***I spent quite a while writing this today and I'm too lazy to edit it right now, so please try to excuse all the typos I made. I'll go through it again later to fix it up.
To start off with, make sure you've completed IACRA, you know your log-in and password. Your instructor has to have signed you off and he should be there with you at the start of the exam in case you need him to sign off another IACRA form if anything was wrong with the original one you did.
You should also bring three paper copies of everything you need:
- Drivers License
- Pilots License
- Medical
- IACRA Form
- Log-book Endorsements
- Both Knowledge exams (only two copies necessary for these. The FAA gets the originals)
To make things easier for you and your examiner, make sure you have listed the proper endorsements required for you to take the exam and labeled each one so that it matches the checklist he'll be using to check that you have them. This is the checklist he'll use, and you should be able to easily show him each endorsement. Make SURE your instructor DATED each endorsement so that it shows that the endorsement was within the time period allowed.
INITIAL FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR ENDORSEMENTS
1. Endorsement for aeronautical knowledge: CFR 61.185(a)(1) & (2) (for aircraft
category/class) rating or CFR 61.185(a)(1) & (3) (for instrument/category) rating (state
which rating)
I certify that Mr./Ms. has received and logged ground training required by CFR
61.185(a)(1) & (2) or CFR 61.185(a)(1) & (3) (state which rating) in preparation for the flight
instructor (aircraft category/class) rating or (instrument/category) rating. (state which rating)
S/S [date] J.J. Jones 987654321CFI Exp. 11-30-2006
2. Endorsement for flight proficiency: CFR 61.187(b)(1,2,3,4,5,6, or 7) (state which
category/class)
I certify that I have given Mr./Ms. the flight instruction required by CFR
61.187(b)(state which category/class) and find him/her competent to pass a practical test on
those areas of operation.
S/S [date] J.J. Jones 987654321CFI Exp. 11-30-2006
3. Endorsement for spin training: FAR § 61.183(i)(1) and (2)
I have given Mr./Ms. flight training in stall awareness, spin entry, spins, and spin
recovery techniques in an (airplane/glider) (state which category), and he/she has
demonstrated instructional competency in those maneuvers as required by CFR 61.183(i)(1)
and (2).
S/S [date] J.J. Jones 987654321CFI Exp. 11-30-2006
4. Endorsement to certify completion of prerequisites for a practical test: CFR
61.39(a)(6)
I have given Mr./Ms. flight instruction in preparation for the (type of practical test)
practical test within the preceding 60 days and find him/her competent to pass the test and to
have satisfactory knowledge of the subject areas in which the applicant was shown to be
deficient by his/her airman written test, in accordance with CFR 61.39(a)(6).
S/S [date] J.J. Jones 987654321CFI Exp. 11-30-2006
5. Courtesy endorsement to verify recommending instructor’s qualifications to provide
ground and flight training for an initial flight instructor applicant: CFR 61.195(h)(1)(i) &
(2) (for part 61 applicants) or CFR 61.195(h)(1)(ii) & (3) (for part 141 applicants)
I certify that I meet the flight instructor qualifications necessary to provide ground and
flight training for an initial flight instructor applicant, as required by CFR 61.195(h)(1)(i) &
(2) or CFR 61.195(h)(ii) & (3). (select which applies)
S/S [date] J.J. Jones 987654321CFI Exp. 11-30-2006
The examiner should be presented with all of these endorsements in the correct order, or at least in a way that makes each one very easy to find. Make sure you can read each one and that it is eligible.
He will also want to see the aircraft log-books and maintenance. Be sure to have them available with all the necessary inspections and airworthiness requirements marked in a way easy for you to show him. He'll want to see the Annual for the airframe, the engine, and the prop. He'll want to see 100 hour inspections (if necessary) for each as well. He'll check the transponder, pitot-static system, ELT, and airworthiness directives. TAB EACH ONE BEFOREHAND.
After you've gone through all the paperwork, the examiner will give you his pre-test briefing as provided by the FAA. Afterwards, he'll ask you if you're ready, and begin the exam.
Although it seems like he should go in the order that the PTS goes in, he isn't required to, and will most likely skip around. He may have you do an area that many people tend to do poorly on first, just to see how the rest of the day will go, or he may go easy on you at first since he knows you are probably a bit nervous. It all depends on the examiner.
The following is the order in which my exam went, and what I can remember him asking me. When we scheduled the exam, I asked him what he would like me to prepare to teach him, and he told me Eights on Pylons. A week or so before the exam I had a lot of time to make sure I knew all the ins and outs of this maneuver and how to teach it to him.
"Just to get started, let's start with area of operation four, where you teach me something. Pre-flight lesson on a maneuver to be performed in flight. Maneuver lesson. You are going to teach me Eights on Pylons, and for purposes of your discussion, make the assumption that I'm one of your commercial students, and you did assign me homework last night, so it's not like I don't know anything about the maneuver - so you're going to take the knowledge I already have and build on it. So, you have to give me the objective and an accurate and comprehensive oral description, common errors, completion standards etc."
After having prepared for this, I drew my lesson plan on the board and gave him the objective, and began to explain what the objective was of the maneuver.
"The objective of eights on pylons is to develop the pilot's ability to accurately control the aircraft while dividing attention between the flight path and the selected ground reference." is what I stated, to which he immediately asked:
"Why do we need to be able to do that? Why is it important? What practical situations in my flying will this training help me? If we're talking about transfer of learning, where could this skill be useful in everyday flying?"
Essentially I gave him an answer of how it's an extremely important skill to be able to divide your attention in many situations flying - in the traffic pattern for example, you have to be flying the aircraft while dividing your attention to looking for traffic, your instruments, and where you are relative to the runway.
I also gave him some of our key terms - pylons, pivotal altitude, ground-speed etc. By defining the key terms at the beginning, you are making sure that both you and your student are on the same page with the terminology and subsequently you've eliminated the abstractions that create a barrier to communication.
I asked him to define a few of the obvious ones for me - I asked him what he thought of as "pylons" and how wind affects ground-speed. I then asked him if he had done his homework, and if he could give me a description of what he learned pivotal altitude was. He said it was based off of ground-speed, and that there is a formula, which he had "forgotten". I wrote the formula on the board and proceeded to explain how we calculate it with that formula.
He asked me if the airspeed we'd be using to calculate ground-speed would be indicated, calibrated, or true airspeed. I told him it'd be true airspeed, and then we moved on to calculating what our highest and lowest pivotal altitudes would be like with ten knot winds aloft from the west. 110 knots as a highest ground-speed, and 90 as our lowest. I asked him a few questions about adding the pivotal altitude to ground level to get MSL.
Then I moved on to describing the rest of how we would execute the maneuver, asked him a few questions about what he remembered from the book about the bank angles we'd be using. Then I gave him common errors, and he asked which was the most common out of the ones I had listed. I told him use of the rudder was the biggest one, and why it's dangerous to be flying uncoordinated low to the ground.
"What are the completion standards?"
30-40 degrees of bank and keeping the pylon off the wing by adjusting pivotal altitude.
"Will we be adjusting the power?"
No, the power will remain at cruise for the maneuver.
"What will our manifold pressure and RPM be for this?"
20 MAP and 2400 RPM
"What do you think our fuel consumption should be during this?"
About 10 gallons an hour.
"alrighty, thank you, that was a good presentation."
I asked him if he had any other questions and he said no.
He then asked me if I had a copy of ASA's flight instructor oral exam guide. I have it on my iPad mini - so I gave him that and he asked me to look up the first question he wanted to ask me.
"What are the five main responsibilities of flight instructors in regard to the learning process?"
Helping students learn is one.
"How would you help me learn, a person who's not very good at math, but I try hard."
I would try to teach you in different ways so that you could understand things visually if you didn't understand the math behind them.
"How would you make learning interesting and enjoyable for me? Especially in the cockpit - the cockpit isn't the best classroom. How would you make it better for me?"
Make sure the seats are adjusted, seat cushions, the heat, the air, etc.
"How would you analyze a students personality and background to help you better teach them?"
I would ask them questions about their background and hobbies.
"Ask me some questions"
What are your hobbies? Did you go to college? When did you start flying? I then explained that after asking those questions and finding out about their background I can find ways to relate their flying to their hobbies and skills. If the student is mechanically inclined and likes cars, I can help him relate that to flying.
"Good. When should application of the minimum standards in the practical test standards be introduced in training?"
It should be after the solo cross country flight for private pilot students. The PTS is not meant to be a training aid, it's a testing guide.
"True, but what about for students that want to know how to get to their objective and pass the test?"
For students that are goal oriented and need a good guide to get motivation towards achieving the standards to pass the test I would introduce the PTS earlier.
"To teach effectively, why must an instructor make sure a student's physical needs are met first?"
Students don't learn well when they are uncomfortable, hungry, tired, or stressed. For example, I get tired, irritable, and unfocused when I'm hungry, and I can't learn when I'm hungry.
"Professionalism can be achieved as an instructor by several characteristics, what would some of these be?"
Being sincere, accepting, having good personal habits and appearance, just being a nice person in general. Proper language, those sorts of things.
"When evaluating a student's ability to perform a maneuver or procedure, an instructor should follow what general guidelines?"
When evaluating a student, you should be as thorough as possible, include as much detail as possible to give them the best feedback. Be objective, leave your own personal opinions and attitudes out of your evaluation.
"Give me a couple things that you could do as an instructor to minimize student frustrations. To be more specific, lets talk about a common frustration many students have, which is when they are learning to land - they either flare too high, or come in too low and bounce or have a hard landing. How can you minimize a student's frustration when they are just beside them-self with a particular maneuver?"
Try to emphasize the positive things about how they've been progressing. Give them examples of how other students I've had, or how I myself had the same problems during the course of my training.
"Let's talk about human behavior and effective communication. What are a couple of things that you'll do as an instructor to try to control human behavior and try to get people to do what you want them to do?"
I'd make myself a figure of authority to my students - I'd try to make them understand that I know what I'm doing, and they need to follow my instructions to be successful.
"What do you think the key to controlling human behavior is?"
The key is motivation. You have to get a good feel for what their motivation is in order to help them achieve their goals.
"Tell me about a few defense mechanisms. What do you think are some of the most common ones?"
Denial, compensation, projection - those are the ones I think I've run into most often. I know that I use compensation as one of my own defense mechanisms. I try to emphasize something I did well when I mess up something else. Denial is definitely a big one though - a lot of students will straight up deny that they've done anything wrong at all, even when you've told them that they made a mistake.
--------------------------------------- Break Time ---------------------------------------
Technical Subject areas:
"Let's talk about runway incursion avoidance. Give me a lesson on how you would keep me as a relatively new pilot on a solo cross country to KPUB. Let's say I've never flown to KPUB before, I've done solo cross country flights before, but never to KPUB. Are you allowed to let me fly there?"
- At this point I thought I wasn't allowed to let him go because I had remembered reading something about only allowing students to go on solo cross country flights if you had given them training on the route. Since I wasn't sure I said, "Hmmm, I think I'm going to have to look that one up." So I did, and I found that I was indeed wrong, and he was allowed to fly the route as long as I found his pre-flight planning to be correct. I told him that correct answer and we moved on.
"So now that we've established that I can indeed go down there - teach me how to avoid a runway incursion. First give me a definition of what a runway incursion is, and then proceed from there."
A runway incursion is having an object, vehicle, or aircraft on the runway when it's not supposed to be there. Some of the biggest aviation accidents have surprisingly happened on the ground. The FAA is trying to reduce the number of these accidents by stressing the importance of runway incursions. The FAA has changed some rules about taxiing so that runway incursions are less common. You must have clearance to cross a runway, and read back hold short clearances etc. We then looked at the airport diagram and I told him about how he should write down his taxi clearances and ask for progressive taxi instructions if he needed help. I told him to keep distractions to a minimum while taxiing - never doing pre-takeoff checks while taxiing etc.
"What is the LAHSO thing on the diagram? What does this mean?"
Land and hold short is what LAHSO means. You have to be able to land and stop before the intersecting runway here to do this operation. You do NOT have to accept a LAHSO clearance. As a student pilot, you should not accept one because you are new to the environment, and ATC will generally not ask you to do this procedure if you tell them you are a student pilot. FAA quote: "Student pilots or pilots not familiar with LAHSO should not participate in the program"
"How can I make my life easier with taxi route planning?"
Before even calling ground control, listen to the ATIS, figure out which runways are going to be in use. Find your location on the taxi diagram, and determine what your route will most likely be to your runway. After calling ground control, write down the instructions, make sure you've gotten the correct directions copied, ask for clarification if needed, or ask for progressive taxi instructions if you get lost or confused. If you have a paper diagram, high-lite your route.
"Talk to me about the relevance and importance of a hold line."
A hold line is important because you must have a CLEARANCE to go across one.
"What does one look like? Can you draw it for me?"
YEP.
"What are some procedures that you could advise me of, to keep my workload to a minimum for taxiing?"
Get all your checklists done before you taxi.
"What are some things I should not do while taxiing?"
Don't be dinking around with your GPS or instruments. Keep your eyes outside.
"Is there anything I should different when taxiing at night?"
Taxi more slowly at night. Be more cautious. Maybe turn your strobe lights off if they are distracting or blinding people.
"How fast should I taxi?"
In the ramp area, go slow. About five knots at most. Should be a fast walk at the most. When you are out on the actual taxi-way, no more than 15 knots is generally good.
"What kind of reference material do you have that will guide you for logbook and certificate endorsements?"
- This is where I went down the path to failing the exam. I didn't realize that all the endorsements were in Advisory Circular 61-65E. http://flighttraining.aopa.org/pdfs/ac61_65e.pdf Make sure you've studied this. I had a print out of this exact thing but had totally forgotten that I printed it and went through it a couple weeks before. I told him you could find the endorsements in the FAR/AIM and online or in books that you could buy. I also forgot the hours required to get a private pilots license and commercial license. Since I looked more than 30% of his questions up in the FAR/AIM, he decided I failed that section and informed me I had failed.
I got a few easy questions done before things got bad - so these are the easy ones:
"Before I go on my first solo flight, where will you as an instructor endorse my student pilot certificate?"
Right here, where it says solo flight endorsement.
"What about before I go on my solo cross country?"
Right here, where it says solo cross country.
"Where would you endorse me to fly a different kind of aircraft?"
Under the first one, with a different make and model of aircraft.
"Do you have to give me any different training for a different airplane?"
Yes, I would have to give you all the training necessary in the different airplane and have you fill out a pre-solo knowledge test for that aircraft.
"How long are these solo endorsements valid for?"
90 calendar days.
"Where else would you have to endorse these things?"
I would put them in your log-book.
"Which endorsements would go in there?"
The TSA one, the solo one, the presolo one, etc.
"Okay, let's say I've done all my training and I'm ready to go to the examiner. Here's an 8710 - lets go through this. SSN - do I have to give the FAA my SSN?"
No, you can put "DO NOT USE" instead.
"What information has to go in "Place of Birth?""
City and State.
"In terms of address, what can you put in there? Can you put a PO box in there?"
There are instructions on the back of the 8710 that say what you must do in the case that you use a PO box. "Must have instructions to get to your actual physical address"
"Do you have to be a US citizen to take a checkride?"
No.
"If I just have a student pilot certificate, is that a medical certificate?"
Yes.
These are the questions I should have had memorized:
"If I check 'yes' under 'have you had a drug related conviction?' will that create any problems for me?"
- I should have said - YES. You will not be eligible to take a checkride until 12 months after the conviction. The FAA can suspend or revoke any certificate if you've had a drug or alcohol related conviction.
"Where can you find a list of the logbook endorsements you will be giving as an instructor?"
Advisory Circular 61-65E
"If I wanna be a private pilot training part 61, how much time in airplanes do I have to have?"
40 hours.
"How much solo and how much dual?"
20 dual hours, 10 solo hours.
"So that makes 30 hours. What will the other ten be?"
Most likely with an instructor, but it could be a combination of solo and dual.
"How much dual cross country do you have to have?"
Three hours.
"How much cross country solo?"
Five hours solo cross country.
"How much instrument time?"
Three hours.
"How much night time?"
Three hours.
"How soon can you retest if you've failed a checkride?"
As soon as you've received the training to try again.
"Do you have to have an endorsement before you try again?"
Yes.
"Show me that endorsement."
250 hours
"How much instruction?"
Annnnnd this is where I failed. :( He said almost everyone has all those requirements memorized, and my failure to have known them makes me pretty unprofessional. Dangit. So I proceeded with the exam after we took a break. After passing the rest of the exam he asked if I'd like to re-take the part I failed. I said yes, and I took some time to memorize those answers - got my instructor to endorse me to re-take the part I failed - made a new IACRA application - took the section I failed and passed and completed the exam with a pass. Hooray!
Here's how the rest of the exam went:
"Lets go over systems. Tell me about the primary and secondary flight controls. How are they controlled?"
A cable system is connected to the ailerons, rudder, and elevator from the control yoke.
"How many amps and volts is the alternator?"
60 amp 14 volt
"How many volts is the electrical system?"
12
"How many amps and volts is the battery?"
35 amp 12 volt.
"Tell me about the fuel system. Explain it to me. Draw it out on the board."
Fuel Grade: 100LL (100/130 minimum grade)
Total Capacity: 77 Gallons
Total Usable: 72 Gallons (36 each wing)
Total Unusable: 5 Gallons
Fuel Tanks: 2
Fuel Drains: 3
Fuel Pumps: one engine-driven; one electric auxiliary
I then drew it out on the board as I had memorized from my commercial training and explained it in a little more detail.
"Does the aircraft have any de-icing equipment?"
Yes, the pitot tube but the aircraft is not permitted to fly into known icing conditions.
"Talk to me about the hydraulic system. To be more specific, explain the gear system and draw it on the board."
Type: electro-hydraulic - "Electrically actuated hydraulic pump."
Reservoir: self-contained, independent of brake system
Power source: reversible electric motor
Features: downlocks and emergency extension
I then drew it on the board and explained how the hydraulic pressure was used to keep the gear in the 'up' position. I explained how the emergency release works and where it's located.
After discussing the gear, we were finished with systems.
He then asked to see my weight and balance calculations. I had done them by hand and made everything as clear as possible. He was satisfied and then asked to see my performance calculations. I told him I would do them now with the current weather since I hadn't done them because I didn't want to use anything but current conditions. He was impressed that I took performance calculations so seriously and said that it's smart to always do calculations as near to departure as possible for the most current conditions with the amount that density altitude can change, especially at high altitude airports.
After seeing the calculations he informed me that the oral was over and I had passed.
We then did the pre-flight briefing and he gave me his plan of action of which maneuvers he'd like me to do. This is the list:
Soft field T/O
Soft field landing to a full stop
Short field T/O
Go to the practice area - on the way teach him straight climbs and climbing turns
Steep turns
Teach him to do Chandelles
Demonstrate slow flight
Elevator trim stall
Power off stall
180 degree turn on instruments
Simulated engine failure
Eights on pylons
Rectangular pattern (by entering the traffic pattern and landing)
We went out and he barely even paid attention to me while I did the pre-flight. Once everything was ready, we hopped in.
Unfortunately the aircraft didn't do well with the mag-check during run-up and the left gear indicator light was dim. The engine was having trouble idling so he said that he'd like to discontinue the exam due to the maintenance problems with the airplane. We taxied back and parked.
We filled out the letter of discontinuance paperwork and he'll be coming back within the next couple weeks to do the flight portion and I'll be using an airplane from a different flight school.
It was a pretty strange exam. I did not expect to fail by not remembering those hour requirements. It was nice that we could just go back and re-do the part that I failed right after I passed the rest of the oral though.
It still felt strange to fail and then pass right afterwards. I've heard that 60% of initial CFI students fail either the oral or the flight, so I wasn't super surprised that I didn't get it all. There is SO much to know for this exam. If you use common sense and DON'T guess, the examiner will usually try to help ya out and get you through it.
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