Finally a pilot!

First off, my apologies for the length. Settle in for a long read or skip to the TLDR part and pic at the end.  

Technically, I had met all of my requirements back in September and was gearing up to take the FAA written and my checkride (CR). Side note: I really didn't have a good reason for putting the written exam off until well into my training other than I was traveling a lot for work at the time and fitting it in was problematic. Lesson learned: Don't put it off too long. As I neared the last week of September, I had it all planned out; I'd take the written on the following Monday followed by my CR on Thursday of that same week -- Enter cram mode. Then, I got the news on the Friday before my test that because of the government shutdown, there would be no testing for the duration of the shutdown. Great - That provoked call #1 to the DPE to cancel my checkride. We left the schedule open-ended based on when the government got their act back together. Strike one for me.

Finally, the shutdown ended and I was able to get the written rescheduled. I took the test one rainy morning at Boulder Muni KBDU and managed a 98 - missing one question. All in all, things were looking up. I worked with the DPE's schedule and was back on the book for three weeks out. Plenty of time to get some more flying in and study, study, study. Then in late October, the news that due to a merger, the position with the IT company I had held for the past 6 years was being eliminated effective immediately. I figured that the proverbial "other shoe" had now dropped. Strike two for me. But - I tried to keep positive and took solace in knowing that 1) my flying money was already set aside and still appropriately earmarked, 2) my wife still had an excellent job, and 3) now I had PLENTY of time to study and do well on the CR, so I kept plodding forward. 

Enter challenge #3: The week of the CR I heard from my CFI. 78L, the PA-28-180 I had been training in was down for its 100 hr and while they were doing the work, they found several parts that needed replacement. The bad news was that the schedule horizon for the repair work was 2-3 weeks out. Call number two to the DPE to reschedule.

While it wasn't my CFI's fault that 78L (his plane) was down for such a long, inopportune time, he took mercy on me and offered to check me out in the flight school's 172's and not charge me for his time. I had intended to do this anyhow so I jumped at the chance - and, since I no longer had a job to fill up my schedule, finding the time to fly was easy.  He and I went up twice in the 180hp 172N and I did an hour solo and with around 3.3 total time in type, my CR was upon us and it was time to test my mettle. 


The Checkride

The Oral Exam:
I met my Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) Andy Munnis (Yes, the same DPE of youtube fame) at noon at LMO and we started by going through the paperwork - a review of my logbook, checking my medical, completing the IACRA, etc. All of this took about an hour, plus quite a bit of time shooting the breeze. In fact, he did an excellent job of calming any nerves I had and really making me feel comfortable. I think a lot of this about his personality came off in the youtube video which is one of the reasons I chose to use him as a DPE. 

He reviewed the required "legalese" and we started into the Oral Exam. He asked me the expected questions about currency, had me review an airport diagram, we reviewed aeromedical factors (altitude and hypoxia in particular, this is Colorado after all), and we also discussed airworthiness - but not near as much as I had feared - and several other topics. For this Q&A part of the Oral he used scenario-based questions which made it easy to see the practical application of the FARs and also made answering very conversational and easy.

We then reviewed the VFR cross country flight plan I had created and the weight and balance for that flight. I showed him my route on the sectional and he asked me maybe three questions about "what airspace are we in here and what are the requirements" (I had planned to stay under the Denver Class Bravo so I described that and why) and we briefly discussed an MOA south of the route and what it meant. For the 2-3 hours of effort I had put into the VFR XC plan, we discussed it for maybe 5 minutes, but that was fine by me. 

After about 45 or so minutes of the Oral, he abruptly stopped, shook my hand, and said "I could keep asking you questions all day but it's pretty apparent that you know your stuff. Let's go fly." And with that, the part I had the most anxiety about was over. 

The Practical Exam:
As we wrapped up the Oral, Andy briefed me on basically what to expect for the practical: PTS maneuvers, a go-around, short and soft field takeoffs and landings, normal takeoff, forward slip, and emergencies. That really helped and ensured that there were going to be no surprises. I liked that. 

I did the preflight while Andy waited - mostly from a distance - he definitely wasn't critiquing every move or action which was nice. Once onboard, I briefed him on the required passenger items and we cranked up the plane. For the first time in a long time, the winds were being very cooperative - right down the runway at a nice, gentle 3 knots. We did a normal takeoff from LMO's runway 11 and started on my VFR XC, for which the first checkpoint was 6 miles just off of our 11 o'clock after departure. I overflew checkpoint one and showed him where I could see checkpoints two and three (a town and a lake respectively). We were maybe 8 minutes into my hypothetical XC. "OK, good enough. Take me direct to Cheyenne on the GNS 430" he said. I dialed it up and we turned direct KCYS. 

That foray into radio navigation lasted about one minute and he informed me that we had a simulated a cabin fire. I took the appropriate actions and we dropped down a few hundred feet before he asked me to recover and go into a steep turn. I got to pick the direction so I did a cleaning turn and went into the steep turn to the left. I managed to maintain altitude about the best that I had to date but at one point wasn't quite to 45 degrees so Andy very politely encouraged me to steepen the bank angle and I did. We followed that with slow flight and a power on and power off stall - both to aerodynamic buffet only, pretty straightforward. 

Following the steep turns and stalls, we did a simulated engine-out descent and the ol "pick a field" for an off-airport landing. I did pretty well but my very low time in type left me pretty high for the spot I chose - the 172 doesn't sink like a rock as with the PA-28. In fact, I had enough room to execute a 360 and ended up perfectly for the freshly plowed field I had identified. I later found out in the debrief that this was the one place I fell short on my ride: While doing the simulated engine out, I managed to get through the "A, B, C's" (airspeed, best field, checklist) perfectly fine but should have kept going to the "D, E" part as I failed to declare on 121.5 or whatever ATC facility / UNICOM I could reach. I hadn't practiced that part before so it was a good thing to know but not a bust by any means.

With the simulated engine out we were now low enough to do some ground reference maneuvers - which turned out to just be one time around a point. Easy peasy. From there, we went back to LMO for the various required landings. The pattern was the busiest I had heard it before: two planes inbound plus us, a flight of 3 on base for a low pass, and one more guy in the pattern - highly unusual for 3:00 pm on a Thursday afternoon but if Murphy's Law can strike, it will. Faced with a busy scene of a lot of airplanes and a flight of 3 about to do a low pass, I elected to do a 360 north of the airport to 1) figure out where in the heck everybody was, and 2) add some separation for the flight of 3 and the other inbounds. In the debrief, the DPE used this decision as an example of great aeronautical decision making so I was happy - and it worked out well. 

In the pattern now we did a short field landing with a stop and go into a short field takeoff. The landing was horrible and I skipped a bit but managed to hit my aiming point - not graceful but passable. The next time around we did a normal landing (perhaps he could tell I needed a confidence boost after the previous landing) to a stop and go and immediately into a soft field takeoff. Here, I nailed it - remained in ground effect, climbed out, got the flaps out, etc all just like I had practiced. The next trip around the pattern was our go-around which he called at about 400' AGL on final - no biggie, full power, first notch of flaps up, positive rate, etc. etc. 

While turning crosswind, he informed me that the next landing could be to a full stop which were the magic words - meaning we were almost done! :-) Fortunately, we had saved the soft field landing for last so I got one more chance to redeem myself and floated it down reasonably well and maintained my nose-up attitude just fine. I cleared the runway at A2 and taxied pretty much straight ahead to the parking spot. I shut down the engine and he asked me: "Do you know what you and Angelina Jolie have in common?" Which struck me as a bit non sequitur so I replied, "No, what's that?". "You're both pilots. Congratulations.", he said as he shook my hand. And with that a journey I first set out on 18 years ago was complete. Total time logged for the practical exam portion, 1.0 hours. 

The debrief:
It came as somewhat of a surprise that I had done much better than I thought I had done (especially considering some of my landings!). In fact, Andy said that my performance on the Oral was probably the best he'd seen - there was just one small thing I mixed up: the airworthiness needs to be visible to passengers/crew, not the reg - I misspoke and said the opposite of what I meant. The kicker was that what prompted my response was the inclination to give more information than was necessary - and it came back to bite me. Lesson: No matter how much you know and want to show the DPE you know, only answer the question that was asked. He also had positive comments about my flying which surprised me because of the aforementioned landings. All in all, it was a great experience and I can't wait to go flying now as a private pilot!

TLDR: The Oral exam ended up way easier than I had expected / Practical exam portion straightforward / Andy, my DPE, was thorough, fair, and very personable - I highly recommend him. Great experience and I'm finally a pilot!

DPE Andy Munnis congratulating me after I passed my FAA Checkride

Total Logbook Time: 59.5 hrs