Managed to get up today to do a mock skills test. Here's my CloudAhoy track for it:
The format is "essentially identical" to that of the real test, minus a couple of bits. For example, I didn't have to brief the instructor on mass and balance, take off distances, etc - not something I've actually done
at all yet for my aircraft so I need to get that sorted for the next lesson.
1: Climbed up into the overhead then departed. As part of the test you have to fly through some kind of controlled airspace and this route required a MATZ penetration. Not an issue, nice straight line to the first waypoint with a small correction over Shawbury. I've never picked up on it before but the way I depart from the overhead means that my track is always going to be off slightly!
2: First turning point, the town was easy enough to identify, surrounded by a river and lakes all marked on the 1 : 500k map.
3: Headed south but somewhere along the second leg you'll get a diversion. I picked a town en-route to start the diversion from. Micromanaging flying the aircraft whilst trying to sort out the diversion was a bit of a hassle - you'll be expected to do it all yourself. My instructor clearly felt bad for me so did some circles while I sorted myself out. Need to calculate a sensible track, distance and ETA.
4: Got to the diversion point bang on time but did have to make a heading adjustment at one of the waypoints I was using - this isn't an issue providing you tell the examiner apparantely. Once we were there I did a position fix with 2 VORs - my instructor handled the aircraft while I did this, he said some examiners will do that for you, we'll see!
That was the end of the navigation section, not much else to it, just a standard navigation flight really. You're expected to handle all the radios and such yourself.
5: Onto general handling. We did the three stalls plus steep turns to the left and right. Stalls were fine but my steep turns need a bit of refresher - not surprised considering I haven't really done them properly in over a year!
6: PFL, all fine and we would've made the field I picked. Was essentially a perfect grass runway!
After that it was just back to the circuit to do a couple of different approaches: normal, precautionary and flapless. I did a go around on one of the flapless approaches as I'm not used to the picture and cocked up my speed.
That was pretty much it for the mock test. My instructor reckons I would've passed and did say the mock test is a lot harder than the real test. The flight itself was just over two hours - I do feel exhausted this evening from it, could be partly down to it only being my 5th or 6th flight this year! Also felt really anxious about it all this morning. We've got a lesson booked in for Wednesday to do some more steep turns and some circuits.
What are you flying?
Just you wait until the IRT! Probably the hardest test you'll do in your career but also great fun at the same time.
