Dear Garrett..

Chapter 25

Flight Instructor Checkride  – “Only the Brave Teach”

Another big day had arrived two days following my 21st birthday. Less than a year after receiving my first pilot license, I reported to the Oakland, California GADO for my Flight Instructor Certification checkride. All FAA checkrides test the strength of your nervous system. The Initial Flight Instructor Certification checkride was especially known to do so. Close to 50% of Initial Flight Instructor applicants are typically denied the Flight Instructor Certification on their first attempt at the rigorous qualification checkride.

I was a particularly prime candidate to fail my first Flight Instructor Checkride with the FAA for a few reasons. My young age was definitely a factor. FAA Inspectors are commissioned with the responsiblity of licensing well qualified pilots to become Instructors who are capable of producing other good pilots.

A cold wind blew hard at the Oakland Metropolitan Airport as I landed the Cherokee 140 there on March 6, 1968. I was glad to be flying in N7438R. It was my favorite Piper Cherokee 140. It was the newest Cherokee we had at Watsonville Aviation.

I felt like an inexperienced skinny kid walking across the ramp towards the FAA GADO Office after I tied down the Cherokee 140 on the Oakland Airport ramp. I was young and inexperienced and I knew it. Regardless of how I felt about why I was arriving at the Oakland GADO, I was willing to show up to meet with an FAA Inspector for an Instructor Certification Flight Test.

I’d never been to the Oakland GADO facility but it felt comfortable to me. I told the receptionist that I was scheduled to take a checkride with Inspector James Lecke. Mr. Lecke was summoned and came to the reception area to escort me to his office.

Mr. Lecke conducted himself very business like. His office was sterile, nothing fancy. A desk, table and a couple of chairs. Mr. Lecke wore black dress slacks, a white shirt and a simple basic tie. He was in his mid forties with black hair, parted on one side with a slight wave. He was a plain, nice, serious looking guy. There was neither a warm greeting nor a smile. He just got down to the business of administering a checkride.

Mr. Lecke spent several minutes reviewing my Flight Instructor Application and my logbooks. He didn’t say anything about the fact that I had acquired both my Private and Commercial Pilot Certificates less than a year ago and now I wanted to be licensed to train other pilots.  I imagined that and the fact that I had just turned 21 must have raised concerns in his mind as to my qualifications and experience to become a federally licensed Flight Instructor.

After completing the application and logbook audit, the questioning began to officially commence the oral portion of the checkride.  As if he wasn’t already leery of my ability to train other pilots, I managed to miss the first question he asked me.  “How old do you have to be to become a Private Pilot?” queried Mr. Lecke. Strange as it may sound, I had never paid attention to the age requirement. “16,” I answered. Mr. Lecke said, “17.” First question and I missed it! I looked down thinking, “Gosh, he must already be thinking I’m not knowledgeable enough to be an Instructor.” His already serious look deepened following my incorrect answer but he went on with the questioning.

“Teach me about ‘Turns around a point’ was Mr. Lecke’s next question. Fortunately, I had already completed an extra explicit drawing of the ground reference maneuver. I laid my pencil drawing of a twelve sided regular polygon on the desk in front of Mr. Lecke. Placing the drawing in front of Mr. Lecke seemed to excite his face with an expression of curiosity. His eyebrows raised and eyes opened wider as I began to explain intricate details pertaining to wind correction angles and ground speeds that an aircraft flying at a specific airspeed would experience on each of the twelve legs of the polygon if the aircraft was to maintain a constant radius while flying around a defined point on the Earth’s surface.

By the look on his face and his sudden change in demeanor, I could tell Mr. Lecke had never seen anything explained in that depth before regarding the “Turn around a point” ground reference maneuver. I think that one maneuver may have been the point at which Mr. Lecke began to feel that maybe I was going to pass a Flight Instructor Flight Test on the first try after all?

Over the next four hours, I made two more mistakes on my checkride. “Regarding off-runway accidents that occur at high elevation airports, do most pilots land prior to the approach end of the runway or run off the far end of the runway?” queried Mr. Lecke. I answered, “They land short of the approach end of the runway.”

Well, that became my second wrong answer. “Off-runway accidents normally occur when a pilot runs off the far end of the runway,” responded Mr. Lecke. Noticing that I was obviously unaware of the accuracy of his response to my question, Mr. Lecke patiently and concisely explained, “Pilots fly their final approach speeds faster than the prescribed final approach indicated airspeeds in attempts to avoid a common tendency of stalling an aircraft at high elevation airports. This mistaken faulty procedure causes fast and long landings rather than stalled and short landings resulting in aircraft landing accidents.”

I completed the oral testing of my checkride with one more wrong answer. “Can an airplane fly 300 pounds over gross weight?” asked Mr. Lecke. It didn’t take him long to realize I didn’t know how to answer that question either. I had never been asked that question. I did know you weren’t suppose to fly over gross weight but I’d never thought about how much over gross would be too much. Neither did I think of all the complications that could arise by flying over gross weight other than the possibility of not getting an aircraft off the ground during its takeoff roll?

It didn’t take long for Mr. Lecke to see by another blank look on my face that I wouldn’t have anything to say about his question. Once again, he graciously took it upon himself to answer his own question. “An airplane can fly 300 pounds over its gross weight assuming the runway is long enough. More than the problem of the extra weight placed on an aircraft during takeoff can be the loads placed on an aircraft experienced in flight when turbulence is experienced. An aircraft in flight encountering a four “G” turbulence load is now 1200 pounds over gross weight.”

I understood Mr. Lecky’s excellent explanation.  I could see that he was an extra sharp Aviator and really knew his stuff.  It seemed like he knew everything a pilot could possibly know about flying and he was really good at teaching what he knew.

The oral exam lasted an hour.  By missing three questions, Mr. Lecke could easily see that I still had a lot to learn about flying. Nonetheless, Mr. Lecke continued to move forward with the flight portion of my checkride. Mr. Lecke said, “Let’s see you preflight the airplane.”

It was still cold and windy when we stepped out to preflight the Cherokee 140.  I was extra well prepared for the preflight. Freeman had taught me more about the mechanics of an airplane than pilots typically learn.

Mr. Lecke followed me around the aircraft as I conducted my preflight. It didn’t take him long to begin telling me to hurry up with the preflight. I carefully walked around the right wing after preflighting the cabin, I explained everything to check on the 140 in explicit detail. Mr. Lecke could quickly see that I knew how to preflight an aircraft extra well. I checked everything on the 140’s preflight checklist plus multiple other items Freeman had trained me to check that weren’t on the Checklist.

I could tell Mr. Lecke was relieved when I had all of the preflight checks completed. It felt good to get out of the cold wind and settle into the 140. I ran the aircraft prestart checklist, started the engine and called Oakland Ground Control for our taxi clearance. The 140 runup checked out good and we were cleared for takeoff.

Mr. Lecke instructed me to fly towards Livermore to the east of Oakland. Once in the practice area west of the Livermore, I was instructed to fly the series of maneuvers required for the Private and Commercial Pilot Certifications. All the maneuvers turned out well.

During my steep turns, Mr.Lecke surprised me when he blocked my view of the turn and bank indicator. I’d never had anyone do that before! I watched him for a bit to see what he was up to?  Though I found his unusual hand placement in the cockpit distracting, I continued to pay attention to my altitude and bank angle to fly a good series of steep turns. I figured Mr. Lecke was checking my ability to fly a coordinated steep turn without the use of the slip skid ball in the turn and bank indicator.

After completing the upper airwork maneuvers, we descended to perform the ground reference maneuvers. Those turned out good too. Then Mr. Lecke directed me fly to the Livermore Airport and perform a series of normal and speciality takeoffs and landings.

When I’d completed the traffic pattern procedures, Mr. Lecke said to take us back to the Oakland Airport. I departed the traffic pattern at Livermore, climbed up to 3,500 feet and headed directly to Oakland. When I leveled off and set the power and trim for cruise flight, Mr. Lecke did another thing which surprised me. He slouched down in his seat and closed his eyes for a nap while I flew us back to Oakland. I thought, “Wow, he must really trust my flying if he’s comfortable taking a nap while I flew us back to Oakland. He’s comfortable trusting me with his life!”

I felt comfortable on the way back to Oakland. I didn’t feel like I’d made any mistakes on the flight portion of the checkride. Mr. Lecke’s napping on the return flight to Oakland seemed like a good sign that he was happy with my flying. Although Mr. Lecky would not officially inform me of my checkride results until we returned to his office at the GADO, I assumed I had passed the test which contributed to my sense of comfort on the flight back to Oakland.

Mr. Lecke sat up from his nap when he heard me talking with the Oakland tower controller. I called the Oakland tower ten miles east to begin working on acquiring our landing clearance. My approach and landing didn’t scare me or Mr. Lecke. Both actually worked out well, precise and smooth.

Mr. Lecke headed into his GADO office while I secured the Cherokee on the parking ramp. When I walked into his office, I looked to see what color certificate Mr. Lecke was filling out on his typewriter. Throughout the checkride, Mr. Lecke didn’t complain about a single procedure or maneuver that I had performed. I saw no reason he should have given me a “pink slip” for failing my checkride. And he didn’t. My certificate was white! I had been awarded my FAA Flight Instructor Certificate!

Mr. Lecke didn’t have anything to say about my checkride other than wishing me good success using my Flight Instructor Certification to train other pilots. Just handing me the Certificate was all I needed to hear. My checkride turned out better than I could have imagined or hoped for.
My flight back to Watsonville felt extra good. The acquisition of my Flight Instructor was a huge success for me. It wouldn’t have happened without the great job I had acquired with Watsonville Aviation less than a year earlier and the help Mr. Sambrailo gave me to complete my Commercial Pilot Certification.

Freeman was working in the big hangar as I parked the Cherokee on the ramp. When he saw me exit the airplane he stopped what he was doing and took a few steps in my direction with a wondering expression on his face. “How’d it go young man” he asked as I walked up to him. “I passed” I replied. Darrell’s reply was simply a reflective ‘huh” with a slight smile. He didn’t make a big deal about me passing my checkride but I could tell Darrell was pleased and probably proud of me.

Four days following my Flight Instructor checkride, I conducted my first official lesson with a student. The prisoner transport trips continued to keep me busy flying over the next few months as students began to arrive at our flying service for me to train too.