IRA Checkride Questions

garywinthorpe

garywinthorpe

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garywinthorpe
Hi all, planning on having my instrument checkride within the next two weeks. Main question is, what counts as an "FAA source", aka, what can I bring on this? My plan was to bring the ACS to follow the outline. On that same page (no pun intended) am I allowed to mark up the ACS in any way? I have a printed ACS with appropriate references for all questions and scenarios. Would I be allowed to bring this or does it have to be a clean slate. Also, I'm assuming I couldn't reference a document such as the Pilot's Cafe quick review (highly reccommend.)
Thanks all.
 
I can't understand why you're asking if you can mark up the ACS. Of course you can, it's your copy of it. Write all over it. That said, I don't think bringing the ACS to the checkride is particularly useful in itself. I mean, you should be very familiar with it, but it's not really going to be a reference for any of the questions the examiner is likely to ask.

What counts as official sources? Pretty simple, anything published or approved by the FAA or the government in general. So, the FAR, AIM, Instrument Procedures Handbook, Instrument Flying Handbook, the POH/AFM for your airplane, etc.

Secondary sources like your ground school books, etc., are fine to bring too. But if the examiner asks you a question, you should know where in the primary sources you need to look to find it, not "According to Sportys...".
 
I brought both instrument rating handbooks from asa, a tabbed and highlighted Far/Aim, and the pilots cafe review sheet as well. During the oral, I looked at the review sheet several times and also looked things up in the Far/aim as well. The DPE did not seem to care what I was looking at as long as I understood the correct answer and could articulate it beyond just rote recall. I believe the pilots cage review sheet has all the references listed on each section anyway. More of just a short cut for quick reminders or least that’s how I used it.
 
the only useful information on the ACS would be the limits placed on maneuvers. The DPE has discretion on all parts of the exam... and even if you break a limit, the important thing is that you realize it and correct.
Yes there are horror stories about people getting disapprovals for very minor things but those are relatively rare.
You really have to butcher the oral... most people that post about failing the oral cite some pretty huge errors.
I wouldn't take the ACS... just one more thing to screw up.... is the the current version? is it complete etc.
 
zayerpaul said:
I brought both instrument rating handbooks from asa, a tabbed and highlighted Far/Aim, and the pilots cafe review sheet as well. During the oral, I looked at the review sheet several times and also looked things up in the Far/aim as well. The DPE did not seem to care what I was looking at as long as I understood the correct answer and could articulate it beyond just rote recall. I believe the pilots cage review sheet has all the references listed on each section anyway. More of just a short cut for quick reminders or least that’s how I used it.
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Exactly what I was looking for. Mostly just using it to memorize references at this point, the DPE I'm using is a big fan of references and will skip the question altogether if you give the reference (within reason of course.)
And yes, I will try to refrain from saying "but but I read it on PofA so it must be true!!" during my checkride. Thanks all!
 
I had a stack of stuff I took to my instrument ride. However the majority of the answers could be found in the Digital Terminal Procedures Supplement. My cfii was big on that pub and it paid off big time for me.
 
Kitch said:
I had a stack of stuff I took to my instrument ride. However the majority of the answers could be found in the Digital Terminal Procedures Supplement. My cfii was big on that pub and it paid off big time for me.
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Just 700+ pages of light reading! Insomnia solved, thanks
 
Besides bringing your books, be ready for the potential the checkride could be different from the way you are being trained.

A friend and I both started IR training at the same time with the same CFII. Our CFII left for the airlines and we each ended up with different CFIIs to finish up.

There were some interesting developments on our checkrides, a couple weeks apart.

My CFII liked to play ATC so I rarely filed. I was used to requesting practice approaches and other types of comms and getting instructions from the CFII.

My friend’s CFII had him file for nearly every flight, so he wasn’t used to requesting practice approaches.

At checkride time my DPE expected me to file and deal with ATC for real. Not a big deal, but it wasn’t something I was used to so it added to the stress.

My friend’s DPE was the opposite and acted like ATC. In my friend’s case, it also wasn’t a big deal but he wasn’t used to THAT so it also added to the stress level.

Be comfortable with either situation.
 
Remember that the practical test is designed to test your ability to correlate your knowledge, using scenarios whenever possible... so it's less likely you'll field a question to which an appropriate response would be to recite rote knowledge.

I'm intimately familiar with the Pilot's Cafe IRA handout. It's not a bad resource, really, for study purposes, but chances are you wouldn't find it too handy working through one of my scenarios.

Marked up documents with references are okay, to a point. Example: I had a CFI-IA applicant sitting in front of me with a desk completely filled to the brim with materials, open to various pages, tabbed references, etc. No problem. We start the ground portion. A few questions into the conversation, I'm noticing his immediate response is to find the appropriate reference material and start quoting information from that source. So I ask him to close the books and suggest he can open one up if he really needs it. He did fine, but there's a number of ways to demonstrate the appropriate knowledge level for the certificate or rating sought. Looking up the information each and every time isn't one of them.
 
It’s an open book exam, and showing you have a basic knowledge on most of the stuff, and that you know how to look up stuff you didn’t remember, is all part of the process.
 
Matthew said:
My PP CFI told me (can’t remember the exact words): “It’s a knowledge test, not a lookup test.”
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That’s the written and yes if you need to look up everything that’s a no go. It’s not that difficult…
 
mandm said:
It’s an open book exam, and showing you have a basic knowledge on most of the stuff, and that you know how to look up stuff you didn’t remember, is all part of the process.
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Matthew said:
My PP CFI told me (can’t remember the exact words): “It’s a knowledge test, not a lookup test.”
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Two…two…two mints in one.

It’s both. There are things you gotta know and things you are going to look up. The difference is clear in some cases but fuzzy in other cases, but in both there is a real world component.

“You are flying along VFR and the ceiling starts lowering. How much cloud clearance do you need.” By the time you look it up, it’s an emergency.
 
My experience with both my check rides (private and instrument) was the DPE could tell right away if you knew your stuff, even if you did have to look up something to verify the wording. My IR DPE followed up a few questions with, “Yeah, I know you know the book answer, but ‘why’?” We had some good discussions.
 
midlifeflyer said:
There are things you gotta know and things you are going to look up. The difference is clear in some cases but fuzzy in other cases, but in both there is a real world component.
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A “real world component” would also be that if you look up every answer, it’s going to be a loooooooooooooooong oral.
 
Pro tip: If you're bringing reference materials, it's recommended that you take them out of the shrink-wrapping first.

I got to the airport one day and a DPE I know was just finishing up a checkride, by which I mean it was like 9 AM and they were finishing... I asked him what happened and he said he had asked an applicant a question, the applicant didn't know the answer but suggested it would be found in the POH. The DPE said, "okay, go ahead and look it up". The applicant broke out his copy of the POH, which was still in the original shrink-wrapping. Let's just say it hadn't been going well anyway and certainly didn't get better from there.
 
RussR said:
Pro tip: If you're bringing reference materials, it's recommended that you take them out of the shrink-wrapping first.

I got to the airport one day and a DPE I know was just finishing up a checkride, by which I mean it was like 9 AM and they were finishing... I asked him what happened and he said he had asked an applicant a question, the applicant didn't know the answer but suggested it would be found in the POH. The DPE said, "okay, go ahead and look it up". The applicant broke out his copy of the POH, which was still in the original shrink-wrapping. Let's just say it hadn't been going well anyway and certainly didn't get better from there.
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To paraphrase an old blues song (which is, of course, how new blues songs are written)…

My mother she taught me how to read
My mother she taught me how to read
If I don't read, my checkride bust
Ain't nobody's fault but mine
 
I just had my IFR checkride and the DPE allowed any source I would trust. I prepped by opening the FAA section in Foreflight documents and bookmarking all the areas that guides like the Gold Seal and Flight Insight PDF prep guides touched on. Then I simply searched inside the Docs I had downloaded to Foreflight.

I had a brain fart and when asked about identifying the approach lighting "rabbit" and descending to 100 feet, I had to look up if it was runway height or touchdown zone height, that was hard to find and verify, gave up digging and Googled it, then used the link to get back into the official FAA source.
 
Chris Mixon said:
I had a brain fart and when asked about identifying the approach lighting "rabbit" and descending to 100 feet, I had to look up if it was runway height or touchdown zone height, that was hard to find and verify, gave up digging and Googled it, then used the link to get back into the official FAA source.
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Which was?
 
I'm pretty sure I did not have a FAR or AIM with me when I did my instrument ride. Just the plates/charts, the logs, and all the aircraft required documents. THink of it this way. You're not likely to have an FARs with you in the aircraft and start looking stuff up when you're flying, are you? Certain things you should know (alternate requirements, lost comm rules, etc...).
 
Chris Mixon said:
I just had my IFR checkride and the DPE allowed any source I would trust. I prepped by opening the FAA section in Foreflight documents and bookmarking all the areas that guides like the Gold Seal and Flight Insight PDF prep guides touched on. Then I simply searched inside the Docs I had downloaded to Foreflight.

I had a brain fart and when asked about identifying the approach lighting "rabbit" and descending to 100 feet, I had to look up if it was runway height or touchdown zone height, that was hard to find and verify, gave up digging and Googled it, then used the link to get back into the official FAA source.
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The source is in CFR 14 91.175(c)(3)(i) which specifies the TDZE as the reference. Back in 2013, the FAA had removed TDZE from about 3000 approach plates and replaced it with the ICAO THRE which is the Threshold Elevation. This was done as part of an ICAO harmonization push by the FAA. I pointed this out to the FAA and noted that there was no way to comply with the FAA regulations if TDZE wasn't published. After review by the FAA General Counsel, the FAA agreed it was a mistake and it took a few years to correct. In the interim, the FAA published a list of runways and the TDZE for those that had THRE published on the approach charts.
 
MauleSkinner said:
To paraphrase an old blues song (which is, of course, how new blues songs are written)…

My mother she taught me how to read
My mother she taught me how to read
If I don't read, my checkride bust
Ain't nobody's fault but mine
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With all due credit to Blind Willie, I think Robert Plant and the boys did it best ;)
 
Chris Mixon said:
I had a brain fart and when asked about identifying the approach lighting "rabbit" and descending to 100 feet, I had to look up if it was runway height or touchdown zone height, that was hard to find and verify, gave up digging and Googled it, then used the link to get back into the official FAA source.
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I am going to blame the "guides" for that. Like many mnemonics, they may not be designed to, but they do have the effect of providing purely rote knowledge, avoiding knowledge of the regulations. Without their "assistance," how difficult would it be to realize that (a) it's a "rule of the road," so it's going to be Part 91, (b) it's in the "subpart" of Part 91 entitled "Instrument Flight Rules" and (c) a regulation in the table of contents entitled "Takeoff and landing under IFR" just might have the answer?

Once, I happened upon a student pilot having a mock oral. Having a lot of problems with the regs. I asked whether I could butt in and showed the student the Table of Contents and how it was organized. It was like someone had switched a light on.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
I am going to blame the "guides" for that. Like many mnemonics, they may not be designed to, but they do have the effect of providing purely rote knowledge and were and avoiding knowledge of the regulations. Without their "assistance," how difficult would it be to realize that (a) it's a "rule of the road," so it's going to be Part 91, (b) it's in the "subpart" of Part 91 entitled "Instrument Flight Rules" and (c) a regulation in the table of contents entitled "Takeoff and landing under IFR" just might have the answer?

Once, I happened upon a student pilot having a mock oral. Having a lot of problems with the regs. I asked whether I could butt in and showed the student the Table of Contents and how it was organized. It was like someone had switched a light on.
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I even had those sections bookmarked(tabbed) in my electronic copy of the FAR/AIM, but had not broken it down enough in my head under pressure to drive to it logically. (which I guess was the point).

Our DPE is a very practical guy and the question was part of a conversation about performing a specific approach with the lighting on that runway, not as esoterica, so I appreciated him bringing it back to the front of my mind and the oral had been going very well to that point, so I think he wanted me to show I could find a regulation.

The electronic versions of the FAA documents are great, but now that I think about it in this context, tabbing a physical copy is probably a better approach to learning where information is inside the document. When you bookmark, you are creating shortcuts and losing the structural elements.

Thanks again for all your input and detailed responses!

Chris
 
John Collins said:
The source is in CFR 14 91.175(c)(3)(i) which specifies the TDZE as the reference. Back in 2013, the FAA had removed TDZE from about 3000 approach plates and replaced it with the ICAO THRE which is the Threshold Elevation. This was done as part of an ICAO harmonization push by the FAA. I pointed this out to the FAA and noted that there was no way to comply with the FAA regulations if TDZE wasn't published. After review by the FAA General Counsel, the FAA agreed it was a mistake and it took a few years to correct. In the interim, the FAA published a list of runways and the TDZE for those that had THRE published on the approach charts.
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I wish I could convince someone that not including the fix outside the FAF in the procedure in my FMS is a bad idea, particularly when that fix has a mandatory altitude attached to it (GPS-X at KTEB).

Unfortunately it’s not a widespread enough problem to gain traction…my FMS is the only box I’m aware of that does it.
 
Chris Mixon said:
I even had those sections bookmarked(tabbed) in my electronic copy of the FAR/AIM, but had not broken it down enough in my head under pressure to drive to it logically. (which I guess was the point).
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Exactly. A lot of this is about how different individuals learn, but I think for many "I need to look at the part of the FAR with the rules of instrument flight" beat out "now, which of my 50 tabs is the right one." In the long run anyway.

But I have a slight tendency to rant about these things :D
 
midlifeflyer said:
Exactly. A lot of this is about how different individuals learn, but I think for many "I need to look at the part of the FAR with the rules of instrument flight" beat out "now, which of my 50 tabs is the right one." In the long run anyway.

But I have a slight tendency to rant about these things :D
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It’s not a rant until you start explaining how a Table of Contents and a good Index beat a search engine every time. ;)
 
Update: passed the oral this morning! Discontinued because of marginal weather, and I was fried from the oral. Cracked the FAR’s open maybe twice, rest of it was right off the top of my head. I wayyyyy overprepared but I think he recognized my proficiency and let me off pretty easy. Word of advice though, there’s no such thing as being too prepared for an oral.
 
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