fisher37
Well-Known Member
This is the Spy File that I wrote up for my checkride....I thought I would just share it with you guys to kind of get the feeling of what happens on a CFI checkride. If you're taking yours in the near future good luck. Just relax and treat it like a casual conversation!
Collin Fisher v. Michael Baker on May 6, 2010
The CFI checkride is a very interesting one. It’s not as hard as everybody makes it out to be, but it is not easy either. You have to be able to teach things to a second grade level. One of my biggest problems was trying to over explain something. I had the knowledge but I didn’t know how to dumb it down. Mike is a very fair examiner and even though they aren’t supposed to, he will teach you some pointers along the way.
Oral (3.5 hours)
The first thing we did was the IACRA. He will have you show him all the endorsements you need to take the checkride and may look through your logbook and ask questions about some time you have in there. He then proceeded to ask me about my medical and how long the duration of the medical lasted. This area took about 30 minutes because the FAA computer systems are about as good as the KSUS computers. We then took a trip through the maze (the FSDO itself…don’t walk around without him, you will get lost and most likely locked out of the area you’re supposed to be in) and went to the examination room. It was a small room about the size of the flight planning room in the aviation building. This is where he will have you setup and start talking about things. I’ll just list off in a table what we talked about for the oral.
• Area if Operation : Fundamentals of Instructing
o The Learning Process
Characteristics of Learning
Principles (He says Laws) of Learning
• He absolutely LOVES referring back to this for the whole checkride. Know it.
Levels of Learning
Transfer of Learning
o Human Behavior and Effective Communication
Effective Communication
• Barriers to effective communication
• Developing communication skills
o Critique and Evaluation
Just be able to explain how not to offend a student but still be able to critique and evaluate them. The Sandwich Method worked great (he then asked if I was a Bob Penner student and one point for some reason)
o Flight Instructor Characteristics and Responsibilities
This is where we went into the portion of the checkride where endorsements came in.
• If you’re signing a student off for an initial XC solo, make sure they have the 90 day solo endorsement, apparently I was the first person in two years to tell him that. After that we moved on.
• Area of Operation: Technical Subject Areas
o Principles of Flight (you should have studied and studied this over and over again during your ground portion. Know it…it’s ridiculous how much he covered in this area. Also, know why the airplane can fly at such a low airspeed while in ground effect. He stumped me on this question even though I was able to adequately explain it.)
Airplane Stability and controllability
• (Aft and Forward CG)
Turning Tendency (Adverse Yaw)
Load Factors….holy moly. He’ll stump you on this one if you’re not careful.
Wingtip vortices and precautions to be taken
o Airplane Flight Controls
How does the aircraft turn?
o Area of Operation: Preflight Preparation
Operation of Systems
• Know the Bonanza systems, such as the power plant, electrical (does the alternator produce AC or DC power?) Flaps (what should we do if we have asymmetrical flap extension?) and the prop governor (basic description on how it works. I started to pull my schematic out and it honestly wasn’t needed).
• Area of Operation: Stalls (this is what I had to teach)
o There’s not really a whole lot I can explain about this. Just tie the principles of flight lecture into this one, that’s basically what I did. Use half the board for principles of flight, leave all your drawings up there and come back to it later.
Flight (1.8 hours)
Before we left the FSDO for the flight he told me to head over to Signature and do a weight and balance and make sure we’re good to go weather wise. He also stated we would be staying in ICT to do our takeoffs and landings that day. He was a little bit concerned about the winds (120@18G23). That is about his limit. That exceeds the crosswind component on the Bonanza in the gust. He was fine with taking off in it, but landing was another story. DO A GOOD PREFLIGHT, and FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST. I missed one minor thing (flaps) on the checklist twice (I forgot to put them up after checking them). We taxied to the runway and he asked if we were supposed to have flaps for takeoff, I immediately put them up. He said not to worry about it and we continued on the checkride. We took off from runway 19L and departed to the west. He flew one we were on our departure climb and will have you critique him. He kept his feet on the floor, watch for that. Make sure to do your HELL check unless he says otherwise. First we did steep turns, I was within standards but explain what could have been done a little bit better. After that we did a chandelle to the right (I chose right because that is the hardest one to do and I didn’t want to show him that I was going to be lazy about it). I initially did not put enough pitch into the maneuver and ended up about 10 knots faster than what I was shooting for. I explained I should have put 2 or 3 degrees more nose pitch up and it would have came out to what I wanted to airspeed wise. He was fine with that. He then said those famous words….slow flight. Remember, +/-50 feet from when he says those words. I absolutely did a terrible job on slow flight that day. I was up to 150 feet off at one point. I thought I had busted the ride at that point, but just keep explaining what you’re doing wrong and what you’re doing to correct it. After I had recovered from slow flight he told me to continue with the checkride. This is where the hood came in. We did basic instrument maneuvers. I had not done an ounce of hood work since my multi rating, but it’s just like riding a bike. Explain what you’re looking at and why. He then told me my gyro light came on and wanted to know if it was electrical or if the pressure pump had actually failed. Immediately look at the instrument pressure gauge to verify that it is still pumping and tell him that. Moving on, we did unusual attitudes, easy. He then gave me a simulated engine failure about 2500ft AGL. Do your ALARMS checklist as fast as possible but don’t miss anything. Then make the decision to fumble around with the checklist or continue for the emergency landing. I decided to make one turn in the steep spiral and land on a road beneath me. He did not like that at all. I disagree with him on that though. All of those fields were plowed in the last four months or so, so I opted for the road. Done. We were near Kingman at this point. He had me go to Kingman for my landings. I made a mistake and pulled out the AFD instead of the sectional to look up frequencies and such. This took a little while to get everything established. Just pull the sectional and look up everything. DO NOT forget the RP on runway 18 and 11 I believe it is. I opted to use runway 11 on that day. It turned out to be one hell of a crosswind. Greased the normal landing. I then taxied to runway 18 for takeoff. We would do a short field here. Everything was fine, once reaching 800ft AGL I started that left turn…but wait, it’s a right turn. He started laughing. One thing he’ll get you on is TPA. I was thinking back in Wichita again and only did the pattern at 800 feet. He was displeased with that. The second landing was a short field, everything went fine. We then departed the pattern and did a turn around a point, and eights on pylons. Everything was satisfactory there. He then told me to head back to ICT. Did a normal (just get me on the ground without crashing) landing there. He loves it when you grease the landings though. Another thing that he disliked with me was the way I taxi for some reason. I apparently was rough on the throttle (he told me I would go from 800-1200RPMs). I however disagree. He also said something about centerline even though I had it running on my left thigh. Does he know where centerline is? I’m not sure. Keep that airport diagram out when you’re on the ground in Wichita even if you know where you’re going. He likes that. After shutdown he’ll ask you how you did, just be honest and explain the highs and lows of the checkride. He then gave me the congratulations handshake and off we went to do paperwork.
Again, it’s an easy but hard checkride. As long as you know a little bit about what you’re talking about you shall be fine. This makes for a very long day. I could barely talk when I was done with the ride because I had not had any fluids in me all day. I think people thought I failed when I initially called them on the phone because I sounded terrible. Make sure to at least eat breakfast before you go, that could help out a lot as I wasn’t feeling the best by the time I was done with the checkride. Hopefully this spy file will help you out with your checkride. If you see me around school feel free to ask me any questions. But one thing to remember is just to RELAX and go down there and show him how it’s done.
Collin Fisher v. Michael Baker on May 6, 2010
The CFI checkride is a very interesting one. It’s not as hard as everybody makes it out to be, but it is not easy either. You have to be able to teach things to a second grade level. One of my biggest problems was trying to over explain something. I had the knowledge but I didn’t know how to dumb it down. Mike is a very fair examiner and even though they aren’t supposed to, he will teach you some pointers along the way.
Oral (3.5 hours)
The first thing we did was the IACRA. He will have you show him all the endorsements you need to take the checkride and may look through your logbook and ask questions about some time you have in there. He then proceeded to ask me about my medical and how long the duration of the medical lasted. This area took about 30 minutes because the FAA computer systems are about as good as the KSUS computers. We then took a trip through the maze (the FSDO itself…don’t walk around without him, you will get lost and most likely locked out of the area you’re supposed to be in) and went to the examination room. It was a small room about the size of the flight planning room in the aviation building. This is where he will have you setup and start talking about things. I’ll just list off in a table what we talked about for the oral.
• Area if Operation : Fundamentals of Instructing
o The Learning Process
Characteristics of Learning
Principles (He says Laws) of Learning
• He absolutely LOVES referring back to this for the whole checkride. Know it.
Levels of Learning
Transfer of Learning
o Human Behavior and Effective Communication
Effective Communication
• Barriers to effective communication
• Developing communication skills
o Critique and Evaluation
Just be able to explain how not to offend a student but still be able to critique and evaluate them. The Sandwich Method worked great (he then asked if I was a Bob Penner student and one point for some reason)
o Flight Instructor Characteristics and Responsibilities
This is where we went into the portion of the checkride where endorsements came in.
• If you’re signing a student off for an initial XC solo, make sure they have the 90 day solo endorsement, apparently I was the first person in two years to tell him that. After that we moved on.
• Area of Operation: Technical Subject Areas
o Principles of Flight (you should have studied and studied this over and over again during your ground portion. Know it…it’s ridiculous how much he covered in this area. Also, know why the airplane can fly at such a low airspeed while in ground effect. He stumped me on this question even though I was able to adequately explain it.)
Airplane Stability and controllability
• (Aft and Forward CG)
Turning Tendency (Adverse Yaw)
Load Factors….holy moly. He’ll stump you on this one if you’re not careful.
Wingtip vortices and precautions to be taken
o Airplane Flight Controls
How does the aircraft turn?
o Area of Operation: Preflight Preparation
Operation of Systems
• Know the Bonanza systems, such as the power plant, electrical (does the alternator produce AC or DC power?) Flaps (what should we do if we have asymmetrical flap extension?) and the prop governor (basic description on how it works. I started to pull my schematic out and it honestly wasn’t needed).
• Area of Operation: Stalls (this is what I had to teach)
o There’s not really a whole lot I can explain about this. Just tie the principles of flight lecture into this one, that’s basically what I did. Use half the board for principles of flight, leave all your drawings up there and come back to it later.
Flight (1.8 hours)
Before we left the FSDO for the flight he told me to head over to Signature and do a weight and balance and make sure we’re good to go weather wise. He also stated we would be staying in ICT to do our takeoffs and landings that day. He was a little bit concerned about the winds (120@18G23). That is about his limit. That exceeds the crosswind component on the Bonanza in the gust. He was fine with taking off in it, but landing was another story. DO A GOOD PREFLIGHT, and FOLLOW THE CHECKLIST. I missed one minor thing (flaps) on the checklist twice (I forgot to put them up after checking them). We taxied to the runway and he asked if we were supposed to have flaps for takeoff, I immediately put them up. He said not to worry about it and we continued on the checkride. We took off from runway 19L and departed to the west. He flew one we were on our departure climb and will have you critique him. He kept his feet on the floor, watch for that. Make sure to do your HELL check unless he says otherwise. First we did steep turns, I was within standards but explain what could have been done a little bit better. After that we did a chandelle to the right (I chose right because that is the hardest one to do and I didn’t want to show him that I was going to be lazy about it). I initially did not put enough pitch into the maneuver and ended up about 10 knots faster than what I was shooting for. I explained I should have put 2 or 3 degrees more nose pitch up and it would have came out to what I wanted to airspeed wise. He was fine with that. He then said those famous words….slow flight. Remember, +/-50 feet from when he says those words. I absolutely did a terrible job on slow flight that day. I was up to 150 feet off at one point. I thought I had busted the ride at that point, but just keep explaining what you’re doing wrong and what you’re doing to correct it. After I had recovered from slow flight he told me to continue with the checkride. This is where the hood came in. We did basic instrument maneuvers. I had not done an ounce of hood work since my multi rating, but it’s just like riding a bike. Explain what you’re looking at and why. He then told me my gyro light came on and wanted to know if it was electrical or if the pressure pump had actually failed. Immediately look at the instrument pressure gauge to verify that it is still pumping and tell him that. Moving on, we did unusual attitudes, easy. He then gave me a simulated engine failure about 2500ft AGL. Do your ALARMS checklist as fast as possible but don’t miss anything. Then make the decision to fumble around with the checklist or continue for the emergency landing. I decided to make one turn in the steep spiral and land on a road beneath me. He did not like that at all. I disagree with him on that though. All of those fields were plowed in the last four months or so, so I opted for the road. Done. We were near Kingman at this point. He had me go to Kingman for my landings. I made a mistake and pulled out the AFD instead of the sectional to look up frequencies and such. This took a little while to get everything established. Just pull the sectional and look up everything. DO NOT forget the RP on runway 18 and 11 I believe it is. I opted to use runway 11 on that day. It turned out to be one hell of a crosswind. Greased the normal landing. I then taxied to runway 18 for takeoff. We would do a short field here. Everything was fine, once reaching 800ft AGL I started that left turn…but wait, it’s a right turn. He started laughing. One thing he’ll get you on is TPA. I was thinking back in Wichita again and only did the pattern at 800 feet. He was displeased with that. The second landing was a short field, everything went fine. We then departed the pattern and did a turn around a point, and eights on pylons. Everything was satisfactory there. He then told me to head back to ICT. Did a normal (just get me on the ground without crashing) landing there. He loves it when you grease the landings though. Another thing that he disliked with me was the way I taxi for some reason. I apparently was rough on the throttle (he told me I would go from 800-1200RPMs). I however disagree. He also said something about centerline even though I had it running on my left thigh. Does he know where centerline is? I’m not sure. Keep that airport diagram out when you’re on the ground in Wichita even if you know where you’re going. He likes that. After shutdown he’ll ask you how you did, just be honest and explain the highs and lows of the checkride. He then gave me the congratulations handshake and off we went to do paperwork.
Again, it’s an easy but hard checkride. As long as you know a little bit about what you’re talking about you shall be fine. This makes for a very long day. I could barely talk when I was done with the ride because I had not had any fluids in me all day. I think people thought I failed when I initially called them on the phone because I sounded terrible. Make sure to at least eat breakfast before you go, that could help out a lot as I wasn’t feeling the best by the time I was done with the checkride. Hopefully this spy file will help you out with your checkride. If you see me around school feel free to ask me any questions. But one thing to remember is just to RELAX and go down there and show him how it’s done.
