My Checkride
On May 9th, 2017, Charlie Pate and I met up to complete my checkride to get my Private Pilot Glider Certificate. After having to use the complicated IACRA software and completing the oral exam we went out to the hangar and grabbed the 2-33 for the preflight inspection. After talking to the tow pilot, Brian Bird, we got into the glider and did the pre-takeoff checklist. We hooked up to the towplane, put our thumbs up and waggled the rudder to show we were ready. We were on the takeoff roll and airborne a couple of seconds later. Between 200–300 ft Charlie pulled the release. Looking at my options, I decided to do a left turn and land downwind. When I stopped we were within the 200 ft marker but sadly it did not count for a precision landing.
When it came time to do our second flight we once again did the pre-takeoff checklist and once we were hooked up I gave the thumbs up and waggled the rudder. We did a normal takeoff with no rope break but once we were around 2,000 ft we boxed the wake and did it within 35 seconds. After doing the maneuver we climbed another 500 ft and did a slack rope — once the slack was in I yawed away from the rope and once I could see the rope about to go taut I yawed back so we wouldn’t recreate the slack. After that we climbed another 500 ft and released from tow around 3,000 ft. Shortly after releasing we did some straight-ahead stalls with no airbrakes and then with airbrakes. Then we did some left and right turn stalls. During the turns I noticed that even though we stalled we only lost about 200 ft, so Charlie thought we could do two left 360-degree turns and see if we could thermal. During the turns I could see we weren’t losing any altitude, so after completing those turns we shortly did two right 360-degree turns. After completing those we were at around 1,500 ft AGL and decided to get ready to enter the traffic pattern. This landing was a precision landing — on downwind and base I felt I was in the right position, and when I touched down and stopped I was 50 ft from the ending point of the cone.
The final flight of the checkride: after taking off normally, when we released Charlie asked me to do some steep right and left turns, and after completing those Charlie told me he was satisfied and I could do whatever I wanted until we got into the pattern. I did some turns and some stalls and once we hit traffic pattern altitude he told me to do a no-airbrake approach. I could tell I was too high on downwind, base, and final. I was in a full left slip trying to burn altitude but wasn’t able to get down fast enough. I was able to touch down where I stopped on my precision landing and rolled down the runway for a couple hundred feet. We got out of the 2-33 and he asked me if I wanted to keep flying or put it away and I chose to put it away — hoping I had passed.
When we went back to the towplane hangar to do the paperwork, he congratulated me on passing my checkride and getting my private pilot glider certificate.