On weddings and flight tests…
Flight tests are a bit like weddings. Everyone wants theirs to go perfectly, but sometimes problems or distractions, when successfully resolved, add richness to the experience.
Although each of these life events usually goes smoothly, you’ll occasionally hear horror stories. Jean and I once attended a wedding reception where the restaurant caught fire, forcing the bridal party and guests onto the lawn with firefighters.
As with weddings, you can never know whether pilot checkrides are “good,” or “bad,” until afterward. The obvious measure is whether you pass or fail. Common wisdom says that sooner or later every pilot fails a flight test – fortunately that’s not the blot on one’s record pilots often worry about. But it’s not always that simple. Sometimes a failed test teaches valuable lessons. My own worst flight test was not the one I failed, but one I passed.
On my instrument practical years ago, I confused my position on an instrument approach, turned, and started down at the wrong fix. The examiner’s questioning helped me figure it out, but afterward I pondered if and when I’d have caught the error on my own. Although I learned the relevant lesson, it seemed at the time I should have failed so there was little joy in taking the new rating home. The experience haunted me until I got more instrument flying under my belt.
Colorado pilot Tom Fuller is well qualified to contemplate good checkrides versus bad. A 10-year Air Force veteran, Tom earned his private three years ago and is working toward a pro-pilot career.
“I passed the oral portion of my initial Flight Instructor Practical Test last month, but did horribly on the flight portion. This came down to being at an unfamiliar airport, having little recent time in the Cessna 182RG I tested in, general checkride jitters, and fatigue. Any one of those I’d have probably been able to deal with, but all three was too much. Live and learn. So I rescheduled the flight portion for two weeks out, and committed to flying the RG as much as possible until then, which ended up approaching 20 hours…”
**READ THIS MONTH’S ENTIRE COLUMN, “CHECKRIDE!“** (Mobile version HERE.)
Top photo: CFI Tom Fuller at Telluride Airport, Colorado. (KTEX)
Lower photo: Tom’s checkride airplane at Denver’s Centennial Airport. (KAPA)
(This column first appeared in AOPA Flight Training magazine.)
Greg
©2016 Gregory N.Brown
If you enjoyed this story, you’ll love Greg’s book, Flying Carpet: The Soul of an Airplane. Autographed copies available!
That is an awesome column, Greg!! I couldn’t stop reading. I loved how you tied back to that disastrous wedding again at the end to help make your point. Very well done!! h.
Heh! I was just writing you an email regarding your awesome “No Limits” column in the same issue! Thanks, Heather, for your much-appreciated kind words about this month’s column!! (BTW, that wedding took place on the lawn at Copperwynd, following a grease fire in the kitchen. Wish I had one of those photos of the bride held by a whole squad of firemen in front of their gleaming truck!)
Very nice 🙂
Thanks, Lakshmi! I always appreciate your input!