I finally wrapped up my ATP. I went to Loft in San Diego. I did the ride as a CE500 type rating because a type rating is to ATP standards and it's basically the same check ride, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone.
The timing worked out great because my training date coincided with a vicious set of Northern California fires. My chest was tight, my eyes were itchy and a sore throat from all the ash and smoke in the air. So I gathered up the family including the dog and headed down to San Diego for a sea breeze and fresh air. The flight down was straight up gnarly... spent basically a solid 1.5 hrs in smoke IMC. I was just shocked at the extent of the fire and even at 11,000 ft it was smokey. We basically couldn't see anything until VNY. Unreal.
The ATP went well. The training was good and pretty much all focussed on systems. Then they threw me in the sim and since I'm pretty sharp on instruments all I really needed to focus on was the Primus 1000 and all the various switches and the Citation Ultra panel. It's a two pilot jet and all my stuff thus far has been single pilot, so that took a little getting used to to. Basically instead of think-do, it's think-tell-to-do. All good though.
The check ride was about 6 hours, 2.5 hour oral and 2 hours flying, plus paperwork. I had no trouble with the oral portion since I studied a fair bit and it was totally focussed on systems. Also didn't hurt that I got 98% on the written test. I think the only question I missed was about one of the air inlets. The flight portion started with a hung start, followed by a below v1 abort, then a normal takeoff into 100 ft overcast, steep turns, stalls, unusual attitudes, and back for the ILS into JFK. Setting up for the approach, the flaps failed so it would be a no flap landing, then the autopilot failed so hand fly the ILS down to minimums with a disabled aircraft on the ground so a go-around. On the climb out got a fire on the right engine. Run the procedure and come back around for a single engine ILS... luckily he gave me back the flaps but the auto-pilot was still failed. So hand flew the ILS single engine to a full stop. Then another takeoff with a failed engine right after V1, continue the takeoff, climb away at v2 and this time it was not a fire but a flameout so we did an airborne restart. From there came back for the RNAV but fog came in and we never broke out at minimums, so another go around with the published missed approach to the hold. One turn in the hold and then the GPS failed and the ILS was out of service, and the disabled aircraft was still stuck on the runway so we'd need to shoot the VOR approach with a circle to land to the other runway. Got that all set up, flew it and broke out at 1,000 ft and flew the visual maneuver to a full stop.
Overall my advice for any check ride is to just try to relax and take whatever comes your way... never get frazzled, what's behind you is done and just take whatever comes next as best you can.. . just like you would in the real world. Before I knew it was time for the shutdown checklist and paperwork.
Examiner said I nailed it and I think I did. They pair you with different copilots and some of the ones I got during the training portion were hit or miss. On my check ride I had a really good copilot, so that made it a lot easier.
So that's done. Time to shop for a 501SP! <-- that's a joke. I've got a Tbone budget for now. I do think I'll stay in San Diego until the air clears up at home however. I don't want to fly through that ash again.
