Gordon (the designated examiner, also the owner of the flight school) gave me an cross country to plan from Scottsdale Arizona to Dear valley, than to Payson and return to Scottsdale. Gordon initially lead me back to the Japanese study table, I mentioned to him that I would like to find a quieter, less distracting and private area. Luckily he knew Hunter (one of the other instuctorsrs) wouldn't be in for the next hour, so he suggested I use his office. To me that was a very important factor to speed up my planning. He gave me his weight than told me to plan on full load of fuel for a single tank Beta ship.

I finished part of the weight and balance when I had the sinking feeling when I realized Gordon might have duped me in the first two minutes of the check ride with the fuel load of a single tank ship in a dual tank ship. Should I re do the W/D to reflect a 40/60 fuel split since we would be using a dual tank ship? ? ? ? ? I decided I better invest the time an re calculate the W/D of a 60% main, 40% fuel in the aux tank. This is something that never came out in the remainder of the test.

When I finished up, Gordon had someone in his office and had the door closed. I hesitated to interrupt him but relished the extra time to relax (after trying my hardest and fastest on the X/C planning, I never was speedy on my planning). When I caught his eye after walking past the door, I flashed him the thumbs up sign and sat down on the couch to wait and relax.

Gordon came out and told me we would review the W/B after the flight and told me to go down and start the pre flight. I had the pre flight completed by the time Gordon arrived but he wanted to ask me a few questions on pre flight procedures just the same. I only remember him asking me the quantity of the main tank. He did quiz me on the amount of the allowable play in the tail rotor pitch change links. I was totally honest with him and admitted I didn't have a clue. Gordon than asked how would I know if the hilo was airworthy if i felt any play in the links. I told him I would consider it un airworthy until I consulted with Neal Toller (the mechanic).

I than started to mention the smaller fuel load I decided on instead of the load I planned in my nav log and W/B since we probably wouldn't be doing the entire XC but would be doing quite a few maneuvers, so for safety sake, I decided to only have about one and a half hours of fuel on board. I than informed Gordon on how to use the seat belts, doors and the tail rotor dangers and safety procedures when around a helicopter. Gordon than excused him self and asked me to run it up and said he would return. I fussed with my knee board (I hate knee boards) trying to make the map and nav log more accessible during the flight. It was probably close to 11 am by then. Gordon finally hopped in and the flight test portion was on the way. The R22 we were using (N528EE) was parked facing to the West headed away from the ramp toward the fence. I picked us up slowly into a hover, and moved us forward over the gravel area and waited there for traffic to clear. Gordon mentioned it was procedures not to use the gravel area for a taxi way, I told him I didn't know that, we blamed it on my instructors and asked who it was, I replied I had a few by this time.

The wait for the traffic wasn't to long but longer than normal. When it cleared, I cleared my self right and asked Gordon to clear me left. I was careful to do a nice max performance takeoff, careful to add a tad of throttle just after pulling pitch in order to not have to chance or over rev. the rpms. I headed to the point Bell and asked Gordon to clear me left when arriving. I headed down Bell road on the right side at 2000 feet and tuned in the ATIS shortly passed point Bell. It was barely readable at this distance, so I turned it down and decider to wait a few minutes and try again. I believe I made small talk for a few moments than excused my self to try the ATIS again. The reception was much better now, so I listened to it twice than tuned in to the tower frequency.

On my initial call up, i didn't understand his reporting point (7th Street), so i told him i was unfamiliar w/ 7th st so he told me to enter abeam the CT for a right traffic to rw 7 right. Any way, it (I'm now in New Mexico) seemed as if Gordon liked me asking for clarification, infact he said "that's what I would have done". He asked me to do a straight in auto to the first fixed distance marker. I mentioned to Gordon that i wanted to extended my down wind to give my self plenty of time to set up my entry, he seemed to like that also. Any way, I started my count down from 3, when I reach 2, he gives me the first of what was to be 2 surprise throttle chops. By now the proper reaction comes with out thinking to lower the collective, so I ended up making an satisfactory straight in.

Gordon than had me depart and maintain closed traffic for an 180 auto. He started chatting about the chopper biz on down wind and I responded for a short time, than mentioned I need to concentrate on the maneuver. This time there wasn't a surprise T chop on my count down. I looked a bit high, so I extended my base a tad, than turned to final. It turned out to be a nice, almost on target auto, so much so Gordons comment was that it almost met Commercial standards, my heading was a tad off.

Gordon than gave me a request to make to the tower (I forger exactly the phrase, I had never heard of it before) that allowed we to do a quick stop. I did a good quick stop, but as usual forgot to immediately descend from the 40 feet to hover altitude of 3 to 5 feet. He mentioned it and said to try another one. I did and no problem, I just forgot to end up it hover altitude.

We then departed the ATA to pick up our heading for the second leg of the cross to Payson. Just past the end of runway 7, Gordon asked me the light gun signals, I got them all correct. Our coarse would take us through the Sky Hi Practice area, so I requested a frequency change and made a company traffic report on 122.25 to report my traversing just north of the area. Gordon flipped up the map to view my nav log and asked what our cruise altitude was suppose to be. I told him 500'agl. We didn't like that, but said it was ok. He mentioned I didn't seem to have a problem maintaining my heading, after I stopped flying to my distant reference point, I guess I picked a slightly off coarse point.

When we got up to the North Mc Dowels, he had me turn to the right. I cleared my self and headed to the cut out area. On retrospect, Gordon would have many opportunities to give me a T chop on the 2nd leg of the cross country, I can't remember if I keep that in my thoughts or not. On the way to the cutout, Gordon asked me about the documents required to operate an aircraft and for the pilot to have in possession. He also asked me about the duration of the 3 medical certificates. Approaching the cut out Gordon informed me he wanted us to land in the cut out. I mentioned to him that I didn't like landing there. He asked me if I would rather land up in the mountains. I said I didn't feel comfortable on any pinnacle, and this was a pinnacle confined area all rapped into one, so lets do it and get it over with.

I remembered the winds were almost 180 degrees different from one and other at Scottsdale and Deer Valley. This combined with the fact that I wasn't able to find any flags to give me a clue as to the local winds at the cut out area prompted me to over fly the cut out and buz down to the golf course and look at there pin flags. Gordon liked this idea, in fact he said in all the 250 tests he has given so far, no one had bothered to check the local winds as I just had. This gave me a little more confidence, any way. The winds were out of the west, so I made my high recon than turned in for my final, which turned out to be a bit early, so I told Gordon I would abort this approach and extend my down wind a bit longer. He told me as soon as I made my base turn we knew I was going to be too high. The second attempt was much better, I extended out a bit and came in at a slight angle due to the position of the cut out relative to the wind. I set her down but never took all the pitch out of the blades for a moment than Gordon asked me to depart. I did the pre take off check verbally and lifted us out of the notch in the side of this small mountain in the desert. Gordon nonchalantly asked me if I was trying for altitude or air speed at this point, I naturally said air speed. It wasn't to long after I reached 60 knots before he chopped the throttle for the second and last time. There was a good spot right in front of us, a little to the right. I got the collective down immediately, got the rpm under control and headed for the spot, the only spot. His comments were "we would have lived from this one, power recovery". Since there were two people on horses, I guess he had me recover lots higher than normal. He told me to head back to the Scottsdale airport where I would demonstrate a slope landing and a hover auto on the apron for him. The flight back was uneventful. I knew we were in the vicinity of his home which I assumed he would be proud of, so I asked him to point it out for me. It is nice.

Gordon didn't simulate any emergency procedures on the way in, so everything went well. It had been 5 minutes or so since he told me we were going to do two more emergency upon arrival, so I actually forgot about the slope. I ended up doing the best hover auto to date for Gordon, he complimented me on it, I admitted to him that this was the best one I had ever done.l We started chatting and I started the shut down procedure, not remembering he had said to demonstrate a slope too. So before I knew it my check ride was over.

Gordon immediately got out of the hilo and started towards his office as I continued to spool the chopper's rotors down. He didn't say a word on if I passed or not. Gordon was stopped by someone on the ramp, so I ended up catching up with him on my way back to his office. Can't remember just who we was talking to, but they looked at me and asked how I did. My reply was that I thought I did fairly good but Gordon didn't tell me if I passed or not. Gordon said something like "you know you did good" So I passed, but only the flight part so far, still had to finish up the oral portion. I took a break for a few minutes then met him in his office. Gordon asked me a few more questions on aero medical and certificate topics, than that was that. He made no big deal about it, Gordon just said "Laurie will type up your temporary airman certificate". Than that was that, I was filially a private helicopter pilot, 18 months and 4 different permanent instructors.