Commercial Pilot (12 JAN 08)

Today I earned my commercial pilot's license -- whew!

The morning started out less than ideal with low ceilings (3200' AGL) throughout the area. But the TAFS suggested clearing, as did the satellite image. The FAs were way off (again).

I called Don and said I'd be at EKN by noon. After preflighting and adding 20 gallons of 100LL, I started up and headed south VFR.

I haven't flown much VFR lately so I had to think back on the correct verbiage for Traffic Advisories. It came to me and I flew south past KMGW and KCKB. It was one of those weird days when -- though the winds aloft are forecast to be light and variable and ASOS reported 5 knots from the west -- the continuous bumps and altitude excursions suggested otherwise. It felt like a day with 20 knot surface winds.

I had to head west to avoid the ceilings low over the ridges to the east. When I got near Route 33, I headed southeast towards the gap in the mountains. They looked awfully close but a glance at the Terrain view in the GPS said I'd be clear.

It was clearing inside the valley, and winds were calm. The flight down was bumpy -- like a hot summer morning.

The landing was smooth, though I flared a bit high. A touch of power and then a gentle chirp. I'm not used to 150' wide runway.

I arrived prior to the examiner, so I laid everything out -- FAA Form 8710, check, logbooks, etc. Everything was in order and after about 15 minutes of paperwork we started the oral.

He focused on the POH but I've spent a lot of time reading it so there wasn't much I didn't know -- in fact, there was no question I couldn't answer (down to the nose wheel tire pressure).

Then it was time to fly. I did another pre-flight and pointed out some of the airplane details (vortex generators, etc).

We climbed in and I did my usual checklist, including PAX brief. We taxied to 32 and did a soft field takeoff from there. There is no soft field technique described in the POH, so all you do is keep rolling, keep the yoke back, let it get light on the mains, pull up, and you're off. The A36 doesn't need much time in ground effect as it has plenty of power to accelerate and climb at the same time.

We headed south down the valley, climbed to 4500, and started off with slow flight. I pulled the power back, held the nose up, dropped flaps, and slowed us down to 70 KIAS. A bit more nose up at at 68 KIAS the horn was blaring.

"Make a few turns." I turned left, then right, the horn continuously blaring, the ball centered, my right hand on the throttle. "OK, drop the gear and do a power off stall -- landing configuration."

Gear down and locked, flaps down -- power back to idle, pull the nose up, stall horn, buffet, and then gentle fall forward.

Power forward, wings level, flaps up one notch, then another on positive rate, then gear up.

"OK, let's do a power on stall -- use 65% power."

I set it to 2300 RPM, 20" MP, and steadily pulled the nose back. Right rudder to counteract P factor, stall horn, 15 degree, now 18 degree nose up, no stall, pull back -- and break.

MP to 23", winds level, accelerate to Vy.

Next were steep turns. The turn to the left was fine. As I rolled into the turn to the right he completely covered the panel and after 360 I lost 500' foot in altitude. Ugh. He said, "You need to be able to do those completely visually."

I hadn't practiced that at all, but took the point.

Next up chandelles. Both went well with the stall horn going off with about 20 degrees remaining to turn. I was fixating on the instruments trying to keep bank 30, pitch 10 degrees plus, and airspeed steadily decreasing. He mentioned that I was adjusting pitch -- and that I should set it and leave it to the 90 degree point. The chandelles met the PTS standards but he could have dinged me on "Divides attention between accurate coordinated airplane control and outside visual references" which, while not a requirement on this specific task, is implied.

Next were Lazy 8s. The first was OK, though I dropped the nose too much and picked up too much airspeed. I had a habit of not letting the nose drop enough during practice and so over compensated today. Don said the second iteration was much better, but that I would "need to polish up on those before you go for your CFI."

By now we were at 7500 feet, and he asked me to do an "emergency descent." I was a bit confused on the terminology since the PTS only refers to "Steep spirals." And emergency descent in this airplane is accomplished at 153 KIAS with the gear down. A Steep spiral doesn't require gear down and Va is limited to 131 KIAS for performance maneuvers (though 140 is listed as Va in other sections). During the oral I mentioned that 110 is best glide but spirals at 110 would take us too far from the intended landing point so we used 90 KIAS as best spiral speed.

HE said, "OK, steep spiral then" and I pitched for 90 while banking it over to 45 degrees. I picked out the open field directly below and kept us over the spot.

He had me pull out after 2 1/2 turns and head over towards silos for 8s on pylons.

The first was a bit shaky, as the valley is rather narrow at that point and we came appear very close to a ridge on the west side of the circuit, but after the first half turn I ignored the terrain warning on the GPS and concentrated on keeping the pylon on the reference point fairly consistently, though the tip tanks make it a bit of a challenge. He didn't tell me to stop so I made three circuits of the two pylons.

"Let's head over to the airport." We were about 10 miles south at 3000' MSL which is pattern altitude. We flew north up the valley with the ridges on either side. I was going to do the whole pattern entry thing but he said "Winds are calm so let's use 23." We were heading straight in to downwind for 23. About midfield he said "Let's make this a short field landing. Have us stopped before the intersection." 32-14 crosses 23-5 at the midpoint. 23-5 is 4500 feet long, subtract the intersection width and the effective runway length was 2200 feet -- very doable in this airplane.

I kept the pattern tight and made a nearly continuous turn to base and then final with a very short base leg. I know he though we were high but once I dropped full flaps and maintained the target short field airspeed of 70 KIAS we dropped like stone. Everything was perfect and I was just about to flare when he said "go around."

The go around was a handful with 285 HP and full nose up trim. I was able to keep the nose down, raise the flaps, and then the gear, and accelerate to Vy.

Next was a no flap landing. When midfield I checked the gear down indication -- the green lights were not burning as expected. I glanced over and saw the CB popped. I said I would abort the landing, climb, and get the gear down manually. He said not to bother and reset the CB and I landed no flap (I added 10 knots to handle the higher stall speed, which gave me about 86-90 KIAS on base to final).

The landing was pretty poor with a drop in stall about 3 feet off the runway -- ugh. I told him I hadn't had a landing like that in 50 hours.

We did a short field takeoff and then another landing, this one better. On the takeoff I established VY and we were climbing and he said "What about the gear?" I reached over and put the gear up and said, "I need to pretend you're not here." I think I was in "touch and go in a retractable mode" which is how I practiced -- leave the gear down to save cycles and reduce the possibility of a gear-up landing when busy in the pattern.

We did two more landings with the winds variable up to 5 knots (mostly from the west so we had some marginal x-wind landings and takeoffs). Then we landed and he said he'd seen enough. I can usually land with the gentlest of chirps in that airplane, but for some reason today not one landing was a greaser. Go figure.

We parked and went inside and he filled out my temporary certificate, which is nestled snugly in my logbook pocket.

I really don't feel like I "had it" today -- I felt like I was off. I have flown much more crisply and much more proficiently than I did today. But I figure that if I can pass a commercial test on an off day, then I must be reasonably prepared.

I am relieved and satisfied, though I wish I could have demonstrated my usual proficiency. Oh well.

The flight back was easy, and I climbed to 7500' to get over a thin scattered layer between 4000 and 5000. I descended after passing KMGW and headed towards the house. at 4000' the bumps started again, but they were the wave riding sort, not the knocking type of bumps. I did two turns about the garage, then headed to VVS. If fuel wasn't $4.15 a gallon I would have flown somewhere just for fun. But I had been gone long enough and decided to land and put the airplane away.

The touchdown on runway 23 was better, though I rolled a bit long (I wasn't using short field technique, though). I taxied back, shut her down, and tucked her back into the hangar.

On to the CFI!