**This was my experience, yours may be and probably will be different**
My oral started roughly around 8:45a yesterday. I woke early and studied a little more and got to the school around 7:30. I decided to do the preflight early so I would have that done. I had planned on telling him after the oral portion that I had completed it earlier however, if he wanted to come back out to observe I would be glad to do it again. After the oral portion I did just that and he told me “You do a pre-check every time you do a training lesson, you’ve done an emergency decent or power-off landing maybe 3-4 times. That is what I want to see.”
We started the oral portion with the required briefings; Temporary, Discontinuance, & Failure.
I won’t go over every single question he asked because quite honestly if you made it past your written some of the same questions were asked. The vast majority of the questions were situational and they want to know what it states specifically in the FAR/AIM and not your interpretation of it.
· If your maintenance log is not tabbed, make sure it is before you go in there. Knowing exactly where to find the AD’s, 100hr and Annuals saved a lot of time.
· There was an emphasis on intimate knowledge of your powerplant and prop
· Know your graphical wxr charts and what they are depicting
· I was asked a lot of question on the sectional. IE; differences between the Airways, Show me Controlled Fire Airspace(not shown), what do the magenta flags mean? etc
· Know the difference between primary and secondary flight controls surfaces and what they affect.
· He asked one question where he already had his FAR/AIM opened to the page because he assumed I didn’t know the answer……..and I didn’t. What is Somatogravic Illusion? AIM 8.1.5. He advised that an accident had recent occurred and that was identified as the culprit.
We talked for about an hour and fifteen minutes and we were done. It wasn’t a grilling but more of a sharpened understanding of what I knew and an explanation of what I didn’t. It was a pleasant experience.
Since it was so windy, he told me that the PTS standards are based on calm conditions and to not worry about nailing all the maneuvers. In otherwords, I had some latitude. I started my xcountry and it was diverted at my first checkpoint. After I had the runway in sight, we broke off and climbed to get above the turbulence and started maneuvers. Steep turns, slow fight, power –off/ approach stall, power-on/departure stall, emergency decent and landing were all done within PTS standards. I then performed shortfield TO/LD and softfield TO/LD. From there we navigated back to KLZU and I was done. I guess he decided turns around a point and S turns were useless in 18G23 winds and I was thankful. The flight wasn’t perfect but, I am certificated and proud of it!
Anyone that wants more granular info just IM me.
Thanks,
Eric
so it is interesting to see what it is like nowadays.
