Thursday, February 26, 2015

It's Go Time

Weather permitting, my medical flight test will occur on Tuesday, March 3rd, beginning at 10:30 AM EDT at KJVY in Jeffersonville, IN.

I spoke yesterday with the CFI/Ops Inspector that will be doing my test.  Here's what's on the agenda/expected of me during the flight:

  • I will be PIC, with no control input from the inspector.  (Upon hearing that I had not soloed yet, his response was, "Well, congratulations, your first solo is with me.")  
  • Once we complete preflight/taxi/takeoff from KJVY, we'll fly north.  
  • I'll be asked to pick out 1 or 2 fields as potential emergency landing locations
  • He will have me simulate 1, likely 2, engine-out forced landings over my chosen emergency landing field.
  • He will pick out various landmarks while in the air, at varying distances from the aircraft and ask me:
    1.  Can you see it?
    2.  How far away is it?
  • He will have me looking at charts, the instruments, etc, inside the plane, then back outside the plane, judging my ability to switch between near and far vision quickly.  
  • We'll fly back to the airport and I will do at least one touch and go.
  • After the touch and go, I will perform a full-stop landing, taxi back to the ramp, then taxi back to the active runway, take off, fly around the pattern once, then perform a full stop landing, taxiing back to the FBO and shutting down.  
The previous assumptions from my original AME and several CFIs I've talked to or whose posts I've read online, suggesting all I'll have to do is taxi, were incorrect at best.  I attribute this to the uniqueness of my visual deficiency in that I do have two eyes, so I do in fact have some depth perception, but it's the matter of my corrected far-sightedness and how capable I am of compensating for the limited depth perception that I need to demonstrate.  

What was once slight concern has now turned into me being, rather pointlessly, a nervous wreck at times.  I've got this.  I can do all of the above.  I know it.  Now I just have to prove it.  

Game on.

Two Victor Uniform clear of the active.   

2 comments:

  1. Orrrrrr....not so much. Just got a call from Ops Guy Wayne. He's uncomfortable with the fact I haven't soloed yet. Says if at any time he has to take the controls, it's game over, 'Unsatisfactory' will be the result. Wants me to solo the plane first, says my SPC and my medical authorize me to do so. That was my original understanding, and what I had communicated to my CFI last fall, but he didn't think he could solo me with the way the certificates were worded. I could scream right now.

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  2. so sorry to hear that it isn't going to plan. I have all my fingers crossed for a swift and satisfactory resolution

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