With Wings As Eagles: Craig P. Steffen's Blog

going for the record

2007 July 15 10:12

I did go and take the flight portion of the practical test on Monday. I didn't pass. I failed on maneuver, the soft field approach.

Tri-Cities is a class-D airport, so it has some commercial traffic, and I've never done patterns there; I've always only flown in or out. When we have gone there, I've always done my approaches faster than usual just to minimize the time that I was a factor for the other traffic and for the tower. Well, that backfired on the soft field approach. When I was cleared for landing, I was told "caution wake turbulence", and so I was staying above the flight path of the airplane that had landed ahead of us. So I was coming in faster than usual, and higher than usual, and I ended up getting even faster than I had intended. We touched down about half way down runway 23, the 8000 foot long runway there.

So I got a "notice of disapproval" for my practical test ("check ride"). I need to practice the things that I failed (in this case, the soft field approach and landing), have my instructor sign off that I've had the proper corrective training, and go up and do it again. "This time for sure!".

At this point I'm going for the record of how many times someone has to depart for their check ride. I hope I top out at 3.