I have been reading through posts here leading up to my CFI check ride and now that I have something useful to share, I figured I should contribute what I saw.
My check ride was at my local airport rather than at the airport near the FSDO due to some cost and insurance issues. I also used 2 aircraft, a 177RG for the complex portion and a PA-28-161 for everything else.
The check ride began at 8:30, we spent about 30-45 minutes going over paper work. Pretty standard stuff here, only I treated it as a teaching opportunity. After about 15 minutes of teaching he said "I see you can teach, now lets just show me what we need." The only thing that gave me any trouble was finding when the ELT batteries must be replaced. It's in the logbooks, but in my case it was buried 3 years back in the books and is separate from the ELT inspection. He did talk about how CFI check rides always end up going. It starts with the applicant answering questions in a teaching way and then ending up "in the gutter" as simple answers. He said that's just how it always ends up and it's not anything to worry about.
Once the test began we went right down the PTS. I have an AGI so we skipped the FOI section. He asked me to pick a number between 1 and 6 (I think), I picked 4 which was the flight controls section. I listed them, got some question about the trim tab. He wanted to know the difference between a servo tab and an anti-servo tab and when each one would be used. He had to ask about endorsements. I showed that I had AC-61-65 and noted that 61.39 wasn't in the AC. He was very happy with that, we breezed through the rest of the required questions in that section. He had a few questions about the requirements to get a private and what kind of limitations there are. I gave very direct answers and that's all my examiner wanted.
He gave me another "pick a number" option, I picked 5 which was airworthiness requirements. I really lucked out here as we had just gone through determining the airworthiness of 2 airplanes. We talked a little more on this topic and he was pretty satisfied with what I told him.
We talked a little about the landing gear on the 177, and went into the emergency gear extension procedure. Very straight forward.
He wanted to know about spins. I have watched this video
a few times and have used it in a ground school class I teach and basically paraphrased it. The instructor that gave me my spin endorsement went to the APS school, and used their "push power rudder roll climb" spin recovery technique. The examiner was very impressed with everything up until the point when I said "push power rudder roll climb." He made me look up the PA-28 spin recovery in the POH and see how it differed, and then he talked about how important it is to not use a generalized procedure; every airplane has it's own published recovery and should be memorized. That was the only time in the check ride he found a problem, which I think was pretty good.
Last thing was me teaching a lesson plan. He asked what my favorite maneuver was, I thought about it and said I liked steep turns. He asked if I wanted to teach a lesson on steep turns. I really appreciated the chance to choose what maneuver I taught. I think he held me to a higher standard because I had some say in it, but that was fine with me!
We talked about the flight, came up with a plan of what maneuvers we would do, not necessarily the order, but we did make a list of what we would do. more on that later.
We flew the 177 first. we did one takeoff an approach, a last minute go around and then a landing. Very straight forward.
We got out, hopped in the warrior did a short field take off, and went to the practice area. After a clearing turn I taught a steep turn, then critiqued the examiner. he didn't do anything too unexpected. didn't go steep enough right away, then started to descend, then used too much rudder. One turn and he was satisfied. We went straight into slow flight, then did a power off stall followed by a trim stall. Then a sim engine failure to 1,000' AGL. At that point I said our field was easily made and elected to recover. One thing he wanted to see was me actually going through the flows. Meaning actually turning on the carb heat, actually going to full throttle (he brought it back to idle), changing tanks, etc. From there we did an 8's on pylon. It was pretty calm wind so much much of a challenge or teaching opportunity. I did one chandelle to gain some altitude and came back to the airport. Short field landing, power off 180 and I was done.
It went very good, I'd call it the easiest check ride I ever had. I attribute it to my preparedness and having an AGI. I had 4 big binders, one with lesson plans (mine are posted here, http://flight.derekbeck.com/ as the "highly formatted version") One with a bunch of handwritten notes from my instructor, and my commercial binder with the PTS and other relevant information, and the last one with applicable AC's. I had my FAR/AIM sitting out and tabbed, but didn't even have to crack it open. I had both PTS's on the table. My iPad ready to go, my computer with powerpoint slides.
I hope someone finds this helpful and encouraging!
My check ride was at my local airport rather than at the airport near the FSDO due to some cost and insurance issues. I also used 2 aircraft, a 177RG for the complex portion and a PA-28-161 for everything else.
The check ride began at 8:30, we spent about 30-45 minutes going over paper work. Pretty standard stuff here, only I treated it as a teaching opportunity. After about 15 minutes of teaching he said "I see you can teach, now lets just show me what we need." The only thing that gave me any trouble was finding when the ELT batteries must be replaced. It's in the logbooks, but in my case it was buried 3 years back in the books and is separate from the ELT inspection. He did talk about how CFI check rides always end up going. It starts with the applicant answering questions in a teaching way and then ending up "in the gutter" as simple answers. He said that's just how it always ends up and it's not anything to worry about.
Once the test began we went right down the PTS. I have an AGI so we skipped the FOI section. He asked me to pick a number between 1 and 6 (I think), I picked 4 which was the flight controls section. I listed them, got some question about the trim tab. He wanted to know the difference between a servo tab and an anti-servo tab and when each one would be used. He had to ask about endorsements. I showed that I had AC-61-65 and noted that 61.39 wasn't in the AC. He was very happy with that, we breezed through the rest of the required questions in that section. He had a few questions about the requirements to get a private and what kind of limitations there are. I gave very direct answers and that's all my examiner wanted.
He gave me another "pick a number" option, I picked 5 which was airworthiness requirements. I really lucked out here as we had just gone through determining the airworthiness of 2 airplanes. We talked a little more on this topic and he was pretty satisfied with what I told him.
We talked a little about the landing gear on the 177, and went into the emergency gear extension procedure. Very straight forward.
He wanted to know about spins. I have watched this video
Last thing was me teaching a lesson plan. He asked what my favorite maneuver was, I thought about it and said I liked steep turns. He asked if I wanted to teach a lesson on steep turns. I really appreciated the chance to choose what maneuver I taught. I think he held me to a higher standard because I had some say in it, but that was fine with me!
We talked about the flight, came up with a plan of what maneuvers we would do, not necessarily the order, but we did make a list of what we would do. more on that later.
We flew the 177 first. we did one takeoff an approach, a last minute go around and then a landing. Very straight forward.
We got out, hopped in the warrior did a short field take off, and went to the practice area. After a clearing turn I taught a steep turn, then critiqued the examiner. he didn't do anything too unexpected. didn't go steep enough right away, then started to descend, then used too much rudder. One turn and he was satisfied. We went straight into slow flight, then did a power off stall followed by a trim stall. Then a sim engine failure to 1,000' AGL. At that point I said our field was easily made and elected to recover. One thing he wanted to see was me actually going through the flows. Meaning actually turning on the carb heat, actually going to full throttle (he brought it back to idle), changing tanks, etc. From there we did an 8's on pylon. It was pretty calm wind so much much of a challenge or teaching opportunity. I did one chandelle to gain some altitude and came back to the airport. Short field landing, power off 180 and I was done.
It went very good, I'd call it the easiest check ride I ever had. I attribute it to my preparedness and having an AGI. I had 4 big binders, one with lesson plans (mine are posted here, http://flight.derekbeck.com/ as the "highly formatted version") One with a bunch of handwritten notes from my instructor, and my commercial binder with the PTS and other relevant information, and the last one with applicable AC's. I had my FAR/AIM sitting out and tabbed, but didn't even have to crack it open. I had both PTS's on the table. My iPad ready to go, my computer with powerpoint slides.
I hope someone finds this helpful and encouraging!
