CFI Initial Practical

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crazynut52

New Member
What did you guys bring to your practical, and as far as teaching a lesson, did your examiner allow you to use your lesson plans? When asking you questions did he allow you to look anything up? I am just wondering if anyone had an examiner that wouldn't allow them to look anything up. I mean once your a flight instructor you will be looking things up all the time. Not that I don't know anything but I definatley don't know everything.
 
crazynut52 said:
What did you guys bring to your practical
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I brought all my FAA textbooks (e.g., Airplane Flying Handbook, Aeronautical Knowledge, Fundamentals of Instructing, etc.) and the 3-ring notebook containing all of my lesson plans, handouts, etc.

crazynuts52 said:
as far as teaching a lesson, did your examiner allow you to use your lesson plans? When asking you questions did he allow you to look anything up?
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Yes. My inspector quickly reviewed one of lesson plans, then he asked me to teach several different things. I stood in front of him and used a dry erase board to present. You are allowed to look up things if you're not sure of the correct answer. He/she will prefer that you quickly look up the answer rather than watching you attempt to BS your way through something. The inspector undersatnds that you cannot know everything; however, if you have to look up too many items, you may have a problem.

Good Luck!!!
 
I brought darn near everything to the oral--textbooks, charts, a plotter, POHs, lesson plans, everything. I stuffed a large backpack full of resources. You can't bring too much. I've heard of one applicant bringing in a milk crate full of books.

Yes, the examiner let me use my lesson plans. In fact, he wanted me to use them.

Yes, the examiner also let me look things up. Just be reasonable about it. If he asks you to explain something fairly simple, like what the flaps are used for, he'll expect you to know it off the top of your head. But if you're talking about airspace, regs, endorsements, aerodynamics, you know, things that are more complicated and have lots of details, there is no problem with looking it up.

The examiner isn't there to judge if you're a genius or not. He wants to make sure you'll be a sharp, professional teacher. Remember the law of primacy...in the real world of teaching, it's better to say nothing at all and give the correct answer later, rather than give misinformation and try to correct your mistakes after the fact. The examiner wants to make sure you're not going to misinform the student.
 
Woo man when is yours? I have mine next month on the 10th. I'm already getting nervous, there is sooooooo much to know! Ahhhhh....
 
i took a backpack stuffed so full it wouldn't close, my flight kit, and an armload of books so tall that i couldn't open the door to get in to the building. i think i used 3 books of the 20 i brought.
 
I brought way more stuff than I needed, the FAA airplane flying handbook, the FARs a bunch of advisory circulars, lesson plans, the private and commercial PTS, an aviation weather book. I think that's it. The only thing I pulled out was a couple lesson plans but at least I looked prepared!

I was told NOT to prepare any weight and balance or performance planning in advance, I got to demonstrate that in the oral.

It's a stressful day, but nobody expects you to know it all without sometimes looking something up. And remember that your recommending CFI is already fairly certain you are going to make them look good or they wouldn't have endorsed you for the checkride with their name and certificate number going on record.

Good luck!
 
The PTS says you must demonstrate instructional knowledge. If you look at the definition of instructional knowledge in the PTS, it says "uses the appropriate refernece to bring the student to the corelative level of learning, or something along those lines. So, it says in the PTS, that not only are you allowed to look up answers, you are supposed to.
 
Well I finally got my checkride scheduled, its this coming tuesday, and the examiner and his airworthiness man are coming to my home airport... He told me I would have to rent a bigger plane, because we wouldnt both fit in my cessna 150. So now I am renting a cherokee 140 for the manuevers and a mooney for the complex portion. I'm pretty nervous and I hope everything goes ok.
 
crazynut52 said:
Well I finally got my checkride scheduled, its this coming tuesday, and the examiner and his airworthiness man are coming to my home airport... He told me I would have to rent a bigger plane, because we wouldnt both fit in my cessna 150. So now I am renting a cherokee 140 for the manuevers and a mooney for the complex portion. I'm pretty nervous and I hope everything goes ok.
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Crazynut,

Why does his "airworthiness man" have to come with you...?
 
Go over the maintainence logs with a fine toothed comb, and do the most thorough pre-flight you've ever done at least a day ahead in case you find some kind of problem. If you do bust, don't worry, its not the end of the world. There is only about an 11% pass rate lately. I'm not brining this up to make you even more nervous, but to tell you not to put too much pressure on yourself. You will get through it eventually.

Best of luck to you. Let us know how it goes.
 
Regarding the last post, I'd love to know where people come up with an "11% pass rate" recently, etc. I've heard the national average is 50% for initial CFI checkrides. But when I took mine (with the Minneapolis FSDO), my guy told me it was more like 80%. I think if you're prepared you'll be fine, and have a big smile on your face knowing you saved $300.

flyguy, do you have any conclusive (i.e., FAA, AOPA) proof of this 11% pass rate you speak of?

James

ps. I've known 5 other guys who did their initial CFI with other FSDOs and I've never heard of the inspector bringing along an "airworthiness guy." They have the credentials and knowledge to do it themselves. Urban legend?
 
Examiner? I thought this ride is with an inspector!

I took my CFI-A at the Dupage FSDO! Don't tell me it's just Dupage that makes you take it with those harda$$es!
 
No, I don't have any conclusive proof that I can show you, but I heard it from a DPE. Actually he told me it the national average was 20% but over the last year or so, since the FAA started cracking down on FSDOs allowing DPEs to do the rides, it has been more like 11%. Sorry I don't have something I can show you. I simply took his word for it and it never occured to me that he might be lying to me, so I never researched it. If you find conclusice eveidence to the contrary, feel free to correct me, but there's no way it anywhere near 80% and 50% is doubtfull.
 
I had also heard through the DSM FSDO that inspectors were cracking down on DPE's who are doing CFI's and other checkrides in general. What I was told is that the inspectors said the DPE's are passing too many applicants. Of course I heard this after I failed my initial over what everyone else thought was a trivial matter. So I thought maybe my CFI came up with this to make me feel better about failing, but now I've heard this statement quite a bit since last month. Also, when going back for the retest, the DPE asked me if I thought he was too hard on me, or if I thought he was a d*ck for failing me. I honestly didn't think so, but just by putting 2 and 2 together it sure did seem like the FAA must have said something to the DPE's during their last class/renewal.
 
I failed on the shorts. I'm a speed demon to begin with, and the examiner did say kind of jokingly that I didn't have to do warp 8 in the pattern. I still chuckle at that every time I think about it.

Anyway, there was other traffic in front of us in the pattern, so I was trying to keep a tight eye on them while talking, etc. etc. I ended up being fast and floating for a little bit. So technically I did blow a portion of the checkride and I didn't have any problem with the pink slip, although I will say that in the past this examiner would have just said something about it, maybe have me do it again and move on.

The bad part is I didn't know I failed until the ride was over. He said after we got back that he wanted to talk for a minute and about 10 minutes into the conversation he said he'd like me to come back and show him some better short-field landings. Needless to say I was initially stunned since I had just been through the whole checkride, I was majorly dehydrated (the following day I had surgery and they said they put 4 pints of fluid in me) so I was more or less just staring into space when he told me this.

I came back the following week after I got my stitches out and we flew for .8 or something and finished it up. It wasn't a big deal at all, other than the extra $100 I had to pay him to come back for 1 hour.

My CFI was pretty pissed about the whole thing, but I just wanted to get it over with because I was moving 700 miles a week after I finished the retest. All ended up being well, I just have to find someone to instruct now! :)

EDIT: To add to my failure story above, we had actually stopped to switch to a complex aircraft after I had made the short-field that was out of PTS. So I was readying another aircraft while he is standing there on his cellphone acting like everything was okay, I have some problems finding some ballast for the Lance since the line guys topped it off after I called and asked them not to. I didn't realize it until much later, but he did say when I was looking for a cargo net that we should just go back to DSM and finish the ride next week. So if I would have listened I probably would have just gotten a discontinuance instead of a pink slip. But of course I'm a bull-headed SOB so I was thinking, no, I have surgery tomorrow and have to move in two weeks, let's get this done TODAY!!!
 
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