Well it was one heck of a day let me tell you. Started the day at 7am and finished at 7pm. I was told I'd be flying the enroute flight to Huntsville Alabama (where our checkrides were scheduled) because Jerry had already logged more training time in the Seminole than me and they didn't want Jerry to use up any more flight hours prior to his checkride than he already had. The weather was very poor for what was supposed to be a VFR (visual flight rules) checkride. VFR meaning that the weather is such that you do not have to fly off of your instruments alone, and have at least 3 miles of visibility and at least a 3000ft ceiling. The weather was IFR and we had a 1600ft overcast ceiling with winds gusting to 25 knots (20 degrees off of the runway heading) so the crosswind was pretty noticeable but not bad enough that you couldn't land safely.
So we took off, I was the pilot in command on the left, Jermaine the instructor was in the right seat and Jerry was in the back (he would be flying us back home at the end of the day). We immediately were in the clouds and about 2 minutes later we had broken out on top of the overcast. This being my first time ever flying in IMC (instrument meteorological conditions or with no reference to the outside world) it was quite an awe inspiring moment... Then once we broke out over the overcast and flew on top of what looked like a field of white pillows as far as the eye could see it was awesome. I flew the 1.9 hour trip to Alabama and when we landed, Clyde, our 86yr old examiner was in his office waiting for us. We had been warned that he was a fair but grumpy man who would always let you know the small things you were doing wrong. If you were 25 feet off your altitude he'd let you know even though you given a window of 100 feet.
He immediately reminded me of Andy Rooney from 60 minutes... hunched over his desk in his office chair with papers everywhere. But something was very different about Clyde... For starters he had the radio on. A Bose radio. He wasn't listening to talk radio, or easy listening office music. He wasn't listening to 30-50's music... He was listening to hip-hop. That's right... he was listening to rap and hard rock in the background. Right away I could tell he was "different than the rest". For a few minutes I figured... well he is older, maybe he can't even hear the radio, than I realized he was an FAA Certified Flight Examiner and he could he just fine.
The plan was for Jerry to do his checkride first since I had just landed from a 2 hour trip. Even though in the back if my mind I would have preferred to go first since I didn't want something bad that may have happened on Jerry's checkride to affect mine (i.e. Clyde carrying out is frustration of Jerry's bad checkride, if he had had one, over t my checkride).
Once all 4 of us were crammed in his small office, Jermaine asked Clyde what number examination these two checkrides were going to be in his logbook. Clyde opened up his drawer and pulled out his big logbook, flipped to the last checkride entry and said "These will be my 8,562nd and 8,563rd checkrides" and looked up at us.... My jaw was on the floor. This man had more checkrides than most airline pilots have hours of flight. Clyde had reaffirmed my initial thoughts that he was different than the rest. He's been around and seen it all. Photos of his life and family littered his office walls. Photos of meeting Chuck Yeager (first man to break the sound barrier), Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, and John McCain. Photos from his days in NASA and plaques given to him from NASA were all around. Now I could feel myself starting to get nervous about the checkride, especially b/c I was second to go.
Jerry was first to go and had already passed his oral portion. Jermaine and I went out to get a hamburger for lunch as soon as we saw Jerry and Clyde takeoff. Shortly after returning to the airport and eating my big greasy Hardee's hamburger, we saw Jerry landing and taxiing to the ramp to park the Seminole.
Jerry came in and gave of us the news that he had passed his checkride. I was relieved to find this out as I assumed things went well in the plane and Clyde would be evaluating me as if I had gone up first anyways. Problem was it was extremely bumpy they said. I immediately thought of the 1/3lb greasy burger I had just finished scarfing down and how bad it would be for it to come back up during my checkride. Again I got nervous. Clyde asked if I was ready so I went out to preflight the airplane. Jermaine wished me luck and my flight exam was about to begin.
Before I move I should explain that before my oral exam Clyde inquired about where I was from, and what I was doing before I decided to attend ATP flight school. I had informed him that I was prior active duty as a Naval Officer and that I had attended the Naval Academy. He immediately took an interest and told me his grandson was currently applying to enter the Naval Academy.
So back to the plane... I was already seated in the plane ready to start running through my checklists to start up the engines when Clyde came out. I saw him stop by his car (about 50 ft directly in front of my plane) and he came around and gt in the plane. As I went through my checklist I fired up the engines and was about to conduct a brake check. This is where I let the plane roll forward and step on the tow brakes, and then allow my passenger to do the same from his side to make sure we both have positive brake pressure. I decided to make my move and see if Clyde had a sense of humor so I told him, "Sir, at this point in my checklist I'd normally conduct a brake check and have you do the same but in the interest of not rolling into your car if we don't have brakes, I'll go ahead and turn 90 degrees to left and do the brake check facing that way." He immediately started laughing and said, "8562 checkrides and no one's ever said that to me before! That's OK, son, I won't let you hit my car." I laughed back with a "Roger that, sir!"
As soon as I started to taxi out to the active runway Clyde started asking me about the Academy and how I got in and so on... For a few minutes I thought he was testing my situational awareness skills to make sure I don't skip over something vital on my checklist prior to takeoff. Having that thought in the back of my mind I stuck to my lists while answering his questions. Last thing I want to do is piss the man off. I did my run up and we were ready to go fly. "OK give me a short field takeoff and keep it pretty," Clyde told me. I replied,"I'll do my best, sir." As I brought the nose onto the center line of the runway I stepped on the brakes, brought engines to 2000RPM check my engine instruments, everything was reading in the green. I held the brakes and pushed the throttles full forward. Just as I released the brakes Clyde grabbed for my mixture lever and started to cutoff the fuel to one of my engines. I immediately brought both throttles to idle and slammed on my brakes keeping my nose down the runway. I slammed on the brakes so hard I heard the mains skid slightly on the pavement. "GOOD! Best one of those I've seen lately, go ahead takeoff!" Clyde said. I got my throttles back to full forward and took off. The rest of my maneuvers went smoothly. I made an occasional mistake here and there that I caught but nothing worth Clyde mentioning as he never brought up anything.
We headed in to do my landings. The first landing I needed to display was a short field landing. Basically I come in at a steeper approach and slower airspeed and you have to aim for the numbers on the runway. Your main landing gears are required to hit directly on the numbers or up to 200 feet past the numbers. Immediately after landing you need to take your flaps out and brake hard (without skidding) and pull full back on the flight controls to increase drag across the airframe to assist in stopping within 1000ft. This was the maneuver/landing I was most worried about because I had only tried it 3 times in the Seminole before this moment. I came around on final and stuck her down right on the numbers and stopped at the first taxi exit off the runway. "Good job," Clyde said. Coming from him that was a huge compliment. "Thank you, sir," I replied. OK this time do a normal take off and we'll do a single engine landing. I took off, came around the pattern and let the plane down right on the center line with both engines idled out. "OK, last one, give me a no flap landing, have you done one before?" Clyde said. "No sir, not in a Seminole."
He told me just take her around and feel the plane out just above the runway, let her down as soft as you can and keep her nose up as long as you can. As I entered base I followed my memorized gear down before landing checklist... gear down, fuel selectors on, flaps 25 degrees, mixtures rich, props full forward, fuel pumps on. I steadied up on my base leg and immediately realized my flaps were down and they should be up. CRAP... I turned to him and calmly said, "I'm sorry sir you wanted a no flap landing correct?" He nodded slowly and I said "I'm just going to take these flaps out slowly then." PHEW no biggie... I rounded on final gently put the wheels down and slowly pulled back on my yoke and amazingly wheelied the Seminole all the way down the runway until the second to last taxi way.
That's when the greatest thing happened. Clyde... this retired NASA engineer, this super pilot that can pull twins out of flat spins, this man that has almost as many checkrides given than I have DAYS ON THIS PLANET, turns to me and says "I have to tell you I have nothing negative to say about this checkride. And I always have something to say... that's pretty good, son." And as if that compliment wasn't enough he says, "you land this Seminole better than anyone I've seen in LONG time that's going for their private multi-engine, I mean you only have 6 landings before today. All I can say is congratulations on a very enjoyable flight."
I couldn't believe that I had gotten these compliments from the examiner everyone said would undoubtedly be grumpy and would point all the small thing you do wrong. I couldn't believe I had just received such compliments from a man that aviation has been his entire life. All I could say in the moment was "Thank you, sir... that means alot to me."
As we taxied back to the ramp to park the plane he asked me if I was married and started talking to me about his son and grandson again. I knew, at that moment, I had experienced a much different checkride than Jerry, and many others before us. I could tell he liked me and respected what I've been through in my 29 years. And I respected him for what he had been through in his 86 years. For a second on the taxi to the ramp it felt like we were old buddies shooting the breeze.
Once we all got back to Atlanta. Jerry came up to me and told me how badly his checkride had gone. He thought he had busted for sure. Clyde wouldn't stop yelling at him and said his landings were very poor. I believe Clyde even took the controls from him and showed him how to land the plane!!! Part of me was shocked that he had had such a bad experience (partly b/c Jerry had passed his checkride after all, and partly b/c Clyde showed know discontent when we were flying together). But another part of me now realizes I shouldn't be so shocked. I knew my checkride was different, something about Clyde wasn't matching up to what everyone else had warned me about, and now it had just been verified.
Needless to say Jan 23rd 2009 was a great day in my aviation career. And certainly will be one of the few days I'll never forget. Thanks to everyone that has been keeping up with me so far and offering words of encouragement. I've had little time to celebrate this small victory as I'm preparing to dive head first into my instrument training. My next checkride will be about 3 or 4 weeks from now, and may or may not be with Clyde. It will be far more difficult and require much more skill.
Here's to looking forward to 4 weeks from now.
