A summary of my checkride.

Details

Instructor(s): Geoff Rapoport (primary), Wes Irish (secondary)
DPE: [Redacted]
Location: KHWD
Date: 03/24/2018

Morning Prep

I had two tasks for the morning: update my navlog using the latest forecasts, and get from KPAO to KHWD using my solo privileges.

The weather was gnarly (2500ft ceilings in the bay at 7:30am) and forecast for light rain and 5k - 3.5k ceilings throughout the Livermore Valley and near Central Valley where we’d do our airwork. My solo privileges were ceilings >= 6k, which would make it illegal for me to fly myself from KPAO to KHWD for the checkride. I had to wake Geoff up at 7:30am to ask for a new sign-off, which he kindly hand-wrote and emailed to me. I also woke up Wes, who offered to drive down to KPAO and fly over with me. Thank you both!!

Jeff was waiting at the parking area and interrupted me at 8:45 in the middle of my updated weather briefing. Knowing he was waiting, I rushed the end of it – shouldn’t have, in retrospect.

Before the Oral

He says he’s glad the weather has worked out, because the FAA doesn’t like discontinuing for weather. They feel it’s unfair for some candidates to split it over two days but not others, so they’d rather the whole checkride (including oral) waited until another day.

Knowing how important it was to make a good impression on your examiner, I made sure to make small talk. We talked about the best aviation books; I said I’d read The Right Stuff, A Nightmare’s Prayer, and Skyfaring – he recommended Fate Is The Hunter. I mentioned I’d never read Sled Driver and asked whether it was any good (no luck).

(I’ve excluded an additional paragraph here which is solely for my enjoyment. The real deal can be found in my Drive under “Private Pilot Checkride (Full)” or “… (Summary)”.)

The Oral

The oral starts with basic paperwork checks: IACRA/logbook, a signature on a consent form, medical, certificate, photo ID, etc. He also checks the logbooks for the plane, and reads every single AD looking for one in particular – after he is satisfied, he explains he was looking for the particular AD published for 172s in late 2017.

He asks all the questions you’d expect, plus some odd ones:

• Explain PAVE, IMSAFE, PPP, and DECIDE.
• Explain hypoxia, including the three kinds relevant to pilots: hypoxemic, anemic, and histotoxic. This is when we talk about the effects of altitude, alcohol, and smoking.
• Currency requirements and the difference between currency and proficiency.
• Personal minimums.
• Three documents required to fly (medical, cert, and photo ID).
• How to fly with inoperative equipment.
• AV1ATE. Notably, the difference between annual and 100-hour and whether one can be substituted for the other.
• How do I get a weather briefing (1-800-WX-BRIEF or www.wxbrief.com) and who provides them (Lockheed Martin).
• What was in the weather briefing for today’s XC flight. I needed to supply current conditions along the route plus forecast (nearby TAFs were sufficient) along the route. He quizzes me on reading encoded TAFs (I do this via ForeFlight).
• Explain what can cause turbulence or wind shear (convection, mountains, fronts, inversions).
• Airport lighting colors at night (runway lights, taxiway lights, etc.).
• Weather minimums for takeoff and landing.
• How to identify Prohibited areas, Restricted areas, and MOAs, and whether/when they can be entered.
• Calculating (using E6-B and POH): time/fuel/distance to climb, TAS, fuel usage, takeoff distance, landing distance, wind correction angle, density altitude, pressure altitude, ground speed.
• Why do we never over-fly Byron?
• Discussion of the route I chose. MEFs, headings, waypoints, etc. He disagrees with my choice of a “gate” I’m familiar with (SUNOL) and prefers a direct route. He also disagrees with my decision to follow the mountains (which keeps me within the 40mi VOR limit and near handy visual references – the mountain range and freeway). He prefers a VOR-to-VOR route down the center of the central valley over all the major airports with good options and weather reporting.
• Effect of altitude on takeoff and landing (it’s common to be able to land but not takeoff). Loss of power is the primary effect of altitude.
• Altitudes for oxygen.
• Effects of scuba diving.
• What to do if your engine runs rough on the ground or at altitude.
• Configuration of cylinders, spark plugs, and magnetos.
• Describe the engine in the aircraft.
• Why is the alternator higher voltage than the battery? (So that it can power the aircraft while also charging the battery.)
• What do you do if the Low Voltage annunciator comes on?
• What is a nuisance trip of the alternator field circuit? Why do you have to flip Master BOTH on/off to deal with a nuisance trip? (It is the only way to reset the voltage regulator.)
• How is airspeed measured? How does slipping affect indicated airspeed? (Causes ram air pressure into the static system.)
• What to do in the event of a fire. Why are both mixture cut off and fuel shutoff out required? (Because only fuel shutoff can cut off fuel line leaks in the engine bay – the fuel shutoff is at the top of the fuel system, near the tank selector valve.)

Particularly Weird Moments

Weather. After I gave a particularly crappy description of the weather, he called me over his laptop to check out “how to get a real weather briefing”. We looked at PIREPs, TAFs, lifting indices, different satellite images, and so on. He asked some basic questions, but I think he mostly wanted to just do a weather briefing for his own safety and figured he may as well show me what he was doing while he was at it.

VFR minimums. I expected him to ask about VFR minimums in different airspaces, but in fact he was talking about takeoff and landing minimum at different airports. It took me a while to catch on, but apparently he just wanted me to say “1000-foot ceilings and 1 mile visibility” (the limit at which Special VFR starts) for every airport he pointed at. He then told a story about how, in bad visibility, you can drop down to <700 or <1200 AGL (depending on where you are) and legally fly to and land at an airport. He says this like it’s a good idea. I do not think this is a good idea, but I’m also not stupid enough to say so.

Offer The Minimum Information

The best advice I got leading up to the checkride was to provide as little information as possible. Anything you add beyond what’s required to meet the standard is bad – if you’re right, it doesn’t help you, but if you’re wrong, it definitely hurts you. Here are some examples of what I got away with:

• Q - “Describe the three major kinds of hypoxia”. A - “Altitude can cause hypoxic symptoms.”
• Q - “Where are some places you’d expect to find tubulence?” A - “Mountains can cause turbulence”.
• Q - “Have you considered personal minimums?”. A - “Yes, I have written some personal minimums.”
• Q - “What do you know about the engine in this aircraft?” A - “It’s a Lycoming IO-360.”
• Q - (points at a an AIRMET) “Do you know what this is?” A - “Yes, that’s one of today’s active AIRMETS”.

The Flight

We made some more small talk on the short drive back to transient parking. Most of it was straight out of the ACS, so there’s no point in reproducing it here. I will copy some of the questions he asked and feedback he gave.

• He interrupts my checks at point to ask questions.
  • Where is the alternator belt?
  • How many fuel sumps are there?
  • What are all the antennae?
  • What is the rod around which the elevators rotate called (I am hard-pressed to find this even now with Google’s help)?
• He has some modifications to my procedures.
  • Set the HI to Compass both before taxi and as the last thing in the runup. This helps you calculate the rate of precession before the flight even starts.
  • Do an idle-power check in the runup. This is in the POH, but I had not been doing it.
  • He has us exit the runup and hold short of the runway before calling “ready for departure”.
  • He wants the mixture full rich before I call “ready for departure”. Normally I lean it until they call “cleared for takeoff” because the wait may be several minutes.
  • He wanted me to wait several seconds before dropping from flaps full to flaps 20 on go-around. This was to ensure I had the nose under control before looking/reaching to the flap switch.
• A single ground-speed check over a 10-mile distance. Related metrics calculated via E6-B (ground speed, wind-correction angle, fuel usage to destination).

There were some special highlights of the flight. In retrospect, I think he was trying to finish the checkride quickly due to bad weather, which made things feel rushed. He did not give this context at the time, so I’m only speculating.

• He asked me to divert to Rio Vista. I pulled out the Sectional and started making some measurements. He got annoyed I wasn’t plugging it into the GPS and then just pressed Direct To for me.
• He asked me to divert to Byron. I pulled out the Sectional again (should have learned my lesson …). He said use the GPS, so I pressed Direct. He got annoyed I didn’t used Nearest.
• We did simulated engine-out from roughly pattern altitude, so I didn’t have time to demonstrate most engine-out procedures. He was berating me because I didn’t know the wind direction as I approached my landing point, so I forgot to drop flaps. I came in high, and was about to slip, but he suggested S-turns. I declined, feeling unsafe at this altitude, and started to slip. He grabbed the controls and executed the S-turns. Then we went around.
• We had a miscommunication about where to do the turns about a point. What he described as a “brown building” turned out to be a white pile of garbage. I didn’t realize this until we were directly over it and he said “why aren’t you turning?!”.
• Entering the pattern to Tracy, I plan a right teardrop entry, but seeing the high terrain that direction I hesitate and contemplate what a left entry could look like. He sees my hesitation and orders me to turn right immediately. All right. He also tells me to turn faster and when to roll out.
• He announces a soft-field on the downwind at Tracy. Then at the numbers, he pulls power. On the approach, he asks for a turning slip to landing (I am so flustered I accidentally push inside rudder). On rollout, he asks for a short-field takeoff, so I start braking to exit the runway and head back to the threshold. No – He wants to start a short-field immediately, and only cares about the climbout at Vx. He puts flaps 10 for me.
• On the flight home, he tells me when to call in (over the highway interchange) and when I’ve over the requested reporting point (the university).

Despite taking the controls and generally acting annoyed, he didn’t seem particularly bothered. At a couple points after sounding annoyed, he nudged me on the shoulder and said, “I’m just trying to get you to fly the airplane!”. He also exclaimed “be a pilot, Isaac!” when I wasn’t doing the maneuvers properly. The only time I got the feeling he was really annoyed was when he said at one point, “Come on, watch your altitude, son!”

Notable Screw-Ups I Somehow Got Away With

Things I really should have known or done but didn’t. Oops.

• Forgot what the first A in AV1ATE was for 30 seconds.
• Only knew the first P in PPP.
• Thought 1-800-WX-BRIEF came from FSS.
• My weather briefing was basically worthless. Especially since it was so tricky (rapidly changing, light rain, varying low ceilings). [Note – as of publishing this article, I often say I’d love to take a college-level course about weather. I still suck at weather.]
• Lighting color at airports at night.
• Used the Sectional scale on a plotter to measure distance on a TAC.
• Not including the idle check during run-up.
• Taking off with mixture leaned.
• Not using the GPS enough.
• Being asked to descend to 3000 and overshooting to 2400 since I was simultaneously doing a diversion. No excuse. For our cruise to Tracy for landings after maneuvers he assigned 3000 because, he said, “you seem to have a lot of trouble with 3000 feet”.
• Forgot to make about one-quarter of the CTAF calls in the pattern at Tracy. Mostly because he was constantly talking at me – probably three-quarters of the calls I did make were over him talking on the intercom.
• On an unusual attitude recovery from nose-down, I momentarily pushed throttle in before pulling back.

Overall, he said I did “pretty well” and my weak points were weather briefings and go-arounds.