all the things to expect on the flight. Remember you treat the CFI just like a passenger, so we went out to the a/c advising the CFI that we were about to enter a restricted area and that he had to stay close to me at all times. Once in the aircraft brief the passenger just as you would do in an airline. Taxi to the runway do all the checks according to the check list. ( Guys just a bit of advice make sure you do everything in a checklist dont skip parts of it because you think you know it. You must also do it in order. It's a big NO NO if you dont at CPL level)
You are marked on your performance and attitude from inside to going back inside to the school. So we took off and did all the clearing 1000ft checks while flying to the first reporting point for our navigation leg. But in my case i took off from runway 32 and straight away took my heading, this lead me into entering vero beach airspace a big NO NO being promted by my " passenger" i got out of the controlled area and correctly joined my repoting point. My navigation leg really well apart from the deptature. My passenger then gave me a diversion route while going to our destination i planned for this while flying. Once we arrived at the destination we took a heading for our diversion. I arrived on time for my navigation leg. My diversion planning was great except for ending up at the wrong diversion point. Did a simulated engine failure followed by a engine failure after take off.
After this we headed back to Fort pierce on route had to do a postion fix, no problem there and did some intrument work evolving unusal attitudes and turns. We arrived back to the school and went in for a debrief. Got a slap on the wrist for my mistake at deptature and for the incorrect diversion airfield. But my CFI thought even though there was mistakes made. It was nothing that should stop me going on to the arrow.
The afternoon flight was in the arrow just a fam flight, getting to know the aircraft. I still remember that when i got on the runway to take off i thought it would react in the same manner as the C-172. How wrong was i, very heavy and slugish to fly. Well this was my first thoughts on it. Did some turns, landings, and some instument work on this flight. The aircraft has a varrible pitch propeller and a retarctable landing gear. More work load!!