Where's the fuel truck?

Another two days have passed which have included a sim and another flight.  The sim, I thought, went great.  I went in around 9 am, booted up the sim, and spent about 3 hours running through the checklists and procedures.  Engine failures, landings, steep turns, stalls, etc.  So, all-in-all, I thought it was a very productive learning session.  My instructor comes in and sees me sitting there.  He asks how long I was in there and I told him I was in there for 3 hours.  He asks, "5 hours in the sim?  Do you even want to do these 2 hours with me?"  Of course, I could use all the help I can get.  So, I spend 3 hours with him and I thought everything went pretty well.  We practiced more procedures, did some landings, etc.  After the sim was over, he says I did good and we sat down to schedule my next flight.

So, now it's Saturday at noon.  We walk down to the plane and I start to preflight.  We notice that the plane needs refueling and call for the fuel truck.  It's busy.  We wait a few minutes and call again.  It's still busy.  I look over to where the fuel truck usually is and it's gone.  Dan (my instructor) walks into the FBO (essentially where all General Aviation pilots go on the airfield instead of the airline terminal) and asks the lady at the desk if we can get fuel.  He comes back out and is now irritated.  He said that he told that lady almost an hour ago after his last flight that this plane needed gas and nothing has happened.  Finally, I see the fuel truck driving across the ramp and park in front of the building.  It sits there for ten minutes and the fuel people are still inside.  Finally, in an effort to not lose it on the lady behind the desk he sends another pilot in to ask if we can get fuel.  When the other pilot comes out, he says that she had no idea that we needed fuel but it wasn't her job anyways.  She called the fuel guys over.  They apologized and got right in the truck to finally give us gas.

So, finally after an hour wait on the 90 degree blacktop, we hop in the aluminum shell to get the engines started.  I'm running through the start-up checklist and sweat is just pouring off my face.  Unfortunately, these planes aren't equipped with A/C so even when the engines start, the only relief we get is the breeze from the props.  At least I'm not drenched anymore.

First thing he has me do is a short field take-off.  This maneuver is accomplished when your runway is barely long enough to get you off the ground and there is a 50 foot obstacle at the end.  Since you are legally allowed to take-off when the runway length equals the required take-off distance, this is important.  It's also going to be part of my check ride next week.  Everything goes great.  I climb to 4500 feet and point us west over the Gulf.

I'm going to go back a little.  One of the hardest checklist we run is the one I talked about in my last post; the engine failure checklist.  Since it has to be done from memory, I've been going through it over and over again. I have all the steps memorized and am confident that I can run through it without any issues.

So, he tells me to turn to a heading of 350(basically north).  I level out, check to make sure my power is set correctly and as I look down, I see him reach for the mixture. The mixture is what controls the fuel to air ratio kind of like a choke.  When it is fully forward, the fuel to air ratio is ideal for 52 degrees at sea level.  As you pull it out, you increase the amount of air so fuel isn't wasted and combustion is optimized.  When you pull it all the way out, there is all air and no gas.  For those who still aren't following, when there is no gas, the engines don't work.  This should tell me that he is about to kill one of the engines.  I should be running through the engine-out emergency checklist in my head or at least queuing it up.  Instead, I watch him reach for the mixture and think, "hmmm, I wonder what he's doing.  I don't need to lean the mixture anymore.  Hey, he's pulling it all the way out...my left engine stopped working....oh SHIT my left engine stopped working!"  By this time, I'm already at least 10 degrees off my heading (check ride bust) and banking to the left.  So, I bank to the right to get me back on heading and start stumbling through the checklist:
Mixture...uh forward.
Props-Forward.
Throttle-Forward
Uh.....Flaps....uh....up.
Gear...shit, BANK CHRIS!!!.....up
Dead foot....dammit.
The dead foot step is supposed to tell me which engine is out.  You essentially are stepping on the rudder of the operating engine and the "dead foot" or foot that isn't on the rudder tells you which engine is out.  This is where I realize that I haven't put in any rudder input, I'm 300 feet below my altitude, and still 10 degrees off my heading.  I've stopped running the emergency checklist and am now furious with myself.  I went over and over this checklist a hundred times in the last few days and right when I need it, I can't remember anything.

I would eventually do everything I would need to do and close out the checklist.  The rest of the maneuvers portion of the flight went ok except when I kept screwing up power-on stalls.  For some reason, as I neared the stall, I would step on the left rudder.  This is REALLY dangerous because it could send us into a spin which is really bad.  Think of what happened to Goose in Top Gun.  He was in a spin.  Frustrating.  Then we head in for touch-and-go's.  I completely screw up the first approach and land fast and long.  Awesome.  We do 3 more landings where I continue to choke and then finally get two good approaches and landings to end the disaster flight.

Feedback:  He said my checklists and procedures were pretty much perfect.  He said that he can see that I know what I'm doing and am fine but just need to shake off some of the rust.  Rust?  I feel like downtown Detroit.  I have two more flights before my check ride next week.  HOPEFULLY, I'll put some polish on my rotting, decaying, metal structure.