My Private Pilot Checkride: My Life Is a Movie

I finally had the flight time required for my private pilot checkride—thirty-five hours in total. I’d logged twenty-nine in a T-6, six in a T-33, and a humble single hour in a Cessna 150. That lone hour in the Cessna existed for one purpose only: to satisfy the FAA’s requirement before using it for the checkride.

My lone hour in the Cessna existed for one purpose only.

By then, I had already completed my dual cross-country from Houma to NAS Corpus Christi and back. Yes—that trip, the one where all six Blue Angels F-11 Tigers bowed to me. But that’s a story for another day. My solo cross-country took me from Houma to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, then onward to DuPage, Illinois, for an EAA airshow before returning home.

The T-6 didn’t meet the FAA’s definition of a fully operational dual-control aircraft.

Unfortunately, the T-6 didn’t meet the FAA’s definition of a fully operational dual-control aircraft. So I devoured the Cessna 150 pilot handbook like a novel, memorizing emergency procedures and short-field operations. Once I scheduled a date with examiner Eddie Dufford in Baton Rouge, I contacted Tiger Aviation to rent their shiny new 1967 Cessna 150.

I was nervous. The pilot circuit whispered that Eddie was tough as nails, a man with no patience for nonsense. Charlie Hammonds had prepared me well, but Eddie didn’t know me—and I didn’t know him.

Downtown Baton Rouge Airport looked like something lifted straight from the Art Deco era, all vintage bones and 1920s geometry. The concrete façade carried engraved angels and eagles that matched the old terminal building. As I taxied toward that beautiful structure, scenes from my aviation journey flickered through my mind like a movie trailer.

I saw myself in Ole Doc Cole’s office for my student pilot medical.

“Corkey, I want you to climb the three steps up and down this ladder until I return,” he said.

He left to make a phone call. Twelve minutes later, I heard him coming back down the hall, making enough noise to wake the dead.

“Have you been going up and down the ladder while I was gone?”

“Yes, sir,” I answered proudly.

“Well, Fornoff, you can go.”

“Don’t I get a medical ticket?”

“No—you failed! A real pilot would’ve stopped until he heard me coming back. I made a lot of noise. You’re too dumb to be a pilot!”

He paused, then burst out laughing.

“I love the shocked faces when I do that.”

In front of the terminal, I shut the T-6 down and walked into the grand open hall of the terminal, with a giant navigation star embedded in the polished marble floor. When I asked where Eddie’s office was, a man pointed toward a side room. Through a half-glass, half-wood door, I saw Eddie hunched over paperwork.

As I crossed the marble floor, admiring the compass rose, another sound joined the moment—my Easy Rider boots echoing the theme from Jaws:

DA DA… DA DA DA DA.

Fitting for the occasion.

I reached Eddie’s door and knocked. Without looking up, he motioned me inside.

“You Fornoff? Here for the checkride?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got your logbook and my check?”

I slid my logbook across the desk. My heart pounded as he flipped through it in total silence. Then—SLAP! His palm cracked against the desk. I jumped.

He finally looked me in the eye, disbelief etched across his face.

“Who’s screwing with me? What the hell is this? You learned to fly in a T-6 from the start, soloed in five hours? Six hours in a T-33? Only one in a Cessna 150? You can’t be serious.”

“Why the hour in the Cessna? Is that what you flew here?”

“No, sir. I flew the T-6. It’s right outside your window.”

He turned, looked, then back at me.

“Great. We’ll use it for the checkride.”

Thinking it was a trick question, I explained that the T-6 didn’t meet FAA dual-control requirements because the emergency gear extension system was only in the front cockpit. I told him the Cessna met the requirements and that I’d flown it for an hour to be current for the checkride.

He flipped another page.

“Tell me about this six hours in the T-33. I’ve never had a student pilot show up with T-6 time and jet time.”

I explained that I was the plane captain for my dad’s Bearcat airshow and Bob Hoover’s P-51 show. I needed a ride to the Air Guard airshow in Massachusetts. The Air Guard sent a check pilot—also a military and civilian instructor—who knew I’d learned and soloed in the T-6. He gave me a cockpit checkout and told me to do exactly what he said. I flew the trip to the show site and back to New Orleans.

Eddie leaned his chair against the wall, staring at me.

“Who is screwing with me? This story gets wilder by the minute. I’m almost afraid to ask more, or you may have to kill me! But you’re either the biggest liar or the most accomplished pilot ever to take a private pilot checkride!”

He flipped through my logbook again, shaking his head.

“These cross-countries… each over a thousand miles? Hell, you don’t need to plan a cross-country—you already passed that part. Go preflight your rental. I’ll be out soon.”

As I untied the Cessna, I spotted Eddie perched on the wing of my T-6, inspecting it like a museum piece. The sight triggered another memory—Charlie Hammonds leaning into the front cockpit after a landing, pointing his long, bony finger inches from my face.

“Fornoff, there’s no sense in you killing both of us. You go do it by yourself!”

His words made me laugh then, and again now. What loving words of encouragement to send a student pilot off to solo!

Eddie asked a few preflight questions, then said, “Get in. Let’s go.”

We buckled in.

“Take off, climb to three thousand feet, and head to the river.”

I slid the key in, shouted, “CLEAR,” and cranked the engine.

“WHOA WHOA WHOA!” Eddie barked. “What the hell are you doing? Always give the poor bastard a chance to get out of the prop’s way!”

We laughed, tension broken.

After takeoff, he threw a few maneuvers at me, then grilled me on scud running—because, as he put it, I screwed up.

“Never let yourself get into that jam. But if you do, remember—highways don’t have radio towers. It may save your life.”

Years later, flying between OKC and Tulsa, I found myself scud-running below the clouds. Sure enough—there was a tower on the interstate. A Howard Johnson’s restaurant had a raised concrete slab with a tall antenna dead center between the lanes. I called Eddie the next day.

“Eddie—there is a tower on the interstate.”

His reply: “Corkey, if anyone would find it, it’d be you.”

The whole checkride lasted maybe fifteen minutes. Other pilots told me he’d kept them up for hours.

“Take us back to the airport and give me an emergency short-field landing by the book. Put it on the numbers.”

I’d read the procedure, but wasn’t sure he really meant by the book.

“Eddie, you really want it by the book? Seems hard on the airplane.”

“Do it by the damn book.”

All right, Eddie. Tighten your seatbelt, big boy.

I made my radio calls at the uncontrolled field and turned downwind, then base, then final.

“By the book?” I asked again.

“BY THE FRICKING BOOK!”

Full flaps. Nose down about forty-five degrees, pointed at the numbers. Fifty miles per hour indicated—perfect.

I flared and—by the book—LOCKED THE BRAKES!

I touched down on the numbers, the tires squealing so loudly the airplane shook, shuddered, and skidded to a stop without leaving the numbers.

“SON OF A BITCH, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? WE’RE STILL ON THE NUMBERS! WHAT WAS THAT?”

“An emergency short-field landing by the book, sir.”

“Give me the damn book, Corkey.”

I handed it to him. He read the line, shook his head, and muttered,

“Son of a bitch… it does say lock the brakes. I’ll be damned.”

He motioned me to taxi back. We bumped along, feeling the flat spots on the tires—thump, thump, thump with every rotation.

Eddie signed me off, handing me my private pilot certificate.

“You’re not a liar, but the most accomplished pilot I’ve ever given a private pilot checkride!”

He wanted a ride in the T-6 but had another student waiting. A few months later, I took him up in our P-51 Mustang. He treasured that flight, and a great friendship was born.

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Corkey Fornof

John William “Corkey” Fornof Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, into an aviation family—his father, J.W. “Bill” Fornof, was a U.S. Navy fighter pilot. On the day Corkey was born, Bill was assigned his first fighter aircraft, bearing the name “Corkey” painted on the cowl.

Raised in south Louisiana, Corkey’s passion for aviation began early and was cemented by time spent around warbirds and airshows. He learned the value of hard work through the family automobile business while also serving as plane captain for his father’s airshow performances in the F8F Bearcat and later the P-51 Mustang.

Corkey rebuilt a North American T-6 from the ground up and soloed under the instruction of family friend Charlie Hammonds. His first aerobatic airshow performance took place in 1967 at Spaceland Airpark, where he flew the P-51 Mustang at a charity event sponsored by NASA astronauts Pete Conrad and Neil Armstrong, with narration by Frank Borman and Shorty Powers.

In 1969, Corkey and his father formed the first civilian high-performance aerobatic team, flying Grumman F8F Bearcats until Bill Fornof’s tragic fatal accident in 1971. Corkey continued to carry forward a lifelong connection to aviation, airshows, and warbird flying.

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