Comm Checkride Today

I never think that any flight in particular reflected the best of my abilities. There is always something that I could
have or had done better. I think that part of proficiency is seeing where there is room for improvement..

Well, there is somewhat of a balance required -- on the one hand, it's
good practice to continually grade yourself. On the other, if you
never have a benchmark flight where you put the chocks in and think
"Now, that's the way to fly!" you don't know what you're capable of
accomplishing.

The more frequently I fly, the more often I have a good feeling
walking away. That's not to say everything was perfect -- rather, I
knew I was flying proficiently and capably and no safety, control, or
system issue was ever raised.

I grade myself pretty hard and most flights I give myself 85-90%. On
the checkride I felt like I was at 70%.

I have those days (we all do), but I suppose I should feel that if
those are the gotchya days, and I don't have any safety, control, or
system issue, then my overall proficiency is acceptable (at this
time).

By the way, this line of thinking needs to be stressed much more in
the primary training curriculum. I can't believe how many "I didn't
crash so it's all good" GA pilots are out there.

Dan

Congrats Dan! Glad to hear you passed even if you weren't on top of
your game.

I'm just starting my CP training. Mostly studying for the written test
right now but today, along with a BFR, I did the 50 degree steep turns
and some power off 180 spot landings. Fun stuff.


--
Jack Allison
PP-ASEL-Instrument Airplane
Student - CP-ASEL

"To become a Jedi knight, you must master a single force. To become
a private pilot you must strive to master four of them"
- Rod Machado

(Remove the obvious from address to reply via e-mail)

On Jan 12, 5:52*pm, " wrote:
Today I earned my commercial pilot's license -- whew!
................
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.

Dan,
Congratulations. It sounded like what you had experienced was the
checkride norm. I rarely came across a checkride story where the
pilots were happy with their performance. Last week I went up for a
checkout flight with the DE, and of course my performance was
significantly worse than normal. I told him to take a very long
clipboard to write down his criticisms and was glad that it was only
half full ;-)

In spite of the temperamental northeast winter weather, we have
tried to squeeze in a practice flight every other day or so. I want
to be as proficient as I can be with the maneuvers to allow plenty of
room for the expected performance degradation on checkride day. Doing
the commerical maneuvers are just like patting your head, rubbing
your tummy while running and chewing gum at the same time ;-) One just
have to do them over and over again.

I am scheduled to take the written next Wednesday and had hoped to
take the checkride before the end of the month. Unfortunately, our
plane developed a sudden ow-voltage problem in our last practice. The
flaps barely retracted after my 180 power-off landing at a nearby
airport. We could barely communicate with the tower on the way home &
I had to execute a no flap landing. Good thing that I had practiced
landings with all different kinds of flap configurations every few
months or so.

Just hope that the plane will be fixed in a short time before we
loose most of our hard-earned flight proficiency. I am saving your
post to read before the checkride which I hope to take place soon.

Thanks.

Hai Longworth

Just hope that the plane will be fixed in a short time before we
loose most of our hard-earned flight proficiency. I am saving your
post to read before the checkride which I hope to take place soon.

Thanks.

Hai Longworth

Thanks! That makes the typing worthwhile.

I keep an online flight journal he http://trainingforcfi.blogspot.com/

Dan