Scott Will

Scott Will

Well Known Member
Well yesterday around 2115Z, I landed on KMDQ Rwy 36 and the examiner sitting next to me, said "if you take me back to the ramp safely, I'll pass ya!" That was done easy enough... the taxiing part that is. As we got out he said "you fly your plane quite well". Made me feel good after realizing how many thousands of checkrides this legend of a DPE gave.

Yesterday was the culmination of about the past 8 weeks of preparing for the instrument flight test. What a great feeling it is to complete a flight test in the plane that you actually constructed yourself. To me it was a fun rating. My wife wondered why it was fun flying around without being able to see anything but to a technical person like me it was fun and challenging to precisely fly a plane and always know where you are by reference to instruments only. I wasn't so nervous about the written or oral since I had just passed the aircraft dispatcher written and oral (pretty much same as ATP).

I can go into many aspects of the experience. But I was most nervous of the examiner liking my airplane/instrument panel. He did! (Partial panel consisted of blanking one of my GRT screens... no prob. Just switched to split screen on the working one!) In the end it was for naught. From what I could tell my instructor liked flying with me because it was not the typical Cessna day ... which can be quite excruciating at times in Georgia. With the performance that the RV yields, we were able to have fun and see new places while knocking out the required instrument hours.

Anyway, the best guidance I can give to those working towards it... keep going. Just like building... eventually you'll be at the finish line.

Now on to commercial.
 
WOW!

Congrats Scott! That's got to be one of the best feelings going. We look forward to hearing more about it! What material did you use on the IFR prep?
Best
Brian
 
BIG congratulations, Scott . I'm respectful and envious! You nailed two things on my to-do list ... 1) complete my RV, and 2) get an instrument rating.
 
Awesome!

Having done the same thing last year I know just how challenging it is..Very well done.

I tell people learning instruments in te RV was bar far the hardest thing I have ever done..Well apart from finding the Wife that is...:)

Frank
 
Thanks everyone! It was one of the hardest things I've had to do... flying wise. The ground school stuff came pretty easily since I have to know it all for my job anyway.

Last week was supposed to be the checkride but I made a PIC decision not to go to Hunstville, about 140nm away. Winds were forecasted to be 15G25KT direct crosswind with wind at 3,000' expected at 46 kts out of the west. And all the holds and approaches are north/south in that region. Couple that with rolling terrain and I could tell holding altitude would be a monumental task. Later in the day we have the usual TSRA and VCTS in the forecast. Turns out we had hail and extreme precip at the Eagles concert later that night. And tornadoes in the area. So I think I made a wise decision (although the examiner was NOT happy he lost out on his money that day). But hey, I made a decision and stuck by it. Even my airline captain friends didn't take their planes out that day.

What material did I use? Offically the Cessna Pilot School stuff but only to satisfy the Flight School of Gwinnett. I just breezed thru it. For the written I practiced with the software from Dauntless Aviation.
 
Congrats Scott!

Absolute best rating out there! Glad you made it thru and expecially in the RV! Now just be safe and start the learning process! Slowly!
 
Nice Job

Great job. And, you did it in the RV!!!!

Now lets get going on the big RV RC model.
 
For the naysayers...

.....out there, tell 'em that you never used the autopilot, Scott. Didn't you hand-fly the entire test? ....in an airplane that's twitchier than a -9,

Regards,
 
Seriously, I did hand fly it the whole time. I've practiced with my friend Otto but for some reason during the checkride I never engaged him. I was desiring to schedule it in the morning so it'd be less bumpy but due to other circumstances it was at 1pm. We didn't fly til 315PM local and by then the Earth was heating up quite well over the rolling terrain.

Winds weren't too bad. About 20 kts out of the west at 3,000'. All of the approaches and holds over in that part of the country are north/south. So I had some correction in.

We did an SDF at KFYM, LOC and ILS at KMDQ. And the ILS is an ILS/DME so no timing was involved, even for the LOC! The SDF was partial panel from FAF inbound (easy peasy since the GRT has the CDI needle on the PFD). He let me have the other screen back after we circled to land and executed the full missed procedure.
 
Same here

I flew the entire CR by hand in the 7...Its not easy thats for sure!

Frank
 
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