I was inspired by fellow midlife pilot Dave's recent post on passing his PPL that I thought I'd have a crack at relaying my own recent checkride completed on  September 13th. 

Arriving at 8.30 for my midday flight I wanted to give myself plenty of time to submit the flight plan, check over the venerable SCN, and importantly, relax. It was going to be critical not to feel rushed at any stage today; and as Edmond BlackAdder would say 'We are not at home to Mr Cock Up'. To start getting myself in the right frame of mind I chatted for a short time with the owner of the Pitts Special hangared at the school; a veteran of hundreds of hours, thousands of spins and a nice guy for a Pom.

Soon I was into the class room revising my plan, seems like the new prop on SCN gave it a cruise of 110kts so I need to revise the plan to include this increased performance. Taking this into consideration along with the prevailing 20kt headwind from 248 (M) our outbound route of Camden (YSCN) > The Oaks (THK) > Goulburn (YGLB) > Lake George North (LGGN) > Canberra (YSCB) would take little over an hour.

Happy with the numbers, and flight plan submitted I wandered back to the office where CFI Pete was ready to start the ground component, but with one hitch, for the first time in 8 years a CASA official would be auditing Pete's performance – so no additional pressure there!. I later found out that he could have insisted on coming along on the flight - which would have meant redoing all weights and balances and possibly de-fueling the aircraft as well. Thankfully that didn't happen.

Ground Component 

Starting with the KDR's we worked through my report, which covered the following items:

Pete worked through the incorrectly answered questions (as best as I could remember them from the exam) and the report with good feedback on each. To be honest I'd not done any research on TEM prior to the exam, however amongst other advice Pete provided a good summary which I'll paraphrase as:

Threats being those events increasing the risk to the flight which are happening outside the aircraft; whereas Errors are risks to the flight sourced from the pilot.

Mike, our CASA representative, also chipped in by pointing me to the appropriate CAAP (http://www.casa.gov.au/wcmswr/_assets/main/download/caaps/ops/5_59_1.pdf )

Moving onto my flight preparation I went through weights & balances, flight plan and NOTAM's. Pete was quite happy with my preparation, including that I'd picked up on Goulburn's bitumen runway (04/22) being closed – though the grass strip 18/26 was still available for use.

We covered rights of the PPL licence and, lastly, Pete posed the question which aerodromes would I be able to land at should I pass? – I fumbled a bit before answering those aerodromes listed in ERSA and ALA directory. Whilst he didn't disagree with this the additional real world consideration has to be 'which aerodromes will my insurer let me land at'?.

I thought the ground component had gone quite well, and whilst fuelling and pre-flighting SCN Pete joined me. I asked him candidly if there was any areas I'd screwed up and he responded that there wasn't and that he was glad this random CASA review had been with me. I was just pleased as punch to have not made Pete and the school look silly.

It was also during pre-flighting that a beautiful Cessna Caravan parked and out jumped a couple of guys half my age. It made me even keener for a successful outcome today, and, wishing once again I had done this years ago.

Camden to Goulburn

Pete explained that for the first legs of the flight he would just let me settle into it without too much comment, which was fine by me. Starting up I tuned up my active/standby talk and listen frequencies as well as Canberra VOR and Bindook VOR on the nav radios. Also as SCN lacks DME I tuned Sydney on the GPS which would give me information about the location of Class C steps, my ground speed and importantly, my track.

 Taxiing to 06 and getting clearance we departed on a downwind climb and once clear of the Camden CTR I switched over to Sydney Radar on 124.55, transponder to 1200. Levelling off at 3000 feet to make sure I positively identified The Oaks.

Taking up a new heading of 218 I continued the climb over the ranges to 6500 feet till I was past 45nm allowing me to continue my climb to 8500 (and switch to Melbourne Centre). I also had a listen to the ADF morse and confirmed it was tuned to Goulburn and that the needle was reassuringly pointing straight up. Passing Bowral however it quickly became apparent that I had not been staying on top of the GPS track ( perhaps it would be useful to at this to the 'O' of CLEAROFF), as the M5 was decidedly closer than it should have been so I changed the heading bug by 20 degrees to compensate for the stronger than expected crosswind component.

All in all I was feeling very positive about the start of the flight, so it's with a healthy dose of hubris that brings us to..

Stuff up #1

At this point Pete gazes out at the dazzlingly CAVOK in all directions and informs me that low cloud will require us to touch and go at Goulburn. Okay then, picking my way through the best course of action, I called up Canberra ATIS and determined that wind was 25kts from 270 and consulting my binder (too) quickly worked out how to join midfield crosswind for 08 (and said as much to Pete). Not giving this further thought I immediately put all my attention into maintaining my descent, my heading and locating the field.

Tuning up Goulburn CTAF (127.15) and making my inbound call I was surprised not to have heard anyone on frequency – despite the wind there was little turbulence. Pete suggested that the grass runway wasn't everyone's cup of tea and ultralights would fare a little worse in the conditions.

Before long I was able to make out the hangers as I was reaching overfly height and spotted the approaching grass runway shortly after. It was on spotting the windsock pointing firmly down 08 that I realised I'd made a error in my planning and quickly reoriented for a crosswind join for 26. Pete's only comment was 'good decision'. I felt foolish but put it behind me for the minute to get on with flying the circuit around the short grass strip.

Headwind on final was interesting with a reasonable amount of power still in and 10 degrees of flap, but managed to get in without much float for a landing I was quite happy with. Full power and climb out to the west, noting the time of departure.

After a few minutes pass it was almost time for another stuff up.

Passing through 4000ft, Pete asks me to divert to Crookwell. No problem I say feeling cunning, I'll just confirm I've got Canberra VOR, move the OBS around to 004 and intercept and fly the radial direct to Crookwell – perfect!.

 Well perhaps that plan would have worked out had I been at my planned altitude of 6500 feet, instead I was now now at 4500, hills between me and the VOR, and no signal. An audio check of the VOR morse provided confirmational static. So, it would be a dead reckoning Plan B. Determining I was now 8 minutes out of Goulburn I estimated my position, plotted a heading (330) and arrival time to Crookwell.

Stuff Up #2

The workload had stepped up somewhat, working the map and attempting to identify ground features I noticed that my heading had swung to 300, possibly due to weathervaning. I corrected this and went back outside the cockpit only to find a myself within a few minutes flying 300 once more.

Successfully spotting Pejor Reserve and the Wind Farm to the East of Crookwell I initially misidentified Grabben Gullen for Crookwell due to my previous heading error, however a quick check of the map sorted that out. I wish I could say that I immediately flew a correcting heading and located YCRL with lazer precision, however I'd be lying. Instead I kept flying North in unfamiliar geography in an effort to locate Crookwell and work backward from there, however this proved fruitless.

My saving grace after 5 minutes of searching was the wind farm, I decided to fly directly over to it and start working my way west (following roads if necessary). As I did this I spotted another high-wing aircraft flying North in front of me and I joked that I could just follow that guy – no sooner were the words out of my mouth and I spotted the field. Hallelujah!

I turned to start my descent on the northerly dead side however Pete stopped me. We were wanting to perform pre-cautionaries at the aerodrome and our friend wasn't using his/her radio. So, essentially this was a threat we would mitigate by turning east toward the training area.

But not before...

Stuff up #3

Given the amount of 'hard' stuff I'd needed to get through I was blase about setting up the VOR. Taking up an initial heading of 030 I checked Bindook VOR was still being received and set the OBS for planned heading of 043 and set about a CLEAROFF check.

Returning to the VOR I could see my track was off to the right, you may be saying 'Duh..so get on heading and turn to the right!'. Instead I re-centred the VOR which naturally started inching to the right. Thankfully within seconds the correct neural pathway was located, a penny dropped and I corrected my heading, but not before my silent, watchful CFI made a mental note.

Homeward bound

Making good time (up to 140kts at times), I used the Bindook 060 radial to vector us to The Oaks, and from there into the training area. After calling up Sydney Radar and cancelling SARTime I listened in on Camden ATIS, strangely 06 was active despite the strong westerly I'd been encountering.

So now it was time to go under the hood for some turns. No issues there, apart from the turbulence over the mountains making it difficult to maintain a consistent Rate One turn.

Pete then asked me to produce and recover from a clean stall, followed up by full-flap stall. This was then followed by steep turns. No real issues except I wanted to re-do the left turn as I wasn't happy with the height management.

Whilst heading over to St Mary's for a PS&L Pete cut power and I managed to execute a reasonably good Practice Forced Landing (though requiring a series of S turns on final to lose energy).

Cleared zero six... 

Confirming Hotel was still active, I contacted tower I joined downwind for 06. On late final I was hit by a big gust whilst overflying the gully which picked up a wing; at low speed and low to the ground. My heart was in my mouth for a moment there but corrected the roll and applied some power. During the flare I seemed to float long despite being right on 70kts however as we passed the windsock Pete pointed it out, called up tower and suggested they change the runway direction (shortly thereafter Information India was issued). Pete explained that the gust I'd experienced was likely a result of the changeable wind direction.

So that was that, taxiing back Pete seemed quite relaxed and chatty, nevertheless I'd been slow to respond to navigation errors so felt a do-over of some elements may be required.

Parking next to the hanger I shutdown, grabbed the keys and awaited the other shoe to drop. Smiling, Pete shook my hand and said 'Congratulations, that's a pass'. I was elated and floated back to the office before the serious business of discussing errors.

 Key learnings

A lack of situational awareness would have to factor highly. As Pete pointed out, I had the necessary information I needed to assess the active runway at Goulburn however didn't stop and think during descent – Does this plan make sense?. Instead, I became too focused on the task at hand. Grabben Gullen was another case in point, after determining that I was off-course and south-west of Crookwell I should have input a heading change of around 60 degrees and may have found YCRL in a minute or two.

Start diversions from a known starting point. Rather than estimating my position at start of diversion I should have either returned to YGLB, Goulburn itself or some other salient feature I can positively identify on the map.

Use all the tools available to you. In addition to tuning Bindook VOR I could have additionally tuned in Bindook ADF – I would have provided redundancy as well as a visual cue to 'Fly this way'. Additionally I under-used the track feature of the GPS.

As I saw FlyingNinja recently post, this is a licence to learn and I feel very aware of the amount of learning I need to do.

Next steps

Frankly now that I'm licensed I'd like to go and do that flight again with an aim of improving my navigation and awareness. The lane of entry and Cessnock also beckon, as well as visiting family in Bathurst. I also rather fancy camping overnight at Moruya beach with my boys.

My instructor has also offered to take me up on a night flight so that he can get necessary currency – gratis, and I didn't hesitate for a second.