Guess what!

I'm a commercial pilot!!!  AGAIN!!!

I went in for my CSEL (Commercial Single-Engine Land) checkride this morning.  And I'm happy to say that I can now fly both multi-engine AND single-engine airplanes for hire!!!  WOO HOO!!!

It's kind of funny to me...this is an "add-on" rating, meaning that it was simply added onto the Commercial Multi-Engine rating I already had.  But I was a bit nervous about this one!  I had heard that it was fairly easy in relation to the others, and that's probably why I was nervous!  Those are the ones that you mess up!

But I spent the last three days flying the Cessna and doing practice maneuvers.  Trust me...it's sometimes painful and boring.  You can only do so many landings or turn around a point so many times before you've had enough!  But it paid off...phew!

The checkride itself wasn't too bad.  Of course, as always, it started out with the oral.  The FAA examiner asked me about the airplane systems, and we spent quite a bit of time on carburetor icing of all things.  We also talked about cold-weather starts, battery power, etc.

We spent some time talking about emergency situations, too.  Engine fires was the main focus (and somehow that all related back to carburetor heat of all things!).

He had me explain a stall and spin to him, and we talked about how center of gravity affects the recovery technique.  We spent a generous amount of time on weight and balance and how it relates to flying characteristics, and he had me show him how I calculated the take-off and landing distances over 50-foot obstacles.

I really wasn't sure how long it lasted, but I would say probably 45 minutes to an hour...far shorter than the previous orals!!!  That's a good thing!  All in all, it wasn't too bad.  The questions were sometimes vague, and I wasn't always sure what he was lookin' for, but I talked my way through it.  If I didn't answer it how he wanted, he let me know, and I had to go deeper!

The flight portion was straight-forward but pretty fast in terms of what we did.  We started out with a normal take-off but stayed in the pattern.  He then had me do a soft-field landing into a soft-field take-off...without stopping.  A "touch and go" as we call it.

From there we stayed in the pattern and did a short-field landing.  I had to land right on the intersection of two runways.  I nailed it.  From there he had me do a short-field take-off.  I nailed that one, too, although I nearly forgot to keep my brakes on!!!  I pushed full throttle, realized my mistake immediately, and hopped right on those brakes...we moved a couple of inches, I think, and I would like to think that it wasn't noticeable, but he's an FAA guy...they see EVERYTHING!!!

From there we went northwest of Topeka, and he had me do chandelles and lazy eights.  It's funny...these are the two maneuvers that I probably spent most of my time on, and I did them, and it was over!  I guess that's a good thing, because it probably meant that I did them right, but I was onto something else before I even knew what was goin' on.

From there, he had me enter into a "trim stall" as he called it.  I had to set up the airplane in a landing configuration, then do a "go-around" but act like a new pilot and not use any rudder.  I could only control the airplane with my ailerons (hands).  I have never done this maneuver or even read about this one anywhere, and it was all new to me, but I did what he asked!  It wasn't too bad...more or less, you go right into a stall with such a pitch-high attitude and you are borderline a spin, too...just depends how your airplane comes out of it.  But I corrected, and that was that.  He even did one, too (and I think his pitch was a bit more aggressive than mine!).

From there I had to do steep spirals.  No problems!  I have done many of those in the past couple of days.  I picked my spot, pulled back on the throttle, and started the sharp turn.  ouch.  I was turning sure enough, but I was also drifting A TON to the northeast.  The winds were kickin' my butt.  I actually was so unconfident in my maneuver (I was gettin' beat up!) that I asked to go back to altitude and do it again.  He let me.  I still struggled with it, and it turned out that I nearly had to come out of my steep turn to stay around the point.  Frankly, that is easy to do...I just didn't know that I was able to come out so much!  So there I was, tryin' to roll out as much as possible and lessen the drift from the wind...all while keepin' a "somewhat" tight turn!  I went from 45 degrees to 30 degrees, maybe!  After all, it is a STEEP spiral maneuver.  Well, it turned out that I needed to come all the way out to around 5 degrees.  Once I figured out I was allowed to do that, I turned right around that point with no problem.

yuck.  That was a rough part of my checkride.

From there we descended down to 800 feet above the ground, and I did Eights on Pylons.  I really didn't think I was doin' too bad, but he didn't like the pond I had picked out, and he wanted me to stay in my 8 longer than I knew, so I had to do the maneuver again...this time with roads instead of ponds!  It makes sense, really...to use something that you can better see your drift, but I was kind of surprised that he really didn't like my choice of non-road items.  At all!  oops!

I did a few 8's.

From there we headed back to the airport, and I had to enter a right downwind for Runway 18.  When I was even with the numbers, I had to pull my engine to idle to simulate an engine failure.  It's called a Power Off 180.  And it's just that!  Your power is off, and you have to do a 180 to land!

So I configured, lined myself up, and plopped it right on the intersection again (where he told me to land).  I only needed about 20 degrees of flaps at first, but I was gettin' long, so I threw all 40 degrees in.  A steep approach, but I had the runway made, and it worked out perfectly.

And then he said...

"All right.  We're done!"

A sigh.  I was pretty sure I had passed, but this was another checkride that wasn't perfect!  Well, not that any are really perfect, but I just want to impress the examiner, not just squeeze through, ya know?!

The after-landing briefing included some advice and focus on how to take the winds into consideration for ALL maneuvers.  Um, yeah, about that...I knew exactly why I wasn't, and it was because the previous couple of days had been nearly calm!  Yeah, I know, it's Kansas, and that's hard to believe, but it was true!  I had two or three days of practicing these manuevers in calm winds!  My steep spirals had no drift!  And I sure didn't care where I entered the maneuvers...I just did them!  That didn't work out so well with a 16-knot wind out of the south!

But again, at the end of the day, I have the ticket in hand.  I am now a Commercial Single-Engine Land pilot.  And frankly, that's all that matters!  Again, it's pretty exciting stuff.  This opens up a ton of possibilites now!  I can fly single-engine airplanes for hire!

But it's hard to celebrate quite yet (I yearn for that day!).  I have my CFI written test tomorrow, and I have to start training full-bore for my instructor checkrides coming up.  It's a crazy process, but you just have to go with the flow.  Knock one item off the list, take a deep breath, and move on to the next one!  That's all ya can do!

But every day, I get closer and closer!  And that's what matters!

Who knows...in a month I might be teaching YOU how to fly!  Any takers?