Blog – PPL Check Ride With CFI 30/03/2025
Today was a “Dip-stick” ride so I can get an assessment from the CFI on how my flying is progressing and if I am on track for the PPL Flight Test.
The weather today was nice with a few good thermals to keep me on my toes.
After running through our pre-flight, taxi, run-ups, and take-off we flew out to the training area and ran thru the following:
- Ascending to Height
- Checking Engine Temps
- Lowering Power and angle of ascent to cool engine
- Lowering Nose every 500 Feet to check the airspace
- HASEL Checks
- Standard Turns
- Steep Turns
- HELL Checks
- Power Off Stalls
- Power On Stalls
- Wing Drop Stalls
- Slow Flight
- Precautionary Landings
- Ascents and Descents
- Standard Landing
Quite a laundry list of things to do, but was I was flying pretty nice again today. I felt good with most skills and my handling was pretty good.
I did my HASELL/HELL checks ok however my CFI did mention that I should remain in cruise throughout so that there is no doubt in the examiners mind that I have not started the task yet. Once all checks completed then I can state “starting procedure…”
My turns were ok but after my CFI gave me a few “tips” I was carving out really nice turns. Awesome!
My basic stall was fine but my power on stall was requested to be “recovered at the onset” That’s code for low speed or at the buffet. Low speed = 40kts in this case. I waited too long so the stall was happening when I recovered. After a demonstration by the CFI, my next two were bang on.
Assessing my Wing-Drop stalls, it was also noted by my CFI that I need to add in aileron and level the aircraft “as soon as the stall is broken” as I have been letting the rudder do all the work for far too long. This means that I take an age to recover, and loose a lot of height. Once I repeated the stall using aileron at the right time (not too early or too late) the recover was nice and clean.
My transitions in and out of slow flight was good and I managed to control the turns well.
However, I repeated my previous first Precautionary Landing by rushing into things rather than just settling into the tasks again Urgh!. Just chill mate! I have a really bad habit of doing that so I gave my self an “upper-cut” and tried again. Once I did that, then the Precautionary was nice and smooth with plenty of time for all the tasks to be completed and I would make the field every time.
Climbing back up and leveling off I butchered the APT pneumonic (Attitude, Power, Trim). Again I was rushing things and not letting the aircraft settle. “Hakuna Matata” comes too mind.
My overhead join was marred by not actioning the pneumonic PAT (Power, Attitude, Trim) on decent. Ah the lack of the basics will get you hung my friend. However once in the circuit I managed a nice landing to finish off a long session.
My main take-away from today was that I was consistent, accurate and safe so I was stoked.
We also discussed how ready I am for the dreaded Flight Test. When this is raised by the CFI, you know you are very close indeed to standard.
Next lesson I will fly with the CFI again to confirm that all the learnings from today are being applied and I am not loosing other skills in the process. Safety, consistency, and skills are getting tuned.
Its super close now.
Keep Calm and Carry On!
Until next time…
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Blog – PPL Check Ride With CFI 30/03/2025