And the hits just keep on comin (so to speak)

Sooooo...

Checkride # 2, Instrument Phase - Flight goes okay (jack up the easy parts, do well on the difficult parts of course). Then we go to the ground eval, which kicks off with two emergency procedures (the IP gives you a situation and says "you have the airplane" and you talk your way through the whole deal). It goes just fine (or so I thought) and then we go into the general knowledge portion of the eval. That goes great since I did a lot of studying for the rules and info about instrument flying. And at the end of it all, the IP says he has to go talk to someone and will be right back (so I knew either something really good or really bad was happening). He came back with one of the IPs from our flight (who shook my shoulders, again - could be good or could be bad). We all sit down and start debriefing the whole checkride and the check pilot goes, "so this is why I'm giving you a U". GRAAGHHH!!

In troubleshooting one of the emergencies, I forgot to turn a switch back on (which was listed in the checklist). I went through the whole rest of the EP fine without any knowledge that I skipped that step. And for that, he failed me. So that made for a dandy weekend of studying and stress. Today, I redid the emergency procedure evaluation (I didn't have to do the flight or general knowledge portion). The re-eval was really challenging (and annoying). The EPs that the IP gave me were completely non-standard and unlike any EPs I've ever gone through. So it was a lot of squirming in my seat to figure out what the heck he was expecting me to do. After lots of sweating, he passed me.

In between all that, I was also counseled my flight commander for the bust and had to do the standard vision exam (I'm getting better every time). I got the impression that there was a lot of debate about the result of my checkride. The fact that I made a mistake in the procedures was obvious, but the action of failing me for it (instead just downgrading me) seemed a little extreme.

But whatever, it's all cleaned up now and the world can resume rotating. Tomorrow I'm scheduled for my first low-level navigation flight. It's pretty crazy since you have to do a ton of planning for the route. It involves a lot of charting towers and elevations so you can make sure you're always 2000' away from any tower (lateral seperation). The entire route is flown at 500 feet AGL and 210 knots groundspeed. Yee-hah

On a side note, it appears to be turning back into primo motorcycling weather. And I invented a cover for the button on my flight suit so it doesn't scratch the bike. Ready steady go!