asechrest
En-Route
Passed my checkride a few weeks ago (posted already, so don't re-congratulate me!) 
I typed up a summary for use by my flight school and other students. Thought I'd post it here in hopes it'll help some other students. It's unedited, except for removing the DPE's name.
Overall, I think my checkride was easier than some I've read about here in the forums. My DPE had a very long day before he even got to my checkride, and I may have benefited from his desire to go home.
[EDIT] - My home base is KPIE in Florida.
I typed up a summary for use by my flight school and other students. Thought I'd post it here in hopes it'll help some other students. It's unedited, except for removing the DPE's name.
Overall, I think my checkride was easier than some I've read about here in the forums. My DPE had a very long day before he even got to my checkride, and I may have benefited from his desire to go home.
[EDIT] - My home base is KPIE in Florida.
- Checkride Writeup
- General advice:
- Try to relax. DPE is a nice guy. He will attempt to calm your nerves and break the ice at the beginning. (Don't worry if you're not successful relaxing. I wasn't, and DPE shot the breeze with me for 5 minutes and I was much more calm.)
- There are no “trick” questions. Each question has an answer.
- The checkride is largely scenario based. Study with that in mind. Create your own scenarios that aid you in studying. Have your instructor quiz you with scenarios.
- Here's an example of what I mean. When studying airspace, you might ask yourself what instruments are required to fly in class D airspace. This is, of course, a fine way to learn through rote memorization. Now, what if DPE asks you this: when we take off from KPIE, what airspace are we in? Class D. And what instruments are required? A two-way radio. No transponder is required in class D. WRONG! PIE is within Tampa's mode C veil, which requires a transponder with altitude encoding. Rote memorization fails us here. But if we had tested ourselves with real-life scenarios, we might have already known the correct answer.
- After planning your flight, spend some time thinking about the entire route. Name every airspace you fly through. Think about cloud clearance and visibility requirements in each one. Look at all diversion airports and think about questions he might ask.
- Use the PTS as your study guide. This is your bible. Go through it at least twice, writing notes in the margin your first time through, then studying the PTS and your notes the second time.
- When you go fly, you will notice how silent it is. You're used to your instructor talking to you all throughout the flight. DPE is your passenger and will not be teaching! Don't let the silence make you nervous. Focus on your flight. I verbalized what I was doing the entire flight: “turning downwind, 800ft push over, power back, before landing checklist, gumps check, abeam key point, power 1700, flaps 10, doing a short field landing, not cleared to land...” etc. etc.
- Fly like you know how! Make good decisions. Verbalize your actions and intentions. Explain why you do what you do. Have fun.
- ORAL PORTION:
- Parts in quotation marks are what DPE said, as best as I can recollect:
- Private pilot privileges: can we fly for hire? Can we accept reimbursement for search and rescue? (Look this up, regs do have provisions for reimbursement for S&R under certain conditions.)
- What docs required in the airplane? (ARROW)
- Registration certificates: usually they're white. What if a registration certificate is pink? What does this mean? (He stumped me on this. Told him I didn't know. When he pressed me, I guessed that it was a temporary certificate, which is correct but there's more to it. ASK YOUR INSTRUCTOR.)
- Required inspections on the aircraft: 100hr, annual, pitot/static, ELT. Know inspection durations and be able to show him in the maintenance logs.
- Weather: have all the weather for your route of flight printed out.
- Asked me to read a METAR.
- Point to the TAF and asked me about the valid times for the TAF.
- He likes the 12/24hr prog charts. He'll point to weather symbols and he'll want you to tell him what they are.
- “What are these curved lines on the prog chart?” ISOBARS – lines of constant pressure. “And if you look up here, where there are lines closer together, vs. down here, where they're farther apart, which area would you expect to have higher winds?” Isobars spaced closer together mean a steeper pressure gradient, which suggest higher wind. Think of it like contour lines on a topographic map. Where is the land steeper? Where the contour lines are closer together. Same for isobars!
- “What might a converging temperature and dewpoint mean?” FOG
- What is wake turbulence? If we were coming in for landing behind a heavy aircraft, how would we avoid the wake turbulence?
- V-speeds. Have these memorized! I took for granted max flaps extended speed, because I always just used the top of the white arc. When he asked me what the Vfe speed was, I wasn't sure! I got through this by insisting I knew the purpose of the Vfe speed, and that it was the top of the white arc. I also had all V speeds on my kneeboard. He didn't seem especially pleased I didn't have this memorized. Know all V speeds by heart.
- Aeromedical factors: alcohol, hyperventilation, spatial disorientation, fitness for flight (IMSAFE). “Let's say you have a sinus issue and you take medicine for it. Can we go fly?” Know how to determine whether a medication is approved or not.
- “What is a concern with aircraft heater?” Carbon monoxide poisoning. “Can you smell it or taste it?” NO.
- “Scuba diving, any concern?” YES, study the regs for flying after scuba diving.
- Required instruments: in my oral he used the fuel gauge as the scenario: required to be functioning by 91.205. Know what steps to determine if you can fly with an inop instrument. Check MEL, check VFR day/night regs, review 91.205, 91.213, check POH equipment list, check ADs, deactivate, placard, make maintenance logbook entry. (PS – don't memorize that crappy A TOMATO FLAMES mnemonic. That thing's an abomination. Ask me; I have a better way to memorize these, but in any case, in real life you'd have ample opportunity to check the FAR/AIM. This should not be required to be memorized, and there was no indication that DPE cared about tomatoes.)
- “What if you were down in the keys and your gas gauge was broken and the school wanted you to fly it back to be fixed. Could you?” Not without a special flight permit. “How would we obtain one of those?” Contact the FSDO.
- Have your weight and balance done and correct.
- Know the max weight allowable for takeoff.
- He asked me to show him how I determined our CG was within acceptable range. Have your calculations done and know how to show him you charted it on the CG chart.
- When you show him how to chart it, he may see the utility category section and ask what that's all about. Know what it is. My answer was that spins were approved in the utility category, and that there were some additional weight and CG requirements to be in the utility category. This answer was acceptable but check it yourself to be sure.
- “Who determines whether plane is airworthy?”
- “Who is responsible for keeping the plane airworthy?
- “What is an airworthiness directive?”
- Flight plan: he asked me about some airspaces along our route and the visibility and cloud clearance requirements for class G, E, D, B. Pointed to an airport and asked if we could fuel there (no, no fuel on field, no tickmarks around circle).
- “What if the visibility was only one mile, could we land there?” Yes, but only with a special VFR clearance with the tower!
- He asked me to show him how I determined the true course for a leg of the flight. Be able to pull out the plotter and show him.
- He asked how I determined the wind correction angle for a segment of my planned flight. Know how to pull out your E6B flight computer and show him how you determined it.
- He'll ask about the MOAs and Restricted airspaces in the center of the state. “Can we fly through there?” Know the answer. My answer was YES for both. For MOAs, you can fly through whether hot or cold, but common sense suggests not to fly when hot. For Restricted, you find out whether hot or cold. If cold, you can fly. If hot, you can't. These answers worked for me, but check these answers with your instructor. Know how to determine whether those areas are hot or not (listed on sectional chart – Miami Center for some/most of those.)
- “If we were flying through this area, what is the minimum altitude we could fly and be safe?” Refer to the minimum altitude numbers on the sectional in each lat/long sector. I pointed to the min safe altitude number, then said I'd go a bit higher just for safety purposes.
- LAHSO – know what this is. “How would we determine how much runway is available for LAHSO at an airport?” The AFD! Go ahead and look at KPIE – the LAHSO runway lengths are listed there for you.
- He asked about the effect of high temperature. Know what density altitude is and how it affects the plane.
- Airplane systems:
- Total gallons fuel, total gallons usable, how does the fuel get to the engine (gravity fed), through what system (carburetor), what is a concern with carburetors (carb ice), what conditions are conducive to carb ice (visible moisure and below a certain temp).
- “If the battery goes dead does the engine stop?”
- “What if you notice the electrical power is discharging?” Alternator likely not working. “And what does that mean?” Battery is being drained. “And what should you do about it?” Begin shutting off all unnecessary avionics to conserve battery power for what's needed when landing.
- FLIGHT PORTION:
- Told me we'd be going straight out to the beach as the flight plan took us through some messy airspace. Wanted us to head SW over St. Pete beach area.
- Did not join me for the preflight. I believe he was watching through the window, though.
- Told me I could consider him already briefed as a passenger. I told him I had a passenger briefing card for when I had a “real” passenger.
- Normal startup and taxi to runway 9
- Be sure to use your wind correction when taxiing
- Asked for a short field takeoff. Used 10 degrees of flaps, used all available runway, maneuver seemed to be ok.
- Headed SW, and he told me to climb to 2,500 “when able.” Check your sectional to be sure you're outside Tampa's class B before climbing.
- As we were climbing, HE called Tampa and asked for traffic advisories while we did maneuvers. I had to respond to traffic advisories during my maneuvers. Be prepared for this. Do it once with your instructor.
- Over beach, first maneuver was one steep turn left, immediately followed by one right.
- Next maneuver was slow flight
- Then a “takeoff stall.” I heard him say it, repeated it, but started doing an approach to landing stall anyway! Ugh. Nerves got the better of me. Recovered fully and then did a takeoff stall. He had me recover even before the buffet.
- Back to a heading of north and under the hood. Had me do a descending turn to a heading of south, then a climbing turn back to heading of north.
- Told me hands in lap, head down and close my eyes: gave me one unusual attitude to recover from, nose low.
- Foggles off, and after a few seconds he pulled the power to idle while heading north over Clearwater Beach at 3,000ft. I immediately went to best glide, told him I'd be landing in the water just off the beach since I knew there were lots of beachgoers in that area, then ran through my emergency restart flow check. He asked me how we'd prepare the cabin. Told him brief passenger, crack doors, before touchdown mixture off, ignition off, master off. He had me recover well before we hit 2,000ft.
- He then wanted to head in for touch and goes in St. Pete. This is where the most difficult part of my checkride came in. Since I had never gotten traffic advisories while in the practice area, I was initially unsure how to proceed inbound. It hadn't clicked that I was on with Tampa and had already been cleared through the class B. My initial thought was that I needed to spiral down to lose altitude and get under the B shelf. When it was clear DPE wanted me to head directly into PIE, it finally clicked that I was cleared through the Bravo and could head directly there even though I was at 2k ft. But I still made another error: I wanted to get the ATIS and since I only had one COM in the airplane, I asked Tampa to switch frequencies. NOPE! You don't get to do that when you're on with them. So they lightly scolded me and then I understood. They coordinated my handoff once closer to St. Pete. So again, do this once with your instructor!
- We were directed to left base for runway 9. DPE asked for the first landing to be a short field landing with a soft field takeoff. He asked me what my target was for the short field. Runway 9 is “short” and I don't like to use the thousand foot markers on that runway. So I told him halfway between the numbers and thousand foot markers. Not good enough, he needs a spot. So we did the third runway stripe. Seemed to work.
- Next he wanted a soft field landing.
- Then he wanted a go-around.
- Finally he asked for a normal landing “but try to to do it so we can turn off at taxiway A.”
- Taxiied in and I was a pilot.
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