Flight to New Castle and CFI-A Exam (14 FEB 08)

We finally a nice day! Though the temps never reached 40 F, the sky was clear and the winds light. As the afternoon progressed and the temperatures passed freezing, the haze increased but only climbed to about 2000' AGL.

I has studied as much as I wanted to and was ready to take the test and get it over with ASAP. I called around and found New Castle airport had a LaserGrade site and was available for testing (Akron was booked up, Wheeling didn't answer, and Allegheny County's proctor was not available). I hadn't used Lasergrade before, and only CATS gives a $10 AOPA discount, but I was willing to pay the difference to get the test done today.

After a 45 minute warm-up, I pulled the A36 out of the hangar and started it up. The sun warmed the interior rather quickly, and everything checked out. It has been two weeks since I last flew so I worked a little more slowly through the checklist.

After takeoff I bounced through some bumps and climbed to 3000. There was a thin layer of shredded clouds above, but no cause for concern. IN no time I was entering the pattern for landing on 23 at Connellsville.

The VVS landing was a greaser. I taxied over, shut down, and let John take the left seat. He re-acquainted himself with the airplane after the two month absence and I called for our Clearance.

We flew IFR to New Castle (UCP) on a routing that took us right over KPIT. It's not as busy as it was in the US Air heyday, but it's still an impressive airport. Downtown Pittsburgh was off to our right, with Heinz field and all the other landmarks clearly visible on this beautiful day.

I reviewed my formula cheat sheet and then put it away.

John let me have the landing at UCP after we were cleared for the visual. It was a greaser though about 10 feet to the right of centerline. I need more practice (I'll schedule the CAP 172 and do an hour's touch and go next week).

UCP was very quiet, but the facilities inside the main building were very nice. They had a nice display case with a full selection of ASA and Jepp products and a huge variety of headsets.I signed in for the test and soon I was set up and starting.

My only complaint about the Lasergrade format is that the text is way too big and the test ending procedure is a bit confusing.

I sailed through the first 96 questions in about 25 minutes -- some of the calculations weren't even needed as I knew the answer from study sessions. Then I started to run out of steam. I stumbled on a few of the weather chart questions, even though I had plenty of practice and confidence in those areas. I finished the last 6 questions in about 10 minutes and knew i had passed. I wanted to score a 94% or better, and felt pretty confident that I had achieved my goal.

With CATS, you get the score displayed on the screen as soon as you end the test. With Lasergrade, you have to go get the proctor. She printed out the certificate and I learned my score -- 93%.

I was a tiny bit disappointed, but not too terribly. We headed back out to the A36, and after getting the clearance, headed direct to VVS.

We had a slight diversion for traffic (and MD-80 at our altitude) and then cleared direct. We leaned to peak EGT and dialed the MP to 20" and the ROM to 2300 and saw 9 GPH burn rate -- not bad for such a big airplane!

I landed at VVS and this one had a bit of side loading. I was off center on final and adjusted a bit too much. I was still trying to get back on centerline when we touched down. The touch down was gentle -- just not perfectly straight. More practice needed.

next on the schedule is spin training and endorsement at Stewarts in OH!