MULTI ENGINE CHECKRIDE
Written: 12 MARCH 2004

 

I have previously been through a couple of checkrides and gotten a couple of certificates, but it wasn't until today I felt I could call myself a worthy pilot. I am now a Commercial, Multi Engine, Instrument Pilot, which is about as high as I'm going to get for a while. Next goal now is the Instructor certificates.

Also this checkride started at 0800, so this morning was an early one. There's not really that much to prepare for the multi checkride, so the only thing I had to do was to calculate the performance based on todays weather. Me and Kristian took the oral exam together as usual, and as usual it was Fred (Fast Finger Freddy) who was going to judge us.

Fred is known to ask so called "Fred-questions". I think he assumes we know everything we're supposed to know, so he uses the time to ask strange questions which we have to reason our way to an answer. For example, I was asked where the CG (Center of Gravity) has to be to put no load on the nosewheel. The answer is that it can't be more forward than over the main gears. Not really something we have to deal with in reality, but I guess it shows understanding for weight and balance.

 

It was Kristians turn to fly first today, so I was waiting patiently on the ground for one and a half hour before I got the chance to show him what I was good for. Kristian came back with a smile on his face. It started off good when Fred gave me an engine failure right after takeoff. I was prepared for that so I took care of it pretty fast. Out in the practice area I started off showing power off/on stalls and steepturns. Then I showed him the Vmc demo before he gave me another engine failure and I had to do a full feather shut down ( shut down the engine so that the propeller stops rotating) and air restart. He made me fly back to Conway single engine and I did the NDB-A single engine. Of course he had to cut the engine that was into the wind (I had a pretty strong crosswing), which made the landing pretty hard, but it went well. I was fairly tired in my leg after flying around on one engine for 20 minutes. We finished with a short field landing, a go around and a normal landing.

A great feeling to come back into the evaluation room and see the temporary certificated filled out.