Commercial Stage One Check...Check

Today was finally the day for my commercial stage one check. As expected, it was rather simple. The ground portion was about 45 minutes and consisted of questions about emergency procedures, lost comm procedures, special emphasis areas and not much else.

The flight was pretty smooth. Completion standards for stage one aren't PTS, but you do have to demonstrate knowledge and the ability to complete the maneuver. I made two minor errors. First lazy eights. Basically a lazy eight consists of a 180 degree turn, with a bank and climb for the first 90 degrees and a descent and smoot rollout to beginning point and altitude. If done smoothly and properly, the plane will fly itself for 90% of the maneuver. One the first attempt, I just didn't pitch up enough and had to over fly the plane to get back to point. The second attempt was just fine.

The other slight error was during eights on pylons. Eights on pylons is a maneuver where you pick two points/pylons to circle within a certain distance of each other by adjusting with pitch vs. bank to maintain your points from the correct pivotal altitude (ground speed squared x 11.3 + field elevation). This is an over simplified explanation, but the Airplane Flying Handbook has about 10 pages explaining eights on pylons. Anyway, the second point was a little too close to the first point which made it too difficult to maintain the point smoothly. It was sloppy, but I told the check inspector what may mistake was and he said that knowing your mistakes and learning from them is 90% of the process with eights on pylons. I didn't have to do another one.

We did a power off 180, soft field and short field and all were fine. We returned to Gateway, where he had me do a soft field on point with 20 degrees flaps. The tower was just getting ready to do a runway change and we had about a 10 knot tailwind. To my surprise, I actually did land soft on the thousand footers. Nice.

Stage one complete. Next is stage two. It starts out with a couple of long cross countries in the single engine, then on to entirely multi engine for about 30 lessons. Between now and November 15th, I'll put about 40 hours in the Seneca sim and about 30 in the Seneca itself. I'm ready for multi.