The Checkride

So, here we are, Checkride day.

It's funny; after flying around an 'airplane' (the Sim) for a week that has engines that keep bursting into flame, landing gear that collapses, instruments that fail, all kinds of what-not, the checkride ends up being a bit of a downer.

Which is good... exciting checkrides are not anything that you want. Excitement is for football games, not for airplanes.

So here is how my checkride went, as far as actually taking the ride. Also, this was my ATP checkride, and my Captain's Type Ride (what you need to be an airline captain; funny how that all goes together, isn't it?)

There are a number of things they need to see on the ride. For takeoffs, they need to see a 'normal' takeoff, crosswind takeoff, reduced visibility takeoff, night takeoff, etc. So what they do, is your first takeoff is at night, with a crosswind, in reduced visibility. :) After that, it's fill

in the blanks on what they need.

So you do an 'area' departure. For me, this was a departure out of KLGA (New York's LaGuardia Airport,) that involves a bit of a complicated turn pattern to depart correctly. However, if you have been there before, it's not that scary. You depart runway 13, turn right to head South, then when you are 2.5 miles or so (if I remember correctly,) from KLGA, you turn back to the left to fly a 040 heading (Northeast, basically.) Then you accelerate away. Simple as pie.

Once we are clear of the airport complex, we're level at 5,000 feet, and it is time for airwork. For the Captain's ride, this is steep turns (45 degrees of bank, holding altitude within 100',) and a stall series. (Remember-- wings stall... engines die. A Stall is when you do not have enough airflow over the wings to keep you flying. The engines pull/push you through the air so that you have the speed to have stable airflow over the wings.)

A small side note on how engines work; Simply put, Suck, Squeeze, Burn, Blow. The big fan on the front sucks in the air, the smaller fans behind it squeeze it to get the most energy out of it, the combustion chamber burns that squoze air, and then it gets blown out the back of the engine, turning the turbine blades, which turn the big fan at the front, sucking in more air to squeeze, burn, and blow. Power is actually limited but controlling fuel flow. If you kept adding fuel, it would keep sucking in more air, literally... then eventually it would reach really unstable temperatures, and everything would go up in a poof of parts, but all you do is limit the fuel, and it runs forever.

So, steep turns... I nailed this one. I rolled into a 45 degree bank to the left, and it was as if someone had driven a nail through the altimeter needle. Did not waver 10 feet, let alone 100. As I turned through 180 degrees of heading change, I pushed down on the nose, rolled the aircraft level, and then directly into a right 45 degree banked turn. I climbed about 20 feet here.. boooo me.

From this, I went right into the stall series-- first up, autopilot on, "clean" stall. Basically, you take the engines to idle, and then you watch your airspeed decay with the autopilot on, until finally you get the stall warnings, and the autopilot disconnects, and you try to recover with minimum altitude loss. The autopilot on deal is because of that Colgan crash in Buffalo in late 2009. We have the autopilot on, and THEY had their autopilot on, and they just let it slow down till they dropped out of the sky. So, we get to relearn what they did wrong.

My stalls were excellent, so my Examiner waived my 3rd stall, and we started setting up for arrival #1.

Now, he needs (or she needs,) to see a number of approaches, and at least a hold, and a bunch of missed approaches. On a checkride, you have to figure you are not going to land. It's 1 missed approach after another; they need to see precision and 'non-precision' approaches. The onyl difference from a practice standpoint is that precision has vertical as well as lateral guidance built in.

First approach into KJFK was hand flown, raw data... just to do it. Rocked the approach. On the missed approach, I brought the autopilot back into the game, and we set up to fly out to the hold. This gave us time to set up the instruments for the next approach, and the hold is out in an area that leads TO that approach.

Autopilot on for the next approach, a GPS approach, and then another one with the autopilot off. The approaches get pretty busy, but there is a golden rule when you are flying checkrides-- be merciless on your non-flying pilot (now called the 'pilot monitoring.') you have to be a slave-driver. Make them do EVERYTHING for you... that is what they are there for. Your job is to drive the airplane.

So I did that... but I had a little pity. The guy "slingin' gear" for me had just been on a checkride for a different pilot, so he was a bit strung out. I went easy on him, but my Examiner was pleased that I was in control at all times, there was never any doubt that I was the Captain, and I made the flight deck work for me.

So, after 3 approaches, I finally get to land. This means 1 of 2 things is about to occur; I will either get an aborted takeoff, or I am going to lose 1 of the engines on takeoff. So, we get the abort, and I stop the aircraft on the runway, and we prepare to 'evacuate.' Then I taxi the aircraft down to the end of the runway, turn us around, and here we go with an engine failure at the most critical phase of flight- right as we rotate, basically.

So the engine pops off at V1 (take-off decision speed. Go or no-go.) Gotta get this baby airborne. The EMB has a beautiful thing happening when you lose an engine-- just keep the nose on the runways a second or two longer... no longer than 1.5 seconds, maybe. The rudder pressure you need to keep the nose centered on the runway is exactly the pressure you need to keep flying in a straight line once you pull the nose up for rotation to start flying.

Flies like a dream, and I am flying like I built the airplane.

We climb out, and there are certain things that need to be done at certain times in an emergency like that. You need to get altitude (it is your FRIEND,) then you need to build airspeed, then you need to turn THAT airspeed into more altitude. I flew it like a rock star. Really. I rocked the crap out of that flight, start to finish.

So we came back around to do yet another approach, this one 'single engine,' and I brought us in for a smooooth landing.

As we were getting ready to leave the sim for our debrief, the Examiner said 'Scott, that was impressive. There was never any doubt that you were the Captain." Then, when we got to the debriefing room, he told me that "That was probably one of the best Rides I have ever seen."

Talk about making you feel good about how you did! But really, when you get out from the ride, you know exactly how you did. Nothing could wipe the stupid grin off my face, I know it.

And that, my friends, was one hell of a Checkride.

Cheers!

Scott