Oral Exam Gotchas

You guys joke about commas, periods, and semicolons. This stuff is serious. Look at New England. The have lost so many r’s over the years that the oceans are filling up with them. People blame climate change for sea level rise but it’s really all the missing r’s. Now quit fooling around and git to work saving the world!
 
DPEs differ in their approach to evaluation.
My DPE was a no-BS guy, ex-FedEx pilot who flew in bad IMC and was forced to fly in conditions in which he did not feel safe flying. So he emphasized safety and good decision making greatly.
"Know thy DPE", they say. And they are right. Talk to other students who had a checkride with your DPE. Find out what he prefers.
Good DPEs are not in it to fail us for anything minute they find. Good DPEs use to the checkride to still teach us a few more lessons.

My gotchas were funny.
"You're landing on a 1-mile rwy and the far half of the rwy is in fog. But you can see the numbers clearly. Can you land? Would you?"
I felt that the answer was "no" from legal perspective but could not quite put a finger on it. And told him I wouldn't anyway from personal safety feeling. He was happy but did point out the very obvious answer. D'oh! :)

Also regulations and lost comm procedures are key focus of most DPEs.
"If your radio quits while in Bravo airspace in IMC on a vector to get you to the IAF, what do you do?" - "What if you have intermittent ground contact and can see some airports down below?" - "What if you see a big break in the clouds above you and can climb out of IMC to VMC?" - "What if you JUST entered IMC? Would you do a 180 to land at the previous airport VFR?"
Pre-think some of these scenarios. Discuss them with multiple CFIIs. Discuss them with seasoned IR pilots. Discuss them with controller friends.
 
BigBadLou said:
My DPE was a no-BS guy, ex-FedEx pilot who flew in bad IMC and was forced to fly in conditions in which he did not feel safe flying. So he emphasized safety and good decision making greatly.
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He was never forced. He may have felt he needed the paycheck more than he needed to come home safely, but he was never forced.
 
Grum.Man said:
As my IFR checkride approaches I stress more about the oral testing than the flying. I feel like I am well prepared but am curious if anyone remembers some questions you were asked that tripped you up? I studied all sorts of material from the ground school I took, online studying I did, and some online content I have found both via youtube and other published sources. Fire away!
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Mine was pretty straightforward, challenging but not unreasonably so. It was very situational based... "you got your clearance XYX, then get vectored out for traffic, then you lose your comms and you are solid IMC. What do you do and why" one of the most obvious things, before you even get to the real answer of what altitude you fly and heading / clearance / etc, is, "did you try comm2? Are you on the right frequency?"

that kind of stuff

we also reviewed the absolute snot out of approach plates, what each little symbol, text, phrase, etc., meant

really there was only one that really threw me. It was "if your GPS database is out of date, can you still use it, and if you say yes, would you file as /G?"

jsstevens said:
answer the question they ask and shut up
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This. Don't try to impress them, just answer the question. Also, if you don't know an answer, at least know where to look it up
 
Walboy said:
Loss of comms. Know what the regs (91.185) and AIM (6-4-1) says, but also explain what you would do in real world scenario. The route and altitude are the easy answers. It's knowing what to do leaving your clearance limit (which is almost always the airport itself). Really think this part through.

Also, be able to apply common sense to alternate selection. 1-2-3 rule is just a trigger for loss of comms contingency planning. The alternate is not necessarily where you would go if you can't get into your destination. You can negotiate anything with ATC as long as you're in contact with them. I recently had a lengthy discussion with a DPE where he expressed his disappointment with the lack of common sense in alternate selection and how to apply alternate mins by many instrument rating candidates.

What weather scenarios would trigger a no-go for you in the airplane you will fly for the checkride? Know AIRMETs, Convective SIGMETs, how to obtain freezing/icing data. What are your favorite forecasting tools and why?

Finally, I would repeatedly emphasize that just because the regs allow you to do something, doesn't mean you should do it.
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this is really good stuff. I would say a solid 20% - 30% of my oral was lost comm stuff, running through a few different scenarios. And like posted above, there is the text book answer, but also the common sense real world application
 
My wife had an oral exam gotcha the other day. The dental hygienist had chocolate flavored toothpaste. :)
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Airline pilots don’t have personal minimums. It’s either legal or it’s not. If it’s legal you fly.
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...it's legal to fly to reported extreme turbulence, but most pilots don't do it...
So yes, airline pilots have personal minimums too, just not with ceilings/RVR.
 
mtuomi said:
...it's legal to fly to reported extreme turbulence, but most pilots don't do it...
So yes, airline pilots have personal minimums too, just not with ceilings/RVR.
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Nit picking.

Have you worked for an airline where the captain had the authority to cancel a flight?
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Nit picking.

Have you worked for an airline where the captain had the authority to cancel a flight?
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I know a Captain who did exactly that (in cooperation with dispatch) on a US to Australia flight where the ITCZ was so full of thunderstorms and they’d be there at night, that he simply said “no, screw that... we can’t even pick our way through that mess”.

Dispatch and Chief Pilot backed him up on the weather call.

Would have been perfectly legal to fly it.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Nit picking.

Have you worked for an airline where the captain had the authority to cancel a flight?
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Yes, the current airline I work for.
And every other 121 and 135 air carrier in the country.
Are you seriously claiming that you work for an airline where the captain is not the final authority?

At our airline, if my FO is not comfortable, we don't go. I'm pretty sure same goes for every other certified air carrier.
 
mtuomi said:
Yes, the current airline I work for.
And every other 121 and 135 air carrier in the country.
Are you seriously claiming that you work for an airline where the captain is not the final authority?

At our airline, if my FO is not comfortable, we don't go. I'm pretty sure same goes for every other certified air carrier.
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I have worked for three and all three did not extend the authority to cancel a flight to the crew or dispatch. That was the role of operations management. Dispatchers and crew can recommend cancelation but it’s not their decision. Of course no one can make you go but you better be able to articulate the reason.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I have worked for three and all three did not extend the authority to cancel a flight to the crew or dispatch. That was the role of operations management. Dispatchers and crew can recommend cancelation but it’s not their decision. Of course no one can make you go but you better be able to articulate the reason.
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"My FO is not comfortable with the weather around the area, we're not pushing", job done. Captain just cancelled a flight.
Get a call from CP, say what happened, case closed.

You need to read 121.533, especially (c)(3), which gives dispatcher and PIC the authority to cancel a flight.

(c) The aircraft dispatcher is responsible for -

(3) Cancelling or redispatching a flight if, in his opinion or the opinion of the pilot in command, the flight cannot operate or continue to operate safely as planned or released.
 
mtuomi said:
"My FO is not comfortable with the weather around the area, we're not pushing", job done. Captain just cancelled a flight.
Get a call from CP, say what happened, case closed.

You need to read 121.533, especially (c)(3), which gives dispatcher and PIC the authority to cancel a flight.

(c) The aircraft dispatcher is responsible for -

(3) Cancelling or redispatching a flight if, in his opinion or the opinion of the pilot in command, the flight cannot operate or continue to operate safely as planned or released.
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I’m already familiar. And you still haven’t figured out I’m returning your nit pick. But whatever.
 
I can’t cancel any flight. I can give my opinion and say why I don’t want to go but ultimately it’s up to operations. If they decide to go with something I’m not comfortable with I’ll take myself off the flight. The dispatcher and the captain have to come to a mutual agreement. Every cancellation I’ve been a part of was the operations’ call.
 
Clark1961 said:
You guys joke about commas, periods, and semicolons. This stuff is serious. Look at New England. The have lost so many r’s over the years that the oceans are filling up with them. People blame climate change for sea level rise but it’s really all the missing r’s. Now quit fooling around and git to work saving the world!
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It's much worse now that the pirate population has decreased...they took a lot of the Arrr's back out to keep the oceans from filling up.
 
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