RiddlePilot
New Member
I passed my CFII checkride today after about 30-40 minutes of ground and 1.4 worth of flight. Not really much to say, but I'll outline what went on.
Ground:
We started out by chatting about airworthiness and MELs (strange, since I had already covered this on my initial). I'm pretty certain that he was testing my knowledge since ERAU tends to underemphesize this area. Once he was satisfied, he gave me an interesting problem: he gave me the situation where a student calls the school and asks about how to get an instrument rating. What it will take, how much it'll cost, etc. This was more of a discussion than anything, and he ended up letting me know how important it was for instructors to be able to rattle this info off to a prospective student, else you'll lose business. We then worked into about a 20 minute discussion on the BAI phase of instrument training. I got to the school with paperwork in hand at 8am, and I was preflighting at 8:45.
Flight:
Once I preflighted, the examiner hopped in and we started up. I taught an instrument cockpit check and taxi turns on the way out, and then gave a clearance in the run-up area. He took the takeoff, and I had to teach him how to track to DRK, and then how to intercept the R-349 outbound. No sweat.
At about 5 DME outbound, he hands over the controls and gives me a hold clearance. "Hold north of the DRK-349 12 DME fix, left hand turns." Hah...read my mind. I then taught the entry with emphasis on the Ts, and then we did 2 turns in the hold. On our last turn, I was about 2 seconds off my inbound time. Sweeeet.
We exited the hold and proceeded to do the VOR 12 via the north arc. I'd been sweating teaching arcs, but it really turned out fine. We completed the approach and went missed to KQNA ("fake" NDB near Prescott) to do some NDB tracking. Since KQNA is not a real NDB (rather, a radio station), he couldn't bust me even if I FUBR'd the tracking. That went well nonetheless.
We then did some unusual attitudes, and then I gave him simulated radar vectors for the ILS. Here's where the fun begins...I was so relaxed about how the checkride was going, I forgot the brief the notes on the plate! I have "MKR" handwritten in there, so you could imagine what happens next... He took the controls for the ILS, and I walked him through it without a problem. We get down to about 100 feet above DA and he says "aren't we supposed to have some markers?" D'OH! I quickly flipped it on and admitted my mistake of omitting a part of my brief. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif
We were taxiing in, and I was fearing the worst. Instead of busting me, he says "Other than the markers, good job. Let's get that temp written up." Whew.
The checkride wasn't hard at all, but a stupid mistake almost cost me. Moral of the story #1: Don't let your guard down on a checkride. Moral of the story #2: No matter how hard you prepare to have a perfect ride, it ain't gonna happen. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Ground:
We started out by chatting about airworthiness and MELs (strange, since I had already covered this on my initial). I'm pretty certain that he was testing my knowledge since ERAU tends to underemphesize this area. Once he was satisfied, he gave me an interesting problem: he gave me the situation where a student calls the school and asks about how to get an instrument rating. What it will take, how much it'll cost, etc. This was more of a discussion than anything, and he ended up letting me know how important it was for instructors to be able to rattle this info off to a prospective student, else you'll lose business. We then worked into about a 20 minute discussion on the BAI phase of instrument training. I got to the school with paperwork in hand at 8am, and I was preflighting at 8:45.
Flight:
Once I preflighted, the examiner hopped in and we started up. I taught an instrument cockpit check and taxi turns on the way out, and then gave a clearance in the run-up area. He took the takeoff, and I had to teach him how to track to DRK, and then how to intercept the R-349 outbound. No sweat.
At about 5 DME outbound, he hands over the controls and gives me a hold clearance. "Hold north of the DRK-349 12 DME fix, left hand turns." Hah...read my mind. I then taught the entry with emphasis on the Ts, and then we did 2 turns in the hold. On our last turn, I was about 2 seconds off my inbound time. Sweeeet.
We exited the hold and proceeded to do the VOR 12 via the north arc. I'd been sweating teaching arcs, but it really turned out fine. We completed the approach and went missed to KQNA ("fake" NDB near Prescott) to do some NDB tracking. Since KQNA is not a real NDB (rather, a radio station), he couldn't bust me even if I FUBR'd the tracking. That went well nonetheless.
We then did some unusual attitudes, and then I gave him simulated radar vectors for the ILS. Here's where the fun begins...I was so relaxed about how the checkride was going, I forgot the brief the notes on the plate! I have "MKR" handwritten in there, so you could imagine what happens next... He took the controls for the ILS, and I walked him through it without a problem. We get down to about 100 feet above DA and he says "aren't we supposed to have some markers?" D'OH! I quickly flipped it on and admitted my mistake of omitting a part of my brief. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/banghead.gif
We were taxiing in, and I was fearing the worst. Instead of busting me, he says "Other than the markers, good job. Let's get that temp written up." Whew.
The checkride wasn't hard at all, but a stupid mistake almost cost me. Moral of the story #1: Don't let your guard down on a checkride. Moral of the story #2: No matter how hard you prepare to have a perfect ride, it ain't gonna happen. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
