I thought the weather was going to be OK for flying today and was mentally prepared for another trip to POU. When I got to the airport, however, reports were coming in of some pretty strong gusting winds so my instructor announced that we would not be going up today.
I actually wasn’t too upset about this — I wasn’t feeling 100% and for some reason felt like I was going to have a lousy flight. After my last flight boosted my confidence, I was a bit nervous about a bad performance eroding my progress. So, when my CFI told me we were Earthbound today, I took it as a sign from above and was happy we’d be able to review my pre-solo written test.
We spent two hours going over my two exams — one was the pre-solo written exam proper, the other was a rental checkout form that asks questions specific to the C172M I fly. The pre-solo written exam is pretty important — my CFI described it as a legal document that the school keeps on file. If I were to get into an accident or break a serious rule while soloing, the first thing the FAA would ask to see would be my pre-solo written exam. I took a lot of time researching my answers and noting where in the FAR, AIM, or POH I found each answer.
I did pretty well on the test — I had one question I got wrong about the accuracy of fuel gauges… I had done some research on this and felt the FARs could be interpreted to mean fuel gauges did need to be accurate at all times, but my instructor had implied that they couldn’t be trusted and I thought he was one of the “accurate only when empty” believers (there is an ongoing debate about how the wording of the FAR should be interpreted — some people believe that, legally speaking, fuel gauges only need to be accurate when indicating empty tanks).
This was completely my mistake, I should have answered with what I thought was true and then defended it if my instructor had a problem with it… instead I answered the question how I thought he wanted it answered. Turns out I had misjudged him and I was actually really happy to hear he had the same interpretation of the FARs as I had arrived at.
The rest of the questions were OK. We delved into a few and discussed the topics at length — things like weight and balance, airspace, emergency procedures, etc… I felt it was a really good review and I ended the lesson feeling like I knew more than I did when I showed up that morning.
My instructor graded both tests a pass and I received my first logbook endorsement (pre-solo knowledge exam)! One step closer to flying the plane myself.