The wind was exceptionally calm the morning of the checkride. I was glad for this, but mostly I was relieved about the temperature. Alabama was forecast for a cold snap and I was worried that the one bitty San Francisco sweater I had brought with me wouldn’t hold up. So it was with relief that I stepped out of the car into a mild, calm morning.

Readers of my previous checkride write-ups will know that the number one enemy I fight during checkrides is my own doubt. Doubt about what the examiner is thinking, about whether what I just did was a mistake, about whether this or that just caused me to fail my checkride. The advantage of writing up my experiences, as I am doing now, is that as I go back and re-read previous writeups, I realize how much I let doubt drive my performance during these checkrides, and how useless most of it is, in hindsight. I should not attempt to get inside the head of my examiner during these flights; I’ll only imagine greater demons than actually live in there.

So last night I had resolved not to let the devil of doubt ride my shoulder today, and instead simply to focus on the tasks ahead. I was also put greatly at ease by the environment — my examiner was also the owner of the aircraft and of the outfit that offers lessons, so he was no stranger coming in from a far-away FSDO. We had had a scheduling misunderstanding originally; he had also expressed to me his dismay that because of the reschedule, he had to be my examiner and not my instructor. “When you’re the examiner, you’re The Guy. I don’t like being The Guy,” he had said when we first met.

Today I stepped into his large hangar, in which the examiner and owner keeps some of his fleet. In there was a Robinson R44 and a Piper Twin Comanche he co-owns with a business partner; also, a Husky on floats and the Grumman Widgeon I would be flying today. Elsewhere, he owned a Decathlon and some other aircraft I don’t even recall. On the lofted second level was his office; there he was waiting quietly, typing on his computer.

I climbed up the stairs and he welcomed me into his office. Charles is a fellow computer nerd at heart, just one who has found solace in moving out to the country to be with his toys and teach people to fly. He runs an IT consulting business on the side but his days of writing code are behind him now. Because multi-engine seaplanes are so hard to find today, few people strive to earn the rating other than those like him and me, in search of something exciting and new to fly.

Charles asked me for my FTN number and we went through the application paperwork. He quickly found an error; I had logged my time in the incorrect aircraft type. The Widgeon was not a popular aircraft, and yesterday when the CFI Mark and I filled out the application, it took us nearly half an hour to find the aircraft type in the FAA database (including calling someone at the FSDO). And apparently we had still gotten it wrong. Charles however was familiar with the mistake, and quickly guided me through how to correct it to the proper aircraft type (GA-G-44A), and resubmit my application. As I did so, I noticed him printing out a sheet of paper with “GA-G-44A” on it in giant block letters. He taped that paper to a laptop that the CFIs use.

N86638, the Grumman Widgeon at WaterWings

With that all done, it was time to start the test. He started by reading me a few statements, written by the FAA, intended to reassure applicants and dispell checkride nerves. The statements might have been useful to someone else (stuff like “Don’t worry if I start writing notes”), but I had already resolved not to be bothered … and even if I hadn’t, I don’t think the canned messages would have landed with me in the way the FAA likely hopes they would.

Then he began with the oral questions. They started out predictably enough, the questions I get asked on any oral. “What documents are required to be onboard the aircraft?” “How long is a first-class medical valid for?” and so on.

Charles then dove into questions specific to seaplane operations, and to multi-engine operations. The multi-engine ones I handled easily, as I had studied them thoroughly. (“What factors determine Vmc?” “What is the proper procedure following an engine failure on takeoff?”) I answered each of those correctly, though I did trip up on one (“Does Vmc increase or decrease with altitude?”).

The seaplane questions, however, were more difficult, as it had been a long while since I had studied for a seaplane oral. Some I still remembered (“Who has right-of-way on the water, boats or seaplanes?”), some I was able to figure out just by thinking through them logically (“Does density altitude have a greater or lesser effect on seaplanes compared to landplanes?”), and some I just plain got wrong (“Is it better to land upcurrent or downcurrent?”) Fortunately, Charles was forgiving and not above helping me reason my way to the proper answer when necessary. I did the worst on a tricky question about the hazards of landing in, e.g., a 15-knot downcurrent with a 15-knot tailwind, but mostly my performance was salvageable.

He then began asking me POH questions about the Widgeon. I had memorized the critical numbers so I had little trouble with the basic questions. I also knew the systems well so when he had me describe the hydraulic system, or the emergency gear extension, I didn’t sweat. I only ran into trouble on a question about, following a hydraulic issue during gear extension, if it would be better to pump the gear down or back up. Again, Charles helped me reason my way to an answer.

Charles had mentioned multiple times that we needed at least an hour of oral questions, and he kept checking the clock and saying “almost there,” seemingly more for his own benefit than mine. We were moving through the questions quickly and I had entertained the idea of slowing down, so as to be asked a smaller number of questions during the hour-long mandatory block. When at last exactly an hour had passed, Charles abruptly quit; he seemed as relieved as I was to be done with the oral portion.

He then had me perform a preflight of the Widgeon. I had only done this once, given that I had only had a day of training prior, but since I had learned it all yesterday, it was all fresh, and I had no trouble. There are 17 drain plugs on the Widgeon and I never found all 17, but frankly I don’t think Charles knows where all 17 are either, so there was no trouble there. I also enjoyed hoisting myself on top of the aircraft and walking along its upper surface to check the hydraulic fluid; I did it with confidence and joy today.

During the preflight, for the first time I really took in the size of the aircraft. The Widgeon beats out the Piper Seneca for the title of largest aircraft I’ve ever flown, but I never truly noticed it until now. I’m not sure why it dawned on me only now the size of this aircraft compared to everything else I’ve flown. When I approached the Seneca for the very first time, it seemed monumental.

I told Charles I was done with the preflight, and he began connecting the tug to the wheels while I got a much-needed bottle of water from the fridge. Yesterday, Mark and I spent over half an hour just trying to start the right engine; because of that, Charles had kept the Widgeon in the heated hangar today, only towing it out when we were ready to start up. Once the tug was disconnected, I crawled in through the rear hatch and stumbled up to the front, ungracefully clambering into the right seat, actuating the flap lever with my neck in the process.

Inadvertently actuating levers is a real problem in the Widgeon. It happens any time someone gets into or out of a seat, because all the controls are on the overhead. And because insurance requires that the instructor make the takeoff from the airport, necessitating a seat swap on every flight, this happens a lot.

Bringing the flap lever down is a problem when the hatch is open, because the hatch is in the path of the descending flaps. Even with no power on the aircraft, there’s enough residual hydraulic pressure in the system for a few flap extensions.

I heard the hydraulic fluid moving, and I said aloud, “I know what that sound is.” Charles replied, “The flaps are moving.” I knew from the POH that that was a no-no when the door was open, so I had hoped Charles had caught it quickly enough and shut the door.

“Did you get the door?” I asked, hiding my worry. He didn’t answer. I tried a different tack. “I know you’re not supposed to lower the flaps when the door is open.”

“Oh, well you just did,” he replied. Oops. I confirmed to him that I know they bang against the door. He didn’t have any harsh words for me, and didn’t seem worried about anything, so I just put it aside.

Charles stumbled into the left seat, my face in the process getting an unavoidable feel for his rear end. Whereas Mark did the startup by memory, Charles pulled the short checklist out of the side pocket and diligently read off each item of the startup procedure. He then taxied the aircraft ahead 50 feet to the runup, ran up both engines, and brought the aircraft onto the runway.

Flying a 70-year-old boat, my mind is always on the potential failures we could experience at critical moments. But while the airframe may be 70 years old, the replacement engines are quite pedestrian, common Lycoming O-470s. I noticed on the JPI that he runs them quite hot, with CHTs typically around 450 °F, but other than that, I had no reason to think these engines were on the verge of giving out. Nonetheless, I kept an eye on the gauges during takeoff.

Charles brought the boat into the air, and brought the landing gear up, a maneuver that briefly surprises me every time because it’s something that I never did in the course of my multi seaplane training yesterday. He then flew us to Lay Lake while making idle chatter. The Widgeon apparently only ever flies to Lay Lake and back. In its 70-year life it has had many jobs, such as ferrying oil workers to offshore derricks prior to helicopters taking over the job, but today in its waning years it only ever flies to this one dammed up portion of the river for splash-and-goes.

The sky was obscured with a high layer of broken stratocumulus, which kept the winds calm and delayed the burnoff of the morning chill. Rural Alabama’s expansive forests, snaked with streams and the occasional hidden mansion of ridiculous opulence, looked blue and frosty in the cloudy morning.

Charles overflew the lake, noting calm winds, and then brought us onto the downwind. I pointed out boat traffic I thought might be a factor for our landing, as Mark had taught me. He flew the downwind at 1,600 feet, which compelled me to point out to him that Mark liked me to fly it at 1,200 feet, in case he was wondering why I would do that. He didn’t seem troubled. Charles turned base to final, and made a flawless water landing in full view of a curious boat driver. (Every landing in this distinctive hullplane is done in the presence of curious boaters who come to spectate.)

Charles and I then swapped seats again, with him keeping his hands on the critical controls so my back wouldn’t bump them. Settling into the left seat, I did have some nerves, but I knew from Charles’s approach to checkrides that this would be a casual affair, and it helped put me at ease. I took the yoke back into my gut, and Charles instructed me to prepare for take off.

I started my GUMPFTS check—Mark had impressed upon me how important it was to Charles that he see a GUMPFTS check before every takeoff and every landing—though I knew from experience that the only thing I’d have to do prior to takeoff is raise the flaps back to 10°.

On the water, the Widgeon excels at making uncontrolled, lazy left turns (always left because of p-factor). My CFI Mark never fought it; he would always just let the boat turn left over and over until we were pointed into the wind with a clear takeoff run; then he had me go full right aileron and rudder, and bring in the power.

Instead, today, Charles was working the rudder, fighting the Widgeon’s tendency to turn endlessly, when he gave the controls to me. This threw my brain into a minor start, as my muscle memory for the takeoff was something along the lines of “stick back, rudder and aileron opposite the turn, full power.” But we weren’t turning. So I had to take a moment to think about which direction to deflect the rudder and aileron before adding power. In the spirit of “keep talking to your DPE,” I tried verbalizing a half-baked explanation of why I was confused just then, but the boat was already on the step and lifting off, and Charles was talking over me, helping me a bit with the proper pitch attitudes. By the time I gave up on explaining my confusion, Charles was saying, “Excellent takeoff! Really great work.” so I just let it be.

In general, as a pilot, I tend to lean more towards aggressive than timid in my control inputs. Especially when I become comfortable with an airplane, I’m not afraid of moving the yoke as much as it needs to be moved to obtain the sight picture I want. A long time ago, when I was more timid, letting the airplane pick its attitude as much as myself, a CFI had said, “Well, who’s in command of the airplane here? You, or it?” Those words had stuck with me more than anything any instructor has ever said, and from then on to today, I strive to be authoritative and commanding in my inputs, reigning the airplane until it does exactly what I want it to accomplish. It’s an act of precision more than macho.

Given that, it’s unsurprising that on my first flight with Mark, I was brisk in getting the nose down after takeoff, so as to accelerate above Vmc. This scared the marbles out of Mark, who is perpetually worried of nosing into the water, which would be quickly fatal in the Widgeon. The first time I did it, he yanked the yoke from my hands. After that, I would make a gradual climb to about 100 feet before I began my pitch over, and Mark seemed satisfied.

I repeated that procedure today, and Charles wasn’t happy with it. “Get the nose down right after takeoff. You need to accelerate to Vmc while you’re still in ground effect.” I knew would have no trouble doing that next time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W3UZv-6qoE

Climbing out of ground effect, I brought the flaps up and the power back as I had done over a dozen times yesterday. I ran the bilge pump as well. Corrosion in the aft hull of the Widgeon allows it to take on copious amounts of water with each landing; because of that, the bilge is pumped nearly continuously, and certainly after each water takeoff.

Charles briefed me on the next landing. “Because your takeoff was so good, I don’t need to see that again. So let’s transition right into a step taxi after landing this time, and then we’ll do the simulated engine failure on downwind.” The simulated engine failure I wasn’t too worried about, but the step taxi was something I had never done before. Mark was apparently scared of step taxiing, worried the nose would torpedo under the water if I made too great a pitch input. Charles was already instructing me how to do it.

“You’ll need to bring the power up to 19 inches after touchdown to stay on the step. And you’ll have to be really quick to bring the flaps back to 10° after landing.” This was worrisome, as he was adding additional gotchas to my first checkride landing, tasks that I had no experience in and had never done before. Normally I’m not afraid to try new things in an aircraft, but the Widgeon is a special beast, and very unforgiving on the water. Still though, I knew Charles knew what I was and wasn’t capable of, so I just tried to commit the flap and power settings to memory while working the climbout.

At a thousand feet I turned downwind, being careful with my rudder coordination (which was an early problem when I first flew the Widgeon yesterday). A larger problem for me was power settings — the left throttle is quite sticky and the right essentially unhinged, which made setting symmetric power a real challenge. My skills had improved noticeably yesterday but I still needed to focus to get it right. Fortunately, it turned out to be something Mark cared more about than Charles.

I leveled at 1,200 on downwind and immediately reduced to 15 inches of manifold pressure. I did my GUMPFTS check, and verbalized the gear position. Mark had told me that Charles liked to see the landing gear checked five ways — gear lever position, gear lights, hydraulic pressure gauge, viewing mirrors, and the viewing windows into the wheel wells. So I said aloud “this is a water landing; the landing gear will be up” then did my five gear checks. I announced that GUMPFTS was complete with flaps to come. I called out boat traffic on the water, noted the calm winds, and made an oil pressure and temperature check. (Mark said Charles would like that too.)

Once airspeed was in the white arc, I brought flaps to 10°. As with many hydraulically operated flaps, the flap lever was a momentary two-position, held in the direction you wanted to actuate the flaps. At first I had to watch the flap position indicator to properly gauge 10°, but by now I had memorized the timing, and so I was able to quickly flick the lever down and back to center, knowing I had around 10° indicated without looking. Keeping your eyes ahead and off the festooned overhead panel is important in the Widgeon.

I increased power to compensate for the flaps, keeping an eye on the speed, as I previously had problems decelerating below blue-line at this point in the pattern. I turned base and then final in exactly the same place as I had done every single time yesterday, a small ravine just north of a slough that emptied into the river. I made a graceful base turn, lowered flaps to 20°, and then turned final.

The Widgeon POH calls for flaps 30° on landing, but Charles prefers 20°, as it reduces the chance of landing nose low, which is the most fatal mistake one can make when flying the boat. I paid close attention to pitch attitude, maintaining the sight picture I had learned yesterday, as I allowed the Widgeon to approach the water. The wind was dead calm, my speed was good, and I was already satisfied this would be a successful landing.

Mark had repeatedly said the trick to landing the Widgeon was to “waterski” it onto the lake surface, and I finally got a feel for that. Charles was much less hands-on than Mark, who would often apply numerous control inputs when he got scared, to the point where I had a hard time getting a feel for the airplane. But Charles kept his hands clear, and the airplane’s notable heft was entirely under my command. The difference was remarkable, and I felt the boat’s momentum through the yoke and my hands, guiding it onto the lake surface in the perfect “waterskiing” attitude. One quick skip, and then the boat’s smooth hull slid onto the water surface flawlessly. The rhythmic ripples of water drag were transmitted through the superstructure to my legs and torso, in such a manner that I instinctively knew that the correct part of the boat was touching the water. I was satisfied.

After landing I brought the throttles forward to 19 inches as Charles had instructed, then struggled to raise the flaps while maintaining control on the step. I let the nose come forward, which gave Charles a start, and he was quick to grab the yoke to make sure it didn’t contact the water and torpedo. After I took the yoke back, I settled myself down, and got the boat stable on the step.

“Good job. Great pitch attitude.” Charles had me do step turns — something I hadn’t done since my single-engine floatplane rating—and being the authoritative pilot that I am, I started out too aggressive on the rudder.

“Easy with it! Easy with it on the step!” Charles’s hands were hawking the yoke again. He was worried my aggressive turns would submerge a sponson and water-loop the boat. I repeated the step turns with more gentle use of rudder to turn and aileron to fly the wing, keeping the sponsons above the water. Charles was pleased.

“OK, put the power back in and let’s go.” I pushed the throttles fully forward and lifted off again. My nose was pointed directly at an embankment and hill, but Charles wasn’t worried. Indeed, we took off before reaching the bank, and once in the air, still in ground effect, I pushed the nose forward to accelerate, while banking low over the water to follow the river south.

At 100 knots, I climbed again to pattern altitude, pumped the bilges, and turned downwind. While running my fourth GUMPFTS check, Charles announced an engine failure and brought the right throttle to idle. I verbalized my memory items, pitch-power-configuration-identify-verify-fEsther, and worked through them. I was hestitant initally to go full power on the operating engine (since this wasn’t an actual emergency), but my airspeed quickly decayed below Vyse, so I went full power and put the nose down in an effort to prevent from failing my checkride. (“Charles doesn’t like to see people get slower than blue-line on the simulated engine out,” Mark had warned me.)

Even at full power, I was losing altitude trying to maintain Vyse, and my nose was wandering away from the river. Charles intervened. “Stay close to the river. There’s no reason to get far away from our landing site if we lose an engine.” I tried to keep the nose pointed downwind, but my mind was dealing with the pre-landing checks as well so my attention was split, and the nose drifted right again.

“Come on Tim,” Charles said. “Stay close to the river.” He could tell I was trying to extend my unraveling downwind to the same ravine I had flown base over every time before.

“Let’s turn base here,” he said, pointing to the slough below us. Finally I caught on to what he was trying to do.

“Right,” I said. “There’s no reason to waste time flying the pattern with an engine failure when you can just land right now.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Let’s get it on the water.”

With my downwind shortened, I was no longer struggling for altitude and speed. I was able to solve both problems by pitching into the early base, but of course, that left me very fast on final, well above the white arc. I wasn’t worried though, as this was an emergency landing and we had plenty of river ahead of us.

“We’re very fast now,” I said, verbalizing my thoughts to the examiner. “But I’m going to get down into the environment first before slowing down.” Mark always liked to see me get low to the water before I start letting the boat slow.

“GUMPFTS is done but I’m still delaying flaps,” I continued. I left the flaps up until only 20 feet above the water, when I put in flaps 20 all at once. This caused the airplane to pitch up and slow, and we touched down slower than normal. My anxiety mounted, as any deviation from normal speeds when on the water in a Widgeon could lead to disaster.

And indeed, after touchdown, we bounced two or three times. I thought I felt the intensity of the bounces increase, but I knew the solution to any developing situation like this — whether it be bouncing, or skipping, or porposing—the solution was always power idle, stick back. So that’s exactly what I did, and the Widgeon righted itself off the step and into the plow.

Charles generally had praise. “We touched down too slow, but you had a good correction. If you hadn’t corrected for it, we would have continued bouncing until we water-looped and destroyed the boat.” I was pleased and relieved.

“OK,” Charles continued. “Good job. Let’s switch seats and go back.” I apishly stumbled out of my seat, Charles slid over, and I took the right seat while he guarded the overhead controls.

Charles flew us out of the lake and back to the airport as we made idle chatter. I was pretty sure I had passed my checkride, but he never actually said, so I couldn’t completely remove my doubts. I didn’t dare telegraph the doubt by asking, so I just kept up conversation. Charles talked mostly about how absurdly cheap it is to live in central Alabama compared to San Francisco.

Charles landed us back at the airport, and then drove the tug up to the boat and towed it back into his expansive hangar, while I tried to suss out if I had failed or not. Afterwards we went up to his office, and he printed out my temporary certificate, which was the final proof I needed that I was going home with my rating. He had praise for my performance.

“You flew really well today. I think the only thing I would have liked to see better was the single-engine approach and landing. But you’re a good pilot. It’s refreshing to fly with good pilots.” He told some stories of what he calls “useless” pilots who consistently fail checkrides in the most spectacular ways. Most memorable was his story of a 5-hour student pilot who had managed to convince his CFI to let him solo a Husky, only to flip it over on his first solo landing. The FAA had the student do a 709 ride with Charles in Charles’s Citabria, and the student damaged the Citabria’s tailwheel and rudder on a hard landing. The student begged Charles not to tell the FAA.

“I also appreciate that you studied for your oral. You’d be surprised how many people don’t. I like it when people get the answers right.” I was also pleased with my performance today.

Charles then had me write him a check for an exorbitant sum (the Widgeon ain’t cheap), and wished me good luck, reminding me that I could come back for recurrency any time (for a mere $750 per hour!).

We shook hands and parted ways. The weather was warmer but the sky still obscured with broken stratocumulus. Charles hopped in his truck for Chik-fil-A (he had another checkride that evening), and I drove off to celebrate my achievement at a BBQ place in Birmingham.