CFI Checkride

citrus said:
Congrats, full write up is in order sir - after all the celebrations are said and done with.
Click to expand...

I didn't realize being a member here had so many responsibilities. :-)

Regarding study prep: I started CFI training (officially) in November. Having a full-time job and family meant that I could only hit a couple classes a week, and mid-December I backed off to focus on re-writing some pre-made lesson plans. In January I took up classes again focusing on going through each lesson plan/topic. Toward the end of February I got back into the plane to learn the right seat and knock some dust off since I hadn't flown in 3 months. I also had to re-learn the commercial maneuvers in a 150 (Had done my commercial in a Cherokee), was immediately reminded that 150's have no power and love to float past your intended landing spot. I chose the 150 because (a) I'll be doing most of my teaching in it and (b) it was cheaper and I'm on a budget.

I had gone over FOI stuff early in the training, but during the last week we hit it again and so I was relatively confident in that area. And since I've been teaching teenagers as a youth pastor for the last 15 years gave me some practical application to talk about with the DPE.

2 days before the checkride I spend 2 sessions doing 19 landings because I wasn't comfortable with the short field in the 150. It was a windy day which didn't exactly help to boost my confidence, but I finally got it nailed down.

The examination itself:

First off, I really recommend Kyle as a DPE. He's an examiner that if he were to fail me I'd know I deserved it, and he's also quite fair. I'd had him for my instrument checkride 2 years prior. During the oral examination I was the most comfortable I think I'd ever been. At times it was quite enjoyable talking and discussing the finer points of learning behaviors or paperwork even. My weak area has always been systems since I'm not exactly mechanically minded, but I did well enough that the topic didn't even come up during the debrief. The rep from my school (Kingsky Flight Academy) was present during the debrief and he was astounded by how little Kyle said about the oral exam. I took that as a compliment. I taught the lesson on steep turns, and my word of advice to any future CFI's (especially if you're using Kyle as a DPE), don't recommend taking out bank angle to correct for loss of altitude. Pitch and power are the primary ways they want to see those corrections being made.

I was probably most nervous about the flight itself, I tend to be quite a harsh critic of my own flying. There was a decent crosswind component, but nothing too major. I was also flying out of a new airport in an unfamiliar area to me...and flirting with the Orlando Bravo. Upon the pre-brief I also realized something we hadn't trained much for...simulated teaching in the airplane with a jittery student. So, I taught him power off stalls...for being a DPE he "forgot" that private standards require going to a full stall. I don't want to give away all his tricks, but suffice it to say he tried to get me into dangerous situations a few times during a take-off and landing, and I managed to stop him before he did so.

My weakest area has always been anything "cross-control" related. I did ok with the cc stall demo, but he could tell I was nervous. And my short field landing would have been better if I had a good side-slip in place. So we took some time to talk about those at the end. For me it's a law of primacy thing. Early on, through watching videos and other things I had got it in my brain that cross-control situations will kill people, and so I didn't learn how to do them comfortably.

The part of his ride that I liked the best was the power-off approach...and landing! He gives full permission to talk about this aspect of the ride. Apparently some applicants in the power-off mode will get to 500' above their intended landing spot and say "I've got it made" and go around while' he's sitting there thinking..."there's no way". So he let me choose when and where I took the power out (above 2,500ft) as long I could make a landing at an appropriate runway. That really takes the ambiguity out of whether or not I "had it made". I knew that portion of the ride was coming so I had practiced that with the kind assistance of ATC at KLAL. Granted, practicing on a 150' wide runway was a bit of a different sight picture than the 60' runway at X04 that I landed on, but I was quite pleased with my performance there.

Everything else I was pretty happy with even on the maneuvers I wasn't perfect on. And I came away with some areas I'd like to perfect some more.

Today I'm just happy that the "dread" of anticipating the check-ride has been lifted.

47440
 
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