Doing the Ride

Ahh, a sigh of relief as the plane bumps onto the runway and the one dead engine comes back to life finally, just in time for the taxi back to the ramp. No, I'm not in a critical, life threatening situation, I'm being tested on my competence to fly a King Air 200 and on how I handle emergency situations. I just finished my ride and past it, always a great feeling.

We went through the standard three stalls, one clean, one dirty(gear down, full flap) and one in a 20degree bank turn. Then proceeded with two steep turns in a 45 degree bank. A missed approach at altitude with an engine failure followed. But then, a break in the exam as we tested the oxygen automatic deployment system that maintenance had asked us too. This included climbing up to 13'000 feet unpressurized until the passenger oxygen masks deployed in the cabin, which is suppose to happen when cabin altitude reaches 12'500 feet. The systems worked fine and to get back down to 6000' we did an emergency decent, really pretty appropriate for the test we just accomplished. So with the powers at idle, props full fine, flaps at approach and gear down, we pointed our nose at the ground and maintained 181 knots. It's a pretty amazing view when you are being held in your seat by your harness and seeing all ground and not much sky, fun I say. Anyways, we got down to 6000' within a minute and a half and proceed to the NDB off runway 15 for a hold which led to an NDB approach to runway 15 for circling to runway 27. We overshot 27 for vectors for the Localizer backcourse back to 27. And that's where I got the magnetic chip detector light and had to shut the number 1 engine down for the approach and landing.

Now I'm done the ride and am feeling a little more relaxed with life. I've got two right seat PPCs (Pilot proficiency Checks) for the King Air A100 and 200, although they are very similar planes they still require a different PPC. The only real big difference is that while the 100 has only 680 horse power aside the 200 has 850 horse a side, and that makes a big difference, increases the Vno to 269 knots from 208knots. It's going to be fun flying around more than one airplane.