Bonchie
Pattern Altitude
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- Mar 23, 2014
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Bonchie
A few years after getting my CPL, I passed my CFI check ride today.
As expected, the oral was much tougher than the flying. Made a mistake on airspace that I had to clean up and had some other hiccups. There's just so much information, and I can't recommend ASA's oral guide enough for condensing things into what you mostly need to know with citations (so have your handbooks saved on your ForeFlight). It doesn't cover everything, but it's dang close. Know AC 61-65 for the endorsement discussion + a few other things and tabbing a FAR/AIM is still best practice IMO.
I didn't have the horror story about having to haul in a 300-page binder of lessons, not knowing what's coming. I was asked beforehand to prepare a single lesson on stalls. I took a premade lesson that only covered power-off stalls and changed about 70%, mainly adding a discussion of all stalls types, recoveries, aerodynamic factors, etc. because I wasn't sure exactly what "stalls" he wanted to talk about.
Once I got through the oral, I felt like I was playing with house money. The hard part was behind me, and that proved true. The flying was even easier than the CPL, in my opinion. The toughest maneuver was probably when he had me combine a power-off stall with a secondary stall. Yeah, it's just a stall, but there's a lot going on in that five seconds to screw up and it only takes one mental error.
Other than that, it was steep turns, chandelles, eights on pylon, s-turns, teaching basic maneuvering, a simulated engine out to a field, unusual attitudes, and then we headed back to the airport. Did a short-field landing (had already done a short-field takeoff to start), soft-field takeoff, and soft-field landing. Shut down, debrief, and done. Because he picked a different maneuver in the relevant section, I didn't even have to do the power-off 180 (though, I did do it on my CPL with this same DPE).
It really wasn't that bad. The only thing that sucked in the air was how much talking you have to do. You just don't normally talk that much with a real student because you'd just overload them. But on the CFI ride, you don't shut up for over an hour bouncing around through all the maneuvers.
Glad to have the ride behind me. I think the biggest challenge wasn't what I actually did today, but that feeling of being overwhelmed when I first started working toward the CFI four months ago. It takes real effort to narrow things down and streamline your knowledge base while still making sure you know what you have to know because there's just noway to know "everything" off the top of your head.
Of course, I'm sure there are other DPEs who try to make the CFI ride a living hell, and honestly, I don't have much advice if you find yourself in that situation lol...
As expected, the oral was much tougher than the flying. Made a mistake on airspace that I had to clean up and had some other hiccups. There's just so much information, and I can't recommend ASA's oral guide enough for condensing things into what you mostly need to know with citations (so have your handbooks saved on your ForeFlight). It doesn't cover everything, but it's dang close. Know AC 61-65 for the endorsement discussion + a few other things and tabbing a FAR/AIM is still best practice IMO.
I didn't have the horror story about having to haul in a 300-page binder of lessons, not knowing what's coming. I was asked beforehand to prepare a single lesson on stalls. I took a premade lesson that only covered power-off stalls and changed about 70%, mainly adding a discussion of all stalls types, recoveries, aerodynamic factors, etc. because I wasn't sure exactly what "stalls" he wanted to talk about.
Once I got through the oral, I felt like I was playing with house money. The hard part was behind me, and that proved true. The flying was even easier than the CPL, in my opinion. The toughest maneuver was probably when he had me combine a power-off stall with a secondary stall. Yeah, it's just a stall, but there's a lot going on in that five seconds to screw up and it only takes one mental error.
Other than that, it was steep turns, chandelles, eights on pylon, s-turns, teaching basic maneuvering, a simulated engine out to a field, unusual attitudes, and then we headed back to the airport. Did a short-field landing (had already done a short-field takeoff to start), soft-field takeoff, and soft-field landing. Shut down, debrief, and done. Because he picked a different maneuver in the relevant section, I didn't even have to do the power-off 180 (though, I did do it on my CPL with this same DPE).
It really wasn't that bad. The only thing that sucked in the air was how much talking you have to do. You just don't normally talk that much with a real student because you'd just overload them. But on the CFI ride, you don't shut up for over an hour bouncing around through all the maneuvers.
Glad to have the ride behind me. I think the biggest challenge wasn't what I actually did today, but that feeling of being overwhelmed when I first started working toward the CFI four months ago. It takes real effort to narrow things down and streamline your knowledge base while still making sure you know what you have to know because there's just noway to know "everything" off the top of your head.
Of course, I'm sure there are other DPEs who try to make the CFI ride a living hell, and honestly, I don't have much advice if you find yourself in that situation lol...
