Spring Checkride

My spring check-ride with the club I am part of occurred a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been busy at work so I didn’t have an opportunity to blog about it however. The flight, however, deserves a mention and certainly deserves a post on my blog, as it was memorable to say the least. For the particular details of the flight – I refer to my handy journal where I hand enter a detailed description of what transpired on the flight.

The date of the flight was 4.26, and I logged a total of 1.0 flight hours. The METAR for that day and hour was:

KDPA 262352Z 05016KT 9SM OVC009 07/03 A2986 RMK AO2 SLP115 T00670033 10128 20067 58003=

After starting up the engine and taxiing to the active runway, DPA Tower asked if we were on frequency, and then proceeded to inform us that the field has went IFR and for us to state intentions. I said the magic words, “Request SVFR would like to remain in the pattern” to which the tower agreed. I’ve never before in my life flown in such terrible conditions. Thirty seconds after takeoff we began to hit the low cloud layer, so I had to cut power and level out at about 1,300 MSL and start my set-up for the pattern entry on 02R. The gusting crosswinds made things even more difficult.

I greatly enjoyed flying in this weather, believe it or not. It taught me some new skills and provided me with an opportunity to “safely” fly in deteriorating weather conditions and how nerve wracking it could all really be. The crosswind component gave me some more training in that portion of my flight review as well.

Our flying club has a biennial checkride period in the Spring and Fall, where pilots must demonstrate their proficiency levels in the aircraft of their choice with an authorized instructor. This grants us the privilege of operating any of the club aircraft we are authorized to fly.

I’m scheduled to take up my first passenger of 2016 on June 10th. I have still to decide the routing, but perhaps it will be an XC flight to somewhere not so far away? Perhaps to the southwest in the area of Starved Rock.