The BIG day!! (Check ride) ?
Hello everyone, you must all be getting sick of reading my reports. Im sorry they have nearly finished.
Arrived at the school this morning, to do a clean up flight, which involved a deptarture, compass turns, engine fire, position fix and then returning to do some touch and go's. In all fairness i thought it was a nice flight. I these were the items i didnt perform too well on my 170A yesterday.
I arrived back at the school and was told to wait until i was called by my instructor. This started me to worry, eventually i was called in and told that my 170A was signed off and that my check ride would be at 12:00. So i had 2 hours to run around and get things organised. Got myself a bite to eat before the exam, also wanted to make sure that my examiner had access to some refreshments in flight because it's so hot in the arrow.
Got back to the school and was told to call my examiner, it was the same examiner as on my RT exam. Which put me at some ease. Spoke to the examiner who asked if the forecast weather was ok for us to fly. I checked the weather for 3 airports which seemed all go. So told my examiner that it was ok to fly.
My examiner arrived to the school, a really nice guy and we sat down to do some paper work making sure i had met all the requirments to take the exam. Once we had done this he had briefed me on what i was to expect. Everything thing that we had worked towards was included. The examiner was very kind and made me feel at ease. REMEMBER he is to be treated like a passenger. We spoke for a little while about what was expected and was then left alone to complete my flight planning and mass and balance.
I then went to do my preflight checks, topped up the oil got the ATIS and walked back in. My examiner told me to check the weather again and advice him if it was a go or no go. Unfortunatley the weather was poor and there was thunderstorms heading our way. I felt like an idiot that i would have to tell my examiner that it was no go. Even though i had adviced him on the phone that it was ok. it's not the best idea to pi** your examiner off on the day off your exam im sure he has better things to do.
So i went to my examiner to tell him the bad news, instead of what i was expecting of getting a bollocking he was very understandable and said it was a good call. He was very kind to advise me of how weather should be taken from several airfield instead of just the 3 airfields i used. He gave some great examples of the reason why too. So guys make sure you check the weather all around not just on route. It turned out that ten minutes later it started to train followed by a thunderstorm.
He was very kind to rearrange for tomorrow morning, so fingers crossed guys things will go well for me and by tomorrow afternoon i will be a CPL holder. Its all in my hands i suppose, like my examiner said you walk in that a/c with a pass, now its up to you if you want to keep it.
I will advice you all tomorrow, any adivce or tips would be much appreciated!!