It was a fairly grueling day today spent in preparation for my WVFC cross country phase check (it was supposed to be yesterday, but the scheduled aircraft was grounded for maintenance). The idea of the phase check is for an instructor other than your primary to evaluate you before “major” phases of flight training. West Valley has three required phase checks that must be completed prior to taking the private pilot checkride:
- Solo phase check (after your instructor has soloed you but before your next solo flight)
- Cross country phase check (before your first solo cross country)
- Checkride phase check (basically a warm-up checkride)
I know that some people in the club resent the phase check process and feel that it adds unnecessary cost to the flight training (it does add cost…my phase check today cost ~$500 between the 3.5 instructor hours and 1.8 hours in the plane). This said, I do feel that the phase check process adds value in preparing a student for the type of practical testing that they will receive on their checkride (we’ll see if I feel the same way after taking the checkride), and I feel that I learned a few valuable items from the phase check instructor (e.g. having the engine pulled over mountainous terrain sucks…and prompts one to consider alternate routes the next time).
We did some ground (oral) testing for about an hour, and then moved into N35583 for the flying portion of the phase check. The flying portion included a number of items, includng a soft field takeoff, engine out emergency, VOR tracking, diversion to C83 (and soft field landing), non-towered airport communications, simulated instrument flying (including unusual attitude recovery), and short field landing (with a go-around on the first try …winds 260 at 16 for 30 at KSQL).
Although stressful, it was a good learning experience.
Might do a solo flight next time out…and then a short solo cross country and some night flying (with Lorne).