Had my CFI checkride yesterday. Turned out not as stressful as I had imagined. In fact, it was one of the least stressful rides for me. I know others say it's their worst, but I went in with a not too worried attitude, which helped.
I got to the school about 10 minutes early and the DPE is already there, so we go ahead and get started. We do all the paperwork up front, which takes about half an hour. All the time he's trying to make me at ease, and explains that he's not looking to fail anyone. He just wants to make sure you're competent and safe. Nice guy actually, so I feel pretty good about things.
He had a lot of questions on the 8710 form and how you fill it out and which of the boxes should be checked for different types of checkrides. I guess he has had a lot of incorrectly filled out forms and doesn't want that trouble from any new CFIs. I answered most of his questions satisfactorily.
Finally we get into something that I had actually prepared for. He asked me to teach him about weather as if he's a new student who wants to know when it's okay to fly. Weather is my weak point. I started with the basics of the Sun heating the earth, which is the basis of all weather and how this creates highs and lows, and then moved into fronts, but really didn't have a clear plan of where I was going with it and it showed. Finally I just asked if he had any questions, which he did, so that set my in the right direction. I just answered a few of his questions, and then he said, "okay, now teach me about aerodynamics.
This went pretty smoothly. I have a better grasp on this and it's not such a wide-ranging topic as the weather. He then asked me to explain airspace, which I think I was doing okay with at first, but he started asking some detailed questions about who controls what airspace, and was trying to make the point that weather controls the airspace. That is, for VFR flight, if the weather is below minimums, that's the controlling factor on whether you can enter a specific airspace.
I then taught a few maneuvers, which he hardly commented on before he said "okay, you're passing so far-let's go fly."
The flight was very easy. He just had me start up, take off, and fly to the practice area before having me start to "teach." I then went through a chandelle, lazy 8, power-off stall, slow flight, turns around a point, and rectangular course, before he said "let's head back." He said "get us down without incident and you're passed" so I just did a normal landing and taxied in.
Feels good to be done with it! The studying was overwhelming, but the checkride was not bad at all. Now I need a job /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
I got to the school about 10 minutes early and the DPE is already there, so we go ahead and get started. We do all the paperwork up front, which takes about half an hour. All the time he's trying to make me at ease, and explains that he's not looking to fail anyone. He just wants to make sure you're competent and safe. Nice guy actually, so I feel pretty good about things.
He had a lot of questions on the 8710 form and how you fill it out and which of the boxes should be checked for different types of checkrides. I guess he has had a lot of incorrectly filled out forms and doesn't want that trouble from any new CFIs. I answered most of his questions satisfactorily.
Finally we get into something that I had actually prepared for. He asked me to teach him about weather as if he's a new student who wants to know when it's okay to fly. Weather is my weak point. I started with the basics of the Sun heating the earth, which is the basis of all weather and how this creates highs and lows, and then moved into fronts, but really didn't have a clear plan of where I was going with it and it showed. Finally I just asked if he had any questions, which he did, so that set my in the right direction. I just answered a few of his questions, and then he said, "okay, now teach me about aerodynamics.
This went pretty smoothly. I have a better grasp on this and it's not such a wide-ranging topic as the weather. He then asked me to explain airspace, which I think I was doing okay with at first, but he started asking some detailed questions about who controls what airspace, and was trying to make the point that weather controls the airspace. That is, for VFR flight, if the weather is below minimums, that's the controlling factor on whether you can enter a specific airspace.
I then taught a few maneuvers, which he hardly commented on before he said "okay, you're passing so far-let's go fly."
The flight was very easy. He just had me start up, take off, and fly to the practice area before having me start to "teach." I then went through a chandelle, lazy 8, power-off stall, slow flight, turns around a point, and rectangular course, before he said "let's head back." He said "get us down without incident and you're passed" so I just did a normal landing and taxied in.
Feels good to be done with it! The studying was overwhelming, but the checkride was not bad at all. Now I need a job /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif
