My Commercial Helicopter Check Ride

March 16, 1993

My commercial check ride started an 10pm the night before the actual appointment with the designated examiner. I was suppose to call him at 7:30pm Monday night March 15th. I was prompt with my phone call to Maui and at exactly 7:30 (I set the alarm) I made my call. I was told by his wife that he just left the house a few minutes earlier.

Well that was a fly in the ointment so to speak because I was anxious to receive the cross country assignment, get it done, than get a good night's sleep.

During my call to the examiners wife she said he would be back in an hour and a half, so she took my number and said she would have him call me as soon as he came in. Well at 9:45pm I couldn't resist any longer and called him on Maui. Naturally he said he just got in and gave me my XC assignment.

Depart Keahole (KOA) A/P and head up into the Kohala Mountains/Volcano for a photo flight.

Then proceed on to Upolu Point A/P and drop him off from the photo flight.

He also wanted to know the gross weight from Kahole A/P and the gross weight upon arrival in the Kohala Mts.

I prepared him a nice navigation log along with 2 weight and balances. On retrospect, I quite sure I could have gotten by with one W/B and just the gross weight upon arrival in the Kohalas???????

I finally hit the hay at 12:30am and slept like a baby till 5am. During my original call to schedule the ride, he said the exam would start at 9am. Well he informs me that he would be arriving at 7:45 am (another fly in the ointment so to speak). It took me a half hour or so to get my lazy okole (Hawaiian for butt) out of bed. I got ready to go and did a little studying before I headed to the A/P. I stopped at Mc Donalds and walked in with my note book to order my "Big Breakfast" and sat down for breakfast and a tad bit more cramming.

At this point, I still wasn't nervous. I remember waking up think that I was glad the day was here and that I would certainly be glad when the day was over.

My instructor had me leave helicopter 519GP out the night before. I remember thinking that he just didn't feel like putting it away, but never the less, it was the right thing to do. As it turned out,not having to gigging niner gulf pop out the hangar was just one less thing to do that morning on a already too busy morning. I think I got to Kahole A/P between 7 and 7:15am and I went directly to 9GP which was siting on the south end of the ramp in the bright Hawaiian morning sunshine. I remember walking out to her noticing how nice a day it was and saw how good she looked with the calm blue Pacific in the background. The schools owner rolled up in the company golf cart and startled me a tad. I had spoke with him the night before and informed him that my fuel load would be critical for my check ride since the examiner was a 230 pound man and advised him not to fill up 519GP. I had determined the night before doing my W/B that I should go out with both tanks half full. That would give me a little more than 1 hour and 45 minutes TT.

I did a complete pre flight and decided to keep the doors on. I always fly with the doors on off in Hawaii, but for a check ride I felt it one less thing to deal with (the wind) keeping them on. I wondered about doing the pre flight before asked to by the examiner, but decided to get it out of the way and just tell the examiner I did a good pre flight and tell him I would be happy to demonstrate my pre flight skills to him. As it turned out, that approach worked out, when we walked out to niner gulf pop, he basically just checked both rotor systems and we climbed in and whirled off to the north on my commercial check ride.

I drove back down in my rental car to the flight school's hangar office, about a half mile away, where we previously decided to meet. It wasn't long before I saw a big man with a brown flight case dressed in red shorts and a horizontally striped shirt head toward me. I called out his first name and he returned by calling out mine. We shook hands and almost immediately ran into the flight schools owner. The three of us chatted for a few minutes than drove up to the other office to begin the non flying portion of the my "Commercial Rotor Craft Check Ride".

My instructor is an organised man, his techniques was to label the various paperwork required with postit notes neatly all over the desk. Not only was it the organised and proffessional approach to do things. In retrospect and prehaps more importantly, I suspect having things all neatly layed out set a positive start to the entire check ride.

When we arrived in the "Check Ride Office" there neatly on the one desk, all laid out in little groups under post it note labels were the various piles of endorsements, class II medical, drivers license, flight test application form, old Pilots Certificate, log books (the 2 for Niner Gulf Pop, and my R/C Pilot Log and my Fixed Wing Pilot Log). It was of personal interest to me and perhaps made me realize my age a tad bit more than normal to be reminded that my Fixed Wing Log was started on June 1st 1966. This factoid was pointed out to the day before by my Instructor (a quite competent red headed Irishman ) when he said something to the affect that I started flying around the time he was born. Under one post it note was the an white envelope with the check ride fee in it. Uniquely different from my previous rides, as a flight coupon for Aloha Airlines to return the Examiner to Maui, his Island of personal residence. The fee turned out to be $175 plus the commercial transportation (around $100) to and from Maui. My thoughts were that I was quite glad to be at this point of the billing and didn't mind the spending the money at all.

The examiner found all the paper work in order and breezed straight thru it. He made one comment when coming to my logs, who's entry for 3 leg-50 mile cross country and 3 hours of night flight were highlighted and pages marked with post-it notes. He suggested that perhaps it would be a tad bit better if I used paper clips in the future. He explained that would keep the FAA man from perusing my log book and possibly avoid un wanted questioning.

Then Examiner made one comment that I don't have any pic time at night. That startled me and instantaneously made me wonder if I needed some. My direct and honest mouth opened almost immediately and simply said that I don't think flying an single engine aircraft in the dark a good idea and that I only do it when absolutely necessary. His reaction was that he didn't say a word more about it.

The Examiner than explained the ground rules of the oral and flight test. He mentioned that he from time to time was considered rude by previous examines because he would simply say "that's enough" if the candidate got too wordy with my answer after he proved his understanding and knowledge of the subject. He then mentioned that if I didn't know the answer, it was better to not guess and simply just say that I didn't know. He also mentioned that I would be the pic on the flight portion of the exam and only if he thought our lives were in danger would he say "I got it". He also mentioned that at that time he would take responsibility for the flight and if we crashed, the mark would go agenst his license. I remember my thoughts to my self were just "Humm, what a thought". I already knew that if he did take the controles out of desporation, the ride was over, I failed. The Examiner never did mention this to me.