Checkride Today

Congrats too from me.

Your reference to steep turns reminds me of a checkride I did. I Have a US
certificate on the basis of my UK licence.

Of course everytime one rents, there is the checkride. For me, I go to the
US every couple of years so my checkrides are also the BFR. Kill two birds
with one stone.

Well the first time I did the BFR we set off to the practice area. The
instructor was a young flight school graduate building his time.

Stalls were done OK and then he asked me to do a steep turn. No problem I
said, went through the HASELL drill, banked the plane, put on full power and
commented to the instructor how good it feels hitting the wake.

The instructor was speechless and was reflecting on what had happened.

In the UK a steep turn is done at 60 degrees of bank not 45 degrees. Anyway
I apologised and offered to do the some to the right but I think he felt I
could do steep turns.

The lesson we both learned from the experience was that it was important to
clarify what we mean in any manoevure instruction. There are some subtle and
not so subtle differences between European training requirements and US
requirements and consequently on what is legal and what is not legal.

Whilst this may seem to be splitting hairs, insurance companies love to
split hairs if it means they dont have to pay out.

Anyway turns up to 60 degrees are great fun and when you can nail the height
even better.

Well done again Arnold.

Dave