robofos
Well-Known Member
I always appreciated reading about others' checkrides while studying for mine. If anyone wants to read about how my 9 hour oral went, read the below! (its long!)
First I had to use a DPE because apparently the FAA recently decided to stop using inspectors for this ride. This meant signing a $600 check before we got started. ouch! My DPE was a 70 year old retired corporate pilot and I learned right away he was very talkative. My thinking was to let him talk as much as possible and there'd be less opportunities for me to screw up! However, that may have just enabled him to make the oral last as long as it did and by the time I was done, I felt brain dead. He walked in at 10am, we left at 7:30pm. He spent a good time messing w/ his laptop and the internet, and had a comment to make for every program he liked using, he read instructions for the test, reviewed IACRA, my logbook and so-on. The thing didn't officially start until about 12:00.
It started w/ FOI's- he asked me about the questions I missed on the written. So I explained barriers to communication, talked about overuse of abstractions. We were both looking at pictures in the FOI book, so that was good to reference. He picked another task: F- Techniques of flight instruction. With my PTS opened up, I thought of real world examples for each of those 8 items. From Obstacles of Learning to ADM. The FOI section was about an hour.
We quickly looked over the rental a/c's logbooks, he asked how I knew it was current. Then we went into Tech. subject areas. Remember he must go over B & M (Runway Incursion Avoidance & Logbook entries).. So I should have studied those more. He had me write him a sample endorsement as if I was signing him off for his Private pilot practical. Don't forget 61.39! He went into a 30 min dialogue about that reg, and how the FAA should have included a sample in the latest AC 61-65E (There is no sample 61.39 endorsement.)
I did an airspace lesson. He asked me questions mostly about E/G airspace floors & mins while looking at a current VFR sectional. The E surface areas that abut the D airpace use the wx info from that towers' ATIS. If ATIS is reporting <3 sm vis, that includes the adjoining class E surface area. So you can't fly VFR through it even if it appears to have better visibility. <- I didn't know that!
Everything went well 'til we looked at Arrow II systems. I was supposed to explain how the landing gear system worked as if it were to a private pilot starting their commercial. I haven't looked at the landing gear system in 1-2 months so I was pretty rusty. I didn't have a good organized lesson for this situation, which led to me not knowing how to present the info. The arrow II has an auto-extend feature w/ an override, I did a poor job explaining how the override works. I also didn't know the training procedure for simulating a gear failure. He asked if we had an alternator failure, you're flying to a towered airport & want to keep your radios, how would you extend the gear w/o activating the motor, & draining the battery?Answer: slow to 100mph, activate emergency extend, hold that lever down, then switch the gear selector to DOWN. This way it won't retract on you.
I also couldn't explain the electrical schematic from the poor quality illustration in my 1974 Arrow POH. He was showing me how it worked. Not good. Electrical systems have always been a weak area for me.
This is where I failed, landing gear and elec systems, but we continued the oral. we talked about spin recovery, engine fires, emergency descents, control surfaces: the difference between elevator trim and anti-servo tabs. The maneuver lesson was power off 180's. For VII- Preflight procedures, he picked task G: Before takeoff check, So we went over each item in the run-up checklist for the Arrow.
This brought us to about 7:00 pm. Everyone except my CFI left the FBO for the day. I was in there for more time than an average day at work. I walked out of there like a zombie. I don't know how that guy survived it. The worst part is I've yet to go flying. I might be writing again next week for a breakdown of my flight portion. Well, there you go. That's how an oral can last an entire day.
First I had to use a DPE because apparently the FAA recently decided to stop using inspectors for this ride. This meant signing a $600 check before we got started. ouch! My DPE was a 70 year old retired corporate pilot and I learned right away he was very talkative. My thinking was to let him talk as much as possible and there'd be less opportunities for me to screw up! However, that may have just enabled him to make the oral last as long as it did and by the time I was done, I felt brain dead. He walked in at 10am, we left at 7:30pm. He spent a good time messing w/ his laptop and the internet, and had a comment to make for every program he liked using, he read instructions for the test, reviewed IACRA, my logbook and so-on. The thing didn't officially start until about 12:00.
It started w/ FOI's- he asked me about the questions I missed on the written. So I explained barriers to communication, talked about overuse of abstractions. We were both looking at pictures in the FOI book, so that was good to reference. He picked another task: F- Techniques of flight instruction. With my PTS opened up, I thought of real world examples for each of those 8 items. From Obstacles of Learning to ADM. The FOI section was about an hour.
We quickly looked over the rental a/c's logbooks, he asked how I knew it was current. Then we went into Tech. subject areas. Remember he must go over B & M (Runway Incursion Avoidance & Logbook entries).. So I should have studied those more. He had me write him a sample endorsement as if I was signing him off for his Private pilot practical. Don't forget 61.39! He went into a 30 min dialogue about that reg, and how the FAA should have included a sample in the latest AC 61-65E (There is no sample 61.39 endorsement.)
I did an airspace lesson. He asked me questions mostly about E/G airspace floors & mins while looking at a current VFR sectional. The E surface areas that abut the D airpace use the wx info from that towers' ATIS. If ATIS is reporting <3 sm vis, that includes the adjoining class E surface area. So you can't fly VFR through it even if it appears to have better visibility. <- I didn't know that!
Everything went well 'til we looked at Arrow II systems. I was supposed to explain how the landing gear system worked as if it were to a private pilot starting their commercial. I haven't looked at the landing gear system in 1-2 months so I was pretty rusty. I didn't have a good organized lesson for this situation, which led to me not knowing how to present the info. The arrow II has an auto-extend feature w/ an override, I did a poor job explaining how the override works. I also didn't know the training procedure for simulating a gear failure. He asked if we had an alternator failure, you're flying to a towered airport & want to keep your radios, how would you extend the gear w/o activating the motor, & draining the battery?Answer: slow to 100mph, activate emergency extend, hold that lever down, then switch the gear selector to DOWN. This way it won't retract on you.
I also couldn't explain the electrical schematic from the poor quality illustration in my 1974 Arrow POH. He was showing me how it worked. Not good. Electrical systems have always been a weak area for me.
This is where I failed, landing gear and elec systems, but we continued the oral. we talked about spin recovery, engine fires, emergency descents, control surfaces: the difference between elevator trim and anti-servo tabs. The maneuver lesson was power off 180's. For VII- Preflight procedures, he picked task G: Before takeoff check, So we went over each item in the run-up checklist for the Arrow.
This brought us to about 7:00 pm. Everyone except my CFI left the FBO for the day. I was in there for more time than an average day at work. I walked out of there like a zombie. I don't know how that guy survived it. The worst part is I've yet to go flying. I might be writing again next week for a breakdown of my flight portion. Well, there you go. That's how an oral can last an entire day.
