CFI practical test stumper question

T

turbosuper

Pre-Flight
Joined
Aug 3, 2021
Messages
91
Display Name
Display name:
turbosuper
On the flight instructor initial practical test during the oral the DPE asked, "Can you fly VFR with less than 3 miles visibility into a non-towered airport with class E at the surface?"

This seems like a stumper question to me, is the answer obvious? Without looking anything up how would you answer this. An incorrect answer on this did end the check ride.
 
Skyknight320 said:
On the flight instructor initial practical test during the oral the DPE asked, "Can you fly VFR with less than 3 miles visibility into a non-towered airport with class E at the surface?"

This seems like a stumper question to me, is the answer obvious? Without looking anything up how would you answer this. An incorrect answer on this did end the check ride.
Click to expand...
Not a stumper question. A CFI should be able to answer confidently and correcly.
 
Special VFR is the obvious answer.

A further qualification is when it comes to visibilities in the airspace formerly known as a control zone (now variously "lateral boundaries of surface areas for class B, class C, class D, or class E airspace designated for an airport" or "lateral boundaries of controlled airspace designated to the surface for an airport), this is one of the few times where ground visibility trumps flight visibility.

Special VFR in airplanes, still requires clear of clouds and a mile of flight visibility and at night, an instrument rating and equipment.
 
Correct, but I aways thought special VFR was only for towered airports, which is why I got it wrong. So I guess I should have known this. After 4 hours of oral questions and getting everything else correct on airspace, I thought this was a tricky question.
 
Skyknight320 said:
Correct, but I aways thought special VFR was only for towered airports, which is why I got it wrong. So I guess I should have known this. After 4 hours of oral questions and getting everything else correct on airspace, I thought this was a tricky question.
Click to expand...
What kind of airspace is Class E?

Maybe tricky for a student or private pilot. Not a CFI.
 
Last edited:
Skyknight320 said:
Correct, but I aways thought special VFR was only for towered airports, which is why I got it wrong. So I guess I should have known this. After 4 hours of oral questions and getting everything else correct on airspace, I thought this was a tricky question.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure about tricky, but I don't think it's "bust worthy" by itself. Maybe the straw that broke the camel's back????
 
I think so, not knowing the private cross country landings need to be to a full stop without looking it up...
 
Obviously we were not there and so don't know how the rest of the oral went, but getting one question wrong isn't usually a bust. But also, at least my CFI checkride did not consist of a series of "stump the chump" questions. I remember him asking very few actual questions. Instead, I taught him about stuff, showed him what I'd need to do to endorse a student pilot for various things, that kind of thing. Not many, if any "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow" type questions, which is how it should be, IMO.
 
MauleSkinner said:
A follow-up question would be who to call to get a SVFR for an airport in Class E.
Click to expand...

A follow up, follow up: what happens to Class D airspace when tower closes? Who do you call then?
 
RussR said:
Obviously we were not there and so don't know how the rest of the oral went, but getting one question wrong isn't usually a bust. But also, at least my CFI checkride did not consist of a series of "stump the chump" questions. I remember him asking very few actual questions. Instead, I taught him about stuff, showed him what I'd need to do to endorse a student pilot for various things, that kind of thing. Not many, if any "what is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow" type questions, which is how it should be, IMO.
Click to expand...
What would have happened if you exhibited poor ability to do that? Would the DPE fail you, or revert to a Q&A style first?
 
Skyknight320 said:
Correct, but I aways thought special VFR was only for towered airports, which is why I got it wrong. So I guess I should have known this. After 4 hours of oral questions and getting everything else correct on airspace, I thought this was a tricky question.
Click to expand...
Here's your CFI tip for today. "Tricky" is often defined as "I heard something about it but didn't read it." Do not "think" what a regulation says. Read what a regulation says. It will make a difference in the long run.

§ 91.157 Special VFR weather minimums.​
(a) Except as provided in appendix D, section 3, of this part, special VFR operations may be conducted under the weather minimums and requirements of this section, instead of those contained in § 91.155, below 10,000 feet MSL within the airspace contained by the upward extension of the lateral boundaries of the controlled airspace designated to the surface for an airport.​

If you don't know that a Class E surface area is "controlled airspace designated to the surface for an airport," that's a different issue.
 
MauleSkinner said:
A follow-up question would be who to call to get a SVFR for an airport in Class E.
Click to expand...
"The ATC facility having control over the airspace." Practically, it's the same guy who you'd be talking to for an IFR clearance in the same airspace. Get out your approach plate or chart supplement or punch up the frequency list in your GPS.

AFKA Control Zones shouldn't exist without an approach and weather reporting.
 
flyingron said:
"The ATC facility having control over the airspace." Practically, it's the same guy who you'd be talking to for an IFR clearance in the same airspace. Get out your approach plate or chart supplement or punch up the frequency list in your GPS.

AFKA Control Zones shouldn't exist without an approach and weather reporting.
Click to expand...
I think Maule knows how it works. Why not let the student answer?
 
Walboy said:
I'm not sure about tricky, but I don't think it's "bust worthy" by itself. Maybe the straw that broke the camel's back????
Click to expand...
50/50. If the applicant fails the 1 question, the follow up is reported v flight visibility, which is used with Class E surface area, what if the Wx isn’t reported, and when can you cancel IFR in the Class E area.
 
flyingron said:
"The ATC facility having control over the airspace." Practically, it's the same guy who you'd be talking to for an IFR clearance in the same airspace. Get out your approach plate or chart supplement or punch up the frequency list in your GPS.

AFKA Control Zones shouldn't exist without an approach and weather reporting.
Click to expand...
AFKA ??
 
So here is a CFI stumper question.

What is a Part 93 airport, how does a pilot determine if an airport is Part 93, and where does a pilot obtain information about a Part 93 airport?
And no, I wouldn’t flunk a CFI for not knowing this one.
 
Last edited:
dmspilot said:
What would have happened if you exhibited poor ability to do that? Would the DPE fail you, or revert to a Q&A style first?
Click to expand...
If you couldn't teach, then I expect the DPE to fail you, not revert to a Q&A. The purpose of the rating is to teach, after all. The CFI ACS use lots of terms like "demonstrates instructional knowledge of" the subject areas. So, for example, the DPE shouldn't be asking what Vx is for your airplane, or even how or when to use Vx. Rather, the DPE should instead be asking "teach me about Vx". Same for pretty much every other subject area. If you can't teach the subjects requested by the DPE, you should not pass the checkride.
 
RussR said:
If you couldn't teach, then I expect the DPE to fail you, not revert to a Q&A. The purpose of the rating is to teach, after all. The CFI ACS use lots of terms like "demonstrates instructional knowledge of" the subject areas. So, for example, the DPE shouldn't be asking what Vx is for your airplane, or even how or when to use Vx. Rather, the DPE should instead be asking "teach me about Vx". Same for pretty much every other subject area. If you can't teach the subjects requested by the DPE, you should not pass the checkride.
Click to expand...
Ya'll are not getting the point.
Say the DPE asks the applicant to teach airspace.
The applicant leaves out a bunch of stuff.
Now, the DPE could fail the applicant, with the reason being "you didn't teach me about XYZ."
But the applicant might then say, "well you didn't ask me to teach that" or "you weren't specific enough."
So the DPE would ask follow-up questions, no?
The question is NOT about whether the applicant should fail or not.
 
Last edited:
Clip4 said:
So here is a CFI stumper question.

What is a Part 93 airport, how does a pilot determine if an airport is Part 93, and where does a pilot obtain information about a Part 93 airport?
And no, I wouldn’t flunk a CFI for not knowing this one.
Click to expand...
By reading part 93?
 
dmspilot said:
Ya'll are not getting the point.
Say the DPE asks the applicant to teach airspace.
The applicant leaves out a bunch of stuff.
Now, the DPE could fail the applicant, with the reason being "you didn't teach me about XYZ."
But the applicant might then say, "well you didn't ask me to teach that" or "you weren't specific enough."
So the DPE would ask follow-up questions, no?
The question is NOT about whether the applicant should fail or not.
Click to expand...
It’s a give and take with the DPE playing the role of student. If the DPE feels its ok as far as it goes but not enough, the good DPE will ask the type of follow-up questions a student might ask. Still about teaching. If it’s woefully deficient…

That’s true of both the oral and the flight. In mine, the last landing was a scenario - a student pilot who was almost ready for solo. He flew the pattern better than I could dream of doing and then lost it on final.
 
There's a difference between putting people in an instructional situation than playing trivia quiz (or stump the chump) with them.
A better strawman than he one in the original post would be, you're approaching RWI (airport near here with a class E surface area, no tower) and the AWOS is reporting 2SM and 1000 OVC while you are operating VFR. What are your options?
 
dmspilot said:
Ya'll are not getting the point.
Say the DPE asks the applicant to teach airspace.
The applicant leaves out a bunch of stuff.
Now, the DPE could fail the applicant, with the reason being "you didn't teach me about XYZ."
But the applicant might then say, "well you didn't ask me to teach that" or "you weren't specific enough."
So the DPE would ask follow-up questions, no?
The question is about whether the applicant should fail or not.
Click to expand...
Sure, the DPE could ask questions, but about what? The applicant is present for a teaching certificate. He has to be able to teach and the result of the test should be a flunk.
 
Clip4 said:
Sure, the DPE could ask questions, but about what? The applicant is present for a teaching certificate. He has to be able to teach and the result of the test should be a flunk.
Click to expand...
Ah, everyone thinks I'm defending the applicant. I'm trying to defend the DPE, or at least give possible explanations for why the question would be asked like that. I guess the failure to communicate is mine.
 
Last edited:
Skyknight320 said:
On the flight instructor initial practical test during the oral the DPE asked, "Can you fly VFR with less than 3 miles visibility into a non-towered airport with class E at the surface?"

This seems like a stumper question to me, is the answer obvious? Without looking anything up how would you answer this. An incorrect answer on this did end the check ride.
Click to expand...
Good opportunity for the candidate to guide the DPE like he would a student through looking it up in the FAR, helping him understand how the regs are organized and where to find particular topics. Part of teaching is training students to help themselves.
 
flyingron said:
There's a difference between putting people in an instructional situation than playing trivia quiz (or stump the chump) with them.
A better strawman than he one in the original post would be, you're approaching RWI (airport near here with a class E surface area, no tower) and the AWOS is reporting 2SM and 1000 OVC while you are operating VFR. What are your options?
Click to expand...
Your question is a situational twist on basically rote knowledge. For a CFI applicant the DPE scenario should be: I am a 125 hour, non instrument rated, private pilot working with you for a flight review. I really don’t understand special VFR. Please tell me what I need to know to meet the regulations for special VFR and risks involved in SVFR operations.
 
dmspilot said:
Ah, everyone thinks I'm defending the applicant. I'm trying to defend the DPE, or at least give possible explanations for why the question would be asked like that. I guess the failure to communicate is mine.
Click to expand...
I think I was defending the DPE too, unless he didn’t flunk the applicant,
 
dmspilot said:
Ah, everyone thinks I'm defending the applicant. I'm trying to defend the DPE, or at least give possible explanations for why the question would be asked like that. I guess the failure to communicate is mine.
Click to expand...
The CFI checkride is much less black and white than many other checkrides. If the DPE asked me to teach a lesson on VFR cloud clearances in various types of airspace, I would probably NOT intend to address Class E surface area Special VFR quite yet. Even in a real lesson, you can't cover everything*. So then I'd expect the DPE, if he really wanted me to teach about that, to ask something student-like, like "I was reading something about Special VFR. Could you explain that to me?" And there's where checkride gamesmanship comes into play if I wasn't sure of those rules. I'd respond with something like "well, where would you find those rules? Why don't we look them up together?"

* In my experience, CFI checkride "lessons" are usually somewhat abbreviated from the real thing anyway. The CFI wants to see if you can teach, not that you know every little detail and put it into this dissertation on everything related to the topic. For example, I taught aerodynamics of stalls to my FSDO Inspector. He stopped me maybe halfway through what I had prepared with "okay, it's obvious you can teach stalls. Let's move on." He heard what he needed to hear and that was enough.
 
dmspilot said:
Ah, everyone thinks I'm defending the applicant. I'm trying to defend the DPE, or at least give possible explanations for why the question would be asked like that. I guess the failure to communicate is mine.
Click to expand...

Eh, I knew what you were getting at from the beginning.
 
Old days, a FAA inspector would keep asking questions about a specific topic until you ran out of knowledge on the topic. They might also claim a falsehood on the topic and make the applicant prove them wrong.
 
Skyknight320 said:
I think so, not knowing the private cross country landings need to be to a full stop without looking it up...
Click to expand...
yes this one is a pet peeve of examiners, i.e. student pilots showing up for checkrides and not meeting the experience requirements.
This one is a bit less common of a problem, but Logging Night Takeoffs AND Landing to a full stop is common one, Along with not meeting the Cross country distance requirements.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
brcase said:
yes this one is a pet peeve of examiners, i.e. student pilots showing up for checkrides and not meeting the experience requirements.
This one is a bit less common of a problem, but Logging Night Takeoffs AND Landing to a full stop is common one, Along with not meeting the Cross country distance requirements.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
Click to expand...
This is a surprisingly big deal. I’d heard about too-short cross countries years ago but more recently there seems to be a rash of commercial applicants who miss requirements. One DPE I know attributes it to recommending instructors not checking applicant logbooks to verify requirements, particularly solo ones.
 
Clip4 said:
Until you fly into one and violate Part 93 because you didn’t know chart symbols.

The information for the airport is in regulatory notices in the Chart Supplement.
Click to expand...
Hopefully one knows in advance if they are heading into a Special Flight Rules area :blush:
 
Clip4 said:
Until you fly into one and violate Part 93 because you didn’t know chart symbols.

The information for the airport is in regulatory notices in the Chart Supplement.
Click to expand...
I was joking somewhat, but they are listed explicitly in Part 93. They must be created by rulemaking.

Of course, the chart usually explicitly says them with a NOTICE box (and a blue hashed outline). A box around the airport name also indicates generic special flight rules, but not all Part 93 airports have them, but it's a good clue.

And yes, they're in the Chart Supplement. The airport entry has a NOTE; look elsewhere in the book for the special notice.
 
flyingron said:
I was joking somewhat, but they are listed explicitly in Part 93. They must be created by rulemaking.

Of course, the chart usually explicitly says them with a NOTICE box (and a blue hashed outline). A box around the airport name also indicates generic special flight rules, but not all Part 93 airports have them, but it's a good clue.

And yes, they're in the Chart Supplement. The airport entry has a NOTE; look elsewhere in the book for the special notice.
Click to expand...
Look at the 2 examples I provided, you see blue hashed outline? One has a notation box, one doesn’t. The clue is the name of the airport in a box.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top