gomntwins
Well-Known Member
I thought I should write a post on my CFI checkride... so, here goes!
The checkride was yesterday (Monday, May 17th), and started at 9:00 a.m. The airport I fly out of is about 40 miles from my apartment, so just to be same... I left 2 hours early. My luck, of course there was a 6 car crash on the freeway... so the 2 hours I gave myself to get down there (typically a 45-50 minute drive) worked out quite well... I made it there at exactly 9:00 a.m. We started off with a little story telling... trying to lighten the mood and all... and worked on the paperwork at the same time. I paid him his fee... I always take cash because I know some DE's only want cash/money order... he on the other hand was happily surprised. I guess he seldom has applicants give him cash (most write him a check)... but he sure seemed to like it! I'm taking cash to checkrides from now on... regardless! Seeing the cash makes getting paid more "real"... and it sure put him into a good mood!
As for the checkride itself. The oral took about 4 hours. My luck, the DE was some form of aerodyanamics expert... probably my weakest area. I'd say half the oral was devoted solely to aerodynamics. I'd recommend everyone who's going to take a CFI checkride work hard on truly understanding and correlating aerodyanics (non of that rote level knowledge, for you FOI people!) to every aspect of flight.
Then, on to weather! We went over all the old school weather, like the weather depiction charts, surface analysis, radar summaries, and prog charts. We went in depth into all of these charts... charts that we all know are, to say the least, difficult to find anymore. We didn't touch Metars or TAF's... I think he felt that a CFI applicant will undoubtably understand text weather, but not necessarily charts... because a lot of pilots aren't really taught the importance of charts. Anyway, I held my own on weather.
We then went back and covered some FOI questions... nothing too hard, just a few scenarios... and we also talked about the levels of learning. I was worried about potential FOI questions... but he didn't go all that in depth-- which was fine by me. I was asked to compute a weight and balance... no big deal. He also asked me to find the service ceiling for that day... and asked me some landing/take off permance data questions... a quick look in the POH was all that took.
As far as systems, he asked me about the landing gear system on the Arrow... not too difficult to discuss.
On to actually teaching, I taught him a ground lesson on how to do a short field landing. I got into a little bit of trouble because I didn't recall that you're supposed to be 500 ft. AGL on final according to the Airplane Flying Handbook... but he let me look it up (he asked me what minimum altitude you should be at when starting your final). It was something I knew, but in the middle of a stressful oral... I just blanked out on. Oh well. Overall though, the teaching went fine.
He also asked a number of questions on certificates/documnets. Stuff like, what inspections do we need before we can go fly? We argued about if we needed a 100 hour inspection... I said yes, he said no (his logic: you can't hire an airplane)... I backed off, and agreed with him in the end.
There were a lot of other questions too.... but a day later, I can't remember anymore without looking through a CFI PTS and figuring out what exactly he asked me in any given area.
As far as the flight, it was pretty straight forward. We did a soft field takeoff with a nice crosswind. We then headed out and did all the commercial maneuvers (lazy 8's, chandelles, steep turns, 8's around pylons). For the emergency, we did a steep spiral down (more commercial maneuvers), and I picked a suitable place for a simulated emergency landing... set up on final, and went around at about a hundred feet AGL. As for the teaching, I taught him basic instrument flight... it went fairly well. For landings, we did a power off 180 and a short field... both of which went well, and we called it a day. I started at 9:00a.m., I had my CFI in hand at 4:00p.m.
I felt pretty good throughout the whole checkride... but by the end, I was exhausted. Anybody that's planning on getting your CFI... expect a long/grueling checkride. When you're done though, you'll feel really good/proud of yourself!
Thanks for reading,
Andrew
The checkride was yesterday (Monday, May 17th), and started at 9:00 a.m. The airport I fly out of is about 40 miles from my apartment, so just to be same... I left 2 hours early. My luck, of course there was a 6 car crash on the freeway... so the 2 hours I gave myself to get down there (typically a 45-50 minute drive) worked out quite well... I made it there at exactly 9:00 a.m. We started off with a little story telling... trying to lighten the mood and all... and worked on the paperwork at the same time. I paid him his fee... I always take cash because I know some DE's only want cash/money order... he on the other hand was happily surprised. I guess he seldom has applicants give him cash (most write him a check)... but he sure seemed to like it! I'm taking cash to checkrides from now on... regardless! Seeing the cash makes getting paid more "real"... and it sure put him into a good mood!
As for the checkride itself. The oral took about 4 hours. My luck, the DE was some form of aerodyanamics expert... probably my weakest area. I'd say half the oral was devoted solely to aerodynamics. I'd recommend everyone who's going to take a CFI checkride work hard on truly understanding and correlating aerodyanics (non of that rote level knowledge, for you FOI people!) to every aspect of flight.
Then, on to weather! We went over all the old school weather, like the weather depiction charts, surface analysis, radar summaries, and prog charts. We went in depth into all of these charts... charts that we all know are, to say the least, difficult to find anymore. We didn't touch Metars or TAF's... I think he felt that a CFI applicant will undoubtably understand text weather, but not necessarily charts... because a lot of pilots aren't really taught the importance of charts. Anyway, I held my own on weather.
We then went back and covered some FOI questions... nothing too hard, just a few scenarios... and we also talked about the levels of learning. I was worried about potential FOI questions... but he didn't go all that in depth-- which was fine by me. I was asked to compute a weight and balance... no big deal. He also asked me to find the service ceiling for that day... and asked me some landing/take off permance data questions... a quick look in the POH was all that took.
As far as systems, he asked me about the landing gear system on the Arrow... not too difficult to discuss.
On to actually teaching, I taught him a ground lesson on how to do a short field landing. I got into a little bit of trouble because I didn't recall that you're supposed to be 500 ft. AGL on final according to the Airplane Flying Handbook... but he let me look it up (he asked me what minimum altitude you should be at when starting your final). It was something I knew, but in the middle of a stressful oral... I just blanked out on. Oh well. Overall though, the teaching went fine.
He also asked a number of questions on certificates/documnets. Stuff like, what inspections do we need before we can go fly? We argued about if we needed a 100 hour inspection... I said yes, he said no (his logic: you can't hire an airplane)... I backed off, and agreed with him in the end.
There were a lot of other questions too.... but a day later, I can't remember anymore without looking through a CFI PTS and figuring out what exactly he asked me in any given area.
As far as the flight, it was pretty straight forward. We did a soft field takeoff with a nice crosswind. We then headed out and did all the commercial maneuvers (lazy 8's, chandelles, steep turns, 8's around pylons). For the emergency, we did a steep spiral down (more commercial maneuvers), and I picked a suitable place for a simulated emergency landing... set up on final, and went around at about a hundred feet AGL. As for the teaching, I taught him basic instrument flight... it went fairly well. For landings, we did a power off 180 and a short field... both of which went well, and we called it a day. I started at 9:00a.m., I had my CFI in hand at 4:00p.m.
I felt pretty good throughout the whole checkride... but by the end, I was exhausted. Anybody that's planning on getting your CFI... expect a long/grueling checkride. When you're done though, you'll feel really good/proud of yourself!
Thanks for reading,
Andrew
