Funny flight test story
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Posts: 10
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Funny flight test story
Here's a weird story I thought I'd share:
I once had an exceptional student who's only shortcoming was his english. Very smart, good at studying, and very smooth with the controls.
I had him plan a fake trip from Vancouver to Kamloops for his flight test. I just assumed he knew he would not actually be completing the entire trip with the examiner. (He would be graded for his ability to plan a long cross country flight, without actually flying the trip).
On the morning of his flight test, he spent an hour with the examiner on the ground portion of the test. The examiner then asked him to do a "pre-flight" (During his training, I had always called it "the walkaround")
This must have confused him, because he actually got in the airplane by himself (without the examiner) and departed. It was the strangest thing. The examiner just stood there on the tarmac. Where was he going? Was he planning on doing his own flight test, grading himself on each of the excercises?
It made me rather nervous, because if he thought he was supposed to go to Kamloops by himself for his flight test, I knew he would't have enough fuel to fly all the way there and back. And I would hang for not having made things more clear to him.
He landed 40 minutes later, taxiid in, and shut down. We didn't question him on the matter, because we didn't want to make him nervous during his test. He went back up (WITH the examiner, this time) and did very, very well.
Afterwords, he explained that he thought that's what "preflight" meant. He was doing a pre-"FLIGHT", to practice and warm up for the real thing!
I think he's flying for a regional airline now.
I once had an exceptional student who's only shortcoming was his english. Very smart, good at studying, and very smooth with the controls.
I had him plan a fake trip from Vancouver to Kamloops for his flight test. I just assumed he knew he would not actually be completing the entire trip with the examiner. (He would be graded for his ability to plan a long cross country flight, without actually flying the trip).
On the morning of his flight test, he spent an hour with the examiner on the ground portion of the test. The examiner then asked him to do a "pre-flight" (During his training, I had always called it "the walkaround")
This must have confused him, because he actually got in the airplane by himself (without the examiner) and departed. It was the strangest thing. The examiner just stood there on the tarmac. Where was he going? Was he planning on doing his own flight test, grading himself on each of the excercises?
It made me rather nervous, because if he thought he was supposed to go to Kamloops by himself for his flight test, I knew he would't have enough fuel to fly all the way there and back. And I would hang for not having made things more clear to him.
He landed 40 minutes later, taxiid in, and shut down. We didn't question him on the matter, because we didn't want to make him nervous during his test. He went back up (WITH the examiner, this time) and did very, very well.
Afterwords, he explained that he thought that's what "preflight" meant. He was doing a pre-"FLIGHT", to practice and warm up for the real thing!
I think he's flying for a regional airline now.
