Winding down and a little confusion

I walked in on Thursday afternoon fully expecting to go up for my End Of Course Check Ride with the Chief Flight instructor for my Instrument Rating. Except after sitting there for about 15 mins with him nowhere in sight, Paul the check flight instructor asked me if I knew that I was scheduled for my Stage 3 check with him instead of the End of Course with Radek.......grrrr I was a little annoyed. I was mentally prepared and ready to do my End of Course check and study a little extra for it......I just wish I was called to be informed of the change.

At any rate....I sat with Paul for about 45 mins and covered some oral quizzing of all the most recent ground material and knowledge based information for the flight that we were going to conduct. We filed an IFR flight plan for a found robin flight from Norwood to Providence and back to Norwood. Everything went really well, I shot the ILS 23 into Providence with a stiff headwind that gave us a ground speed of 63 knots....the controller must have been going nuts seeing us come in so slowly as he was squeezing us in between jets that were landing and departing the same runway. At one point we even had to pull a tight 360 instructed by the controller to smooth the flow a bit...more likely so that they could release more impatiently waiting commercial traffic. We flew the missed over the runway and got radar vectors back to Norwood where Paul helped me shoot the GPS approach to runway 35. I held the course very well in the 12 knot crosswind all the way down the final approach that just before tower came on instructing us to break off and circle to land, he asked how I felt about doing a 12 knot crosswind landing. I told him I'd give it a shot. He then requested the straight in landing on 35 from the tower and they granted permission. It was pretty crazy....a steady 12 knot crosswind directly from left to right. I held the centerline perfectly all the way down. I flared and ballooned a little bit, but regained control and allowed the plane to settle back down...just before touchdown banking the wings to the left to touch down on the upwind (left) wheel first, then right wheel, and the main. It was nice and soft and a perfect crosswind landing. Out of anything....that was the best part of the check ride. It was incredible! Such a rush!

I am scheduled for next Thursday morning to go up with Radek for my End of Course check ride. It should be fun!