Contents

Phase Checkitis
---No one likes to be evaluated
---Knowing the evaluator helps
---Periodic evaluations like medicals go with being a pilot
---Plan to be the best you can be at that time
---Try to go into any evaluation with intentions of passing
---Get your instructor to take you to meet the examiner.
---Get someone to help you get prepared in addition to the instructor
---This second person is very important to get you used to flying with and talking about flying.
---Cramming is not the way to go.
---The extent to which you have acquired confidence in your capacity to succeed is essential.
---Know the initial and ultimate purpose of every maneuver or knowledge area of the PTS
---Student should see practical as a learning experience
---They can expect to learn more than they know.
---While prepared to show how good they are are.

Checkride Oral
Just as it's not cheating to study the test-prep books, it's perfectly fair to ask students who've worked with the DE what he's likely to pull. It won't work if there are a ton of examiners and/or few checkrides going on, but I suspect that at a lot of places like mine, there will be several other students near checkride stage when you are, and one or two examiners who give the checkrides.

Ask those who've passed (or failed, if they'll talk) what it was like. Any surprise questions? A chatty guy, or one you're best off giving one-word answers? Are you likely to face trick questions, or someone who brushes off the W&B and wants you to be able to point to the nearest airport outside your planned X-C route?

In my case, there was a whole crop of us, and every one was asked to plan the same X-C. And the examiner had the same tough question: you're heading out to the faraway airport, weather closes in, and it'll be below VFR minimums at your destination. You can't land. The correct answer for this was knowing more than one place you could call to get a SVFR clearance to land.

The first student was told he'd flunked the oral, but then went up for the flight anyway. At the end, the examiner helped him figure out the answer to the question, and passed him. My CFI asked if he could sit in on the oral (I was his first student to take the checkride), and the examiner seemed pleased to be asked. When he backed me into a corner with a particularly tough question, he hinted "You could ask someone who knows the answer."

I turned to my CFI (I'd already clearly heard him THINKING "shut up!" more than once during the oral) and asked him the question, he got permission from the DE with a look, and he answered it. The answer stood, and I survived what's so far been the most stressful hour of my life. The stress was mostly my own doing, by the way.
Stella Star

Diversion
As far as the diversion goes, I don't think you're going to be expected to provide exact numbers. My instructor taught me the "pencil rule." Take a pencil, place it on the chart with one end where you are now, and the other end on the diversion airport. Then, without changing the angle of the pencil relative to the chart, slide it over to the nearest VOR compass rose and read the heading. If you want, you can make some marks on the pencil to estimate distance with.

As far as computing the time en route...I can't imagine the examiner is going to give you a diversion airport so far away that you'll need to get new winds aloft. In addition, if you can assume that your airspeed is around 120kts (it's probably a bit slower than that if you're flying a typical Cessna 152/172 trainer) you can just take the distance and divide by 2 to get the number of minutes it will take to get to the diversion airport. Add or subtract several minutes as necessary for the winds and your plane.

The above methods should give you enough accuracy to satisfy the examiner (they did on my checkride), unless of course the airport he diverts you to is 200 miles away. In that case you might just have to get out the plotter. Also, after you do the computations and turn on course, be sure to tell the examiner that you would now call FSS and amend your flight plan.

On my checkride, after we turned towards the diversion airport, the examiner started asking me in depth questions about the charts, which required that I completely unfold and refold two charts all while flying the plane in turbulence. Remember; always fly the plane first.
Josh

S. Miller wrote:
I feel really confident about the checkride *except* I am not sure what all to expect for the XC part. OK, doing ground speed calculations in flight is  stressful but I think I can handle that. The diversion scares me, though.

One of the best tips I ever got for doing time/speed/distance problems quickly is to realize that if you look at your airspeed indicator and divide whatever you see there by 10, that's how far you go in 6 minutes. That is, 120mph gives you 12 miles in 6 minutes, for example.

Yes, this ignores wind effects, but for the purposes of your (presumably nearby) checkride diversion it gives you a reasonable estimate of time. Your examiner will want to know if you can do two things:
1) figure out if you have enough fuel to get to the diversion airport, and
2) figure out how long you're willing to fly before you decide you've passed it.

If the airport is close enough, and it usually is, the rule of thumb works fine. Remember, also, that the diversion is a simulated emergency situation, and if you can find a way to avoid complicated navigation
issues you should do it. For example, don't overlook a road, railroad, or power line that may take you right to the airport.
Tim

...My experience has been that the diversion numbers do not have to be exact, the de just wants to know that you can plan a diversion in flight that will not take you outside of your aircraft's safety range. You do not want to divert to an airport that is three hours away if you only have two hours of useable fuel on board. Estimates are usually o.k. for this portion of the flight.
Johnny

Checkrideitis
--All should know about the soldier who received a letter from home saying that his wife was home in bed with arthritus. He, of course, knew all the Ritus boys and Arthur was the worst of the bunch.
--The flying Rituses range from gethomeitis to checkrideitis. Rituses attach undeserved importance to themselves.
--Periodic evaluations are going to be a part of your flying life.
--You are apt to be overly concerned with presumed weaknesses
--You should be prepared to pass and enter the evaluation with the expectation of passing.
--The more frequently you interact with the person giving the evaluation the better you will do.
--Be prepared to explain and justify the reasoning behind what you do and the way you do it.

A checkride List
1. You will find that what you're prepared to do is a lot more than what you're asked to do.
2. Talk with other people who have taken checkrides with your DE and find out what their experiences were, and what the DE asked them.
3. Treat the checkride as just more dual instruction.
4. Don't be afraid to say "I don't know".
5. If you don't perform something to your satisfaction, tell him/her that, and ask if you can do it again.
6. Don't forget to bring your camera.

Checkride Checklists?
Interesting points. One area that almost got my checkride busted was checklists for the in-flight maneuvers! I was under the impression that I had to do them all from memory, so I did (mostly 8-)). However, the DE told me that I should be using checklists, even if they're 3x5 cards, for each maneuver.
HTH,AI Nut

It is interesting to see the different approaches different DE's take. My DE was all about "real-world" flying-- for instance, for the power on and power off stalls, he simulated a real-world approach (e.g. for power-off, he had me get into the PO stall configuration, then said, "ok, you're on final, and a flock of birds just popped up, so pull up to avoid them." This got me into the stall and recovery.)
R

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