IFR check ride prep

[izzydogg]

So, I'm on the home stretch and I'm trying to prepare for the oral portion of my check ride. It has been 7 months since I took the written and I'm trying to refresh the info in my brain. I've been in the regs and studying from my Jepp textbook. Anyone have any helpful hints in prep that may help me get ready.
Thanks,
Iz

 

[dmspilot]

I made some flashcards for helping to memorize certain items that should be memorized. They're in my signature.

 

[douglas393]

Buy one of the oral exam guides(ASA, Gleim, and others) and review it. I am not sure but I believe the format has changed and it is more of a scenario based exam than question/answer. I took mine in August and it was question answer, but I have read that the format has changed. I know this to be the case for PPL and think it is for other ratings as well.

What I found was I did not really need to study for the oral, it seems that most of what I needed to know I already did from flying and prepping for flights.

Also do a mock oral with a CFII and see how it goes. You will probably surprise yourself with how much you know.

Doug

 

[FlyingJ]

Besides the memorization, be ready to talk through your entire flight plan; planning, preparing, flying, and approaches.
Know how to read weather charts, metars, tafs, notams. Know where to find alternate minimums and other info in the a/fd and terminal procedures.
Know ifr chart symbology and the approach charts.
Lost comms procedures.
Weather, icing, winds.
How to file a flight plan and receive a clearance.

Good luck!

 

[iflyblog.com]

I made some flashcards for helping to memorize certain items that should be memorized. They're in my signature.

I love flashcards. I also like having someone ask me questions verbally, really burns it in to my brain if I can hear the question, formulate a response, and say it back verbally.

I have also thought about recording some audio via mp3 and playing it back on drives or just doing chores - not sure if that would be effective or not.

Good luck on your checkride! We're pulling for ya!

 

[poadeleted20]

While there's a lot of good material in those "Oral Prep" books, the FAA guidance on practical tests no longer calls for those simple Q&A methods, but rather goes for "situationally based testing." For example, instead of asking you what the VFR weather mins are in Class E airspace, the examiner may ask you whether or not today's weather is good enough to make your planned XC flight under VFR, and how you came to that determination. This will test, in a more realistic manner, not only your rote knowledge of 91.155, but also your ability to apply that knowledge to a practical situation, not to mention your ability to read and interpret all the available weather data, as well as determining from the sectional what airspace you'll be in so you know which paragraph of 91.155 applies along each part of your route. Those old-style Q&A books can't prepare you for that -- only a good instructor familiar with the concept of situationally based testing can.

So, for an IR test, the examiner may look at your flight plan, and ask you why the Alternate block is blank -- and have you justify that answer based on the regs and the weather. Or, if there is an airport there, ask you why you needed to put it there, and how you know it qualifies as a legal alternate today, which requires reference to weather, regs, NOTAMs, and the Terminal Procedures book. This is very different from the old days where an examiner would simply ask you "What's the required weather at your destination to not file an alternate? Can you use this approach as an alternate? What are the standard alternate minimums? Are the alternate minimums at this airport nonstandard?" and makes you think and analyze, not just parrot.

Now, there are still a few old-school examiners who pull out the Oral Test Prep book and start asking questions from it, but they are getting much fewer and farther between. Your instructor should be familiar with the testing styles of the local examiners, so s/he should be able to help you prepare, and give you a practice oral that reasonably accurately reflects that style.

 

[izzydogg]

Thanks for the input I really appreciate it! The flash cards are great. I'm glad to hear that the format may be discussion based during the oral. That just seems like it may work better for me.
Thanks again for the input!
Iz

 

[flyingron]

I can reiterate what CRon said. My checkride oral was pretty much a practical review of the flight readiness:

What personal qualifications: certificates, ratings, currency, etc... do you need for today's flights.
What aircraft qualifications: show me in the logs, show me W&B, etc..
What weather qualifications? Can we depart if the weather was 200-2? When would we need an alterante, etc...
Explain your flight planning. What fuel do we need?
What happens if we can't get into our destination?
What happens if we lose our radio right after takeoff?

There were a few questions on flight instruments during the preflight. Don't forget the obvious ones that are right there in the written exam: how do the gyros behave during startup and taxi...

 

[Ghery]

Last year my DPE had me plan a flight from The Dalles, Oregon (airport actually on the Washington side of the river) to Olympia (my home field). He then had a number of questions relating to the flight. How would you get out of The Dalles if the winds were from X? Watch for the DPs for that airport!. Somewhere he pulled a lost comm - what would you do? The winds are Y and the ceiling is Z at OLM (below minimums for all but the ILS 17 and the winds were a tail wind at some reasonable velocity for that approach). Would you launch? I said 'no', he had a different take (5500 foot runway, not that strong a tailwind, he'd go). I still think I'd look for another airport. The oral was a good conversation on conducting a flight safely. Have fun.