My biggest struggle right now is mastering the written test and preparing for the oral. The practical flying is easy for me, especially the ATC communications.
Any suggestions for passing the oral exam? I watch a lot of YouTube videos discussing the testing. It seems to help some but I could use any tips.
Some will say split those. Written, there’s cramming into your brain options like Sheppard. However it will leave you somewhat unprepared for the oral. But it will get the written out of the way. Some don’t like it because it’s just answer memorization and not concept understanding, and I can see that opinion also.
As far as the oral, the ASA books mentioned are a decent start. They’ll get you thinking about typical questions. Also remember the order of the day from FAA to DPEs is scenarios. And scenario based questions. Thus, a common practice today is simply to tell you to plan an XC flight and then just start conversationally asking you questions about the entire flight from planning, aircraft performance, why you chose the amount of fuel in board, airspace along the way, weather, to whatever. It’s pretty easy for an examiner to tell if you’ve done your homework simply by talking through “what will you do in real life?”
If you’re confident in your planning and such and know what everything on the chart from here to there is... you’ll do fine. There may be flat memorization stuff tossed in there you’ll have to know. “Hey, I see you avoided that Class Bravo airspace but there’s weather right here, and we can get around it by flying through... what’s required to go in there and how do we do it?” The scenario will be “changed” as you go along to figure out both if you can make real world adjustments as well as if you know the regs and such.
And of course some examiners have pet questions designed to see if you’ll simply answer the question or dig yourself into a hole. A favorite around here is airworthiness. The candidate who rattles off only the FAR that lists standard VFR and IFR equipment will be asked, “Anything else?” If they look super confused perhaps a hint... “What about the AFM?” The examiner knows other things control airworthiness besides that list. The applicant should too.
No oral can possibly cover everything. But a solid understand of the regs for the flight, good planning, and chart reading... will go a heck of a long way. Additionally knowing the regs at least well enough to know where to look something up (frankly many people find this difficult under pressure — relax — just look it up like you forgot it at home and you already have the certificate!) that can be fine too. General rule of thumb there: If it’s something you must know not to break a reg in the air, memorize it or at least the main jist of it and know where you look up the oddball stuff. Anything you normally would look up on the ground anyway, can be looked up for a perfect and proper answer in an oral. But this assumes you at least know the answer is there in the book and where you find it. What section, his not to be fumbling around in the book. Some folks like to use colored tabs and such. I’m not a fan. The book has a table of contents and subject reference by word in the back. I just pick it up and use the built in tools in it.
But some say the tabs make it look like you sturdied. Ha. Every DPE knows how to ask questions to see if you studied. Some colored tabs aren’t fooling them.
And hey. Some like electronic FAR/AIMs too. That’s fine. I’m faster with a book. Some of the apps have nice bookmark and search features and some people zoom zoom with their electronic tools. I bring both. But I usually end up referencing the dead-tree version. I did find the search function useful on something very left-field on one checkride so... your mileage may vary. The electronic search let me scan the results because I knew the answer was there bur couldn’t remember the section it was in. So... it was faster that day.
All in all, also trust your instructor. They have to sign off that they prepped you for the ride and the oral is included in that. They’ll be tossing quizzes at you orally as you go along and many will do a complete mock oral before the checkride to help you find any gaps in your study. You’ll get feedback on what was weak if you don’t already immediately “get it” during those.
Usually when we hit a topic I had forgotten to bone up on, it was a head slapper... “Oh right! I need to go re-read all of that. Let me make a note here to do that at home. It’s this section of the regs... here it is... riiiight... got it.”
Also read the pinned post titled Capt Levy’s Checkride tips here, or something like that. It has good advice on stuff like the aforementioned “Just answer the question. Don’t get hung up wondering why they’re asking it and get nervous or add to it.” (Paraphrased...)
Finally there’s theory. Almost all examiners are going to ask you how aircraft fly. What flight controls do and why. And some aircraft systems questions. Describe this airplane’s electrical system. What do you do in X scenario (electrical system smoke for example, or the more vague “smoke in the cockpit”) or a different system and emergencies they can typically have.
Don’t overthink the oral. It’s a conversation with a very experienced pilot seeing if you understand the stuff you’ll need to know to plan, prep yourself and the aircraft, and fly, a flight. Then you go out to the airplane and demonstrate those XC skills and emergency procedures and such. Plus all the required maneuvers too.
It all builds off of each other. Good DPEs have a plan that’ll lead from basics right up to “okay you get all this stuff, let’s go see how you fly”. No real surprises by most of them. They’re just making sure you know what you need to know I be safe, efficient, and legal.
I barely remember my private ride other than how fast it all seemed to go and a couple of sketchy landings I wasn’t happy with and I said so. Examiner gave me the evil eye and agreed. Wasn’t out of spec but wasn’t pretty either.
Also a story about Morse code but that’s not a thing y’all will be dealing with. (He didn’t believe I could tune and identify without counting dots and dashes on the chart. Ha. I could. (I had to prove it. I don’t think he was expecting a 19 year old to solidly copy Morse. Haha.)
As far as regs go, I found them much more interesting over the years when I sat down to study them with a “when will I need to know this part in real life?” sort of attitude, instead of trying to read them like a story or just a pile of regs. Like airworthiness. When do I care? Preflight! Is that transponder check up to date? Where is that kept for this airplane? 100 hour and or annual? Pitot-Static? Etc. If I took the reg and related it to my next airport trip and asked “hey where’s the aircraft logs, can you show me where the sign off for X is?” Much more useful and interesting than dry reading of regs.
Have fun. Hope that helps.
