I got lazy, I must confess and I stopped updating the blog, as must be apparent, but I didn't give up on the flying and on 1st June 2013, after 45 hours and 15 minutes of flight time, 7 passed ground school exams and an FTROL (Flight Radio Telephony Operator's License), I was ready to jump into G-CHIK with the examiner for my two hour flight test.
The weather was not great but as I had left my job and was preparing to leave the country for 6 months in July, I was keen to push ahead and get the test done. We had a cloud base of just under 2000 ft, which was fine for the navigation part of the exercise, but made the stalling section (normally done at 3000ft+) more interesting to say the least. Still all went well and as we made our way back to the airfield tracking the Lambourne VOR, I was feeling confident that I would pass. All that was left to do were my circuits which I felt I was more than competent at. The only niggling fear was that with a northerly wind, we were landing on the downhill grass runway 04 as opposed to the tarmac, uphill (shorter float and landing run) runway 22. The first two touch and go's (normal and flapless) went well, but on my third (glide) approach, I added flap too early and felt I was a little low on the final approach. I decided to initiate a go-around and try again and the examiner was happy with this proactivity although I was petrified he'd fail me for it. On my last approach he asked me to do a short-field landing and stop in the shortest distance possible. Happily, with some strong progressive breaking and a 55kt slow approach, I stopped just a few dozen metres after the numbers and after a careful taxi back to the apron received the good news that I had passed.
The weather was not great but as I had left my job and was preparing to leave the country for 6 months in July, I was keen to push ahead and get the test done. We had a cloud base of just under 2000 ft, which was fine for the navigation part of the exercise, but made the stalling section (normally done at 3000ft+) more interesting to say the least. Still all went well and as we made our way back to the airfield tracking the Lambourne VOR, I was feeling confident that I would pass. All that was left to do were my circuits which I felt I was more than competent at. The only niggling fear was that with a northerly wind, we were landing on the downhill grass runway 04 as opposed to the tarmac, uphill (shorter float and landing run) runway 22. The first two touch and go's (normal and flapless) went well, but on my third (glide) approach, I added flap too early and felt I was a little low on the final approach. I decided to initiate a go-around and try again and the examiner was happy with this proactivity although I was petrified he'd fail me for it. On my last approach he asked me to do a short-field landing and stop in the shortest distance possible. Happily, with some strong progressive breaking and a 55kt slow approach, I stopped just a few dozen metres after the numbers and after a careful taxi back to the apron received the good news that I had passed.
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