Hey guys!
Jon here from fly8MA.com and today we're going to talk about five of the most commonly failed
things on a private pilot checkride.
Five things that people consistently make mistakes on, and forces some to have to go
and do a retake.
So, these are five things you definitely want to make sure you're up to speed on before
you actually go take your private pilot checkride.
The number one thing, and probably the simplest thing out there, to avoid doing on a private
pilot checkride is when you don't do clearing turns.
That's one of the most commonly failed things on the private pilot checkride, on the flight
portion once you get out.
You've already been through the oral, and you go fly the airplane, everything's going
great, you've done everything perfect at this point, but if you don't do a clearing turn,
you're not only demonstrating that you're not being safe in the airplane, it's also
a required area on the PTS, or now ACS.
The examiner really doesn't have much of a choice other than to fail you on that.
So, whenever you get out in the airplane, make sure you do clearing turns.
You can do them one of two ways.
You can either do, just a simple 180-degree turn and clear the area, or you could do a
left 90 degree and a right 90 degree, and maybe a right 90 and then a left 90.
You can do either two 90 degree turns, or one 180 degree turn.
Either way, it clears the area and remembers clearing the turn should be no more than 30
degrees of bank.
Next thing that gets people on checkrides: airspace.
Either on the oral portion, the DP may find that you're very deficient on this, may let
you get through, or may give you a disapproval on the oral portion if you really don't know
your airspace.
The best way to go about this is simply just to look at the sectional, put your finger
somewhere and be able to say the airspace all the way from the ground on up to 18,000
feet.
What is it?
From the surface all the way on up.
Be able to point anywhere on the sectional and know what the symbology is, what it means,
and what the airspace is surrounding certain things.
Like, a certain airport or what the airspace is surrounding a certain antenna, or whatever
it might be.
So, if you really understand the sectional chart, and know your airspace-- we've got
some videos that I'll put the links to in the description below that you can watch to
help bring you up to speed on that stuff-- but if you know your airspace, you should
be pretty good.
Now, when you get in the airplane, make sure you can actually apply what you know of the
map to actually flying the airplane.
Don't just go take off out of some airport, and fly into another airport's airspace unaware
of it.
For example, if you take off out of Fort Myers Page Field here, then you could very easily
wind up in the Class Charlie airspace of Fort Myers RSW-- Fort Myers International.
Same thing if you were taking off out of Venice and you're flying north, you might wind up
in the Charlie airspace of Sarasota.
If you're flying out of Anarbor, Michigan, you might wind up in the Delta airspace of
Willow Run next door to you.
Just be aware of the airspace you are flying around, and really be able to apply that to
actually flying the airplane when you're up there, and really visually seeing it even
though, obviously, there are no airspace lines drawn for us in the sky.
Now one thing I want to quickly add here that's really important: don't sweat too much on
the actual checkride portion.
During the oral, yes, you need to know the airspace and sectional charts pretty much
for your area and almost anywhere in the country.
The DP can ask you about those things.
But when you're in the airplane during your checkride, you're not going to be flying more
than twenty-five miles from the airport.
Simply due to time and what's relevant on the test, the DP is very very unlikely to
be taking you anywhere more than 25 miles from the point of departure.
So just be very familiar with the airspace in your local area.
Don't sweat stuff that's 50, 60, 100 miles away.
For the oral, you'll need to know it, but for the actual checkride and flying it's very
unlikely to happen during your checkride.
The third thing where people get into trouble is talking too much.
It may have happened to you earlier in life, but usually, your mouth can get you into trouble.
I know it's done that for me a lot of times and it still does quite a bit.
But anyways, try not to say too much.
Try not to say anything really, unless you're asked to talk.
If the DP asks you a question, give a nice, short, sweet answer.
"Is the weather good today?"
"Yes."
If he wants to know how good it is, he'll ask you, "Well, what makes it good?"
You don't have to say, "Well, the weather is "this" and "this," and it turns out that
you may have misinterpreted a METAR or a TAF or something somewhere along the way.
Just short, sweet answers.
"What kind of airplane is this?"
"It's a Piper."
That's it.
You don't have to elaborate on if it's a single engine, and its category is "this," its class
is "that."
Don't try to show off what you know.
He'll find out exactly what you do and don't know to the level that he needs, that's satisfactory
to him.
Remember you're not going for an A+ on a checkride, that should be your goal, but whether you
get the A+ or the D- you're still a private pilot at the end of the day.
Not that we should ever aspire for the D-, but there's no need to really shoot yourself
in the foot by opening up your mouth and admitting, or letting the DP know that you may be deficient
in some area, where he may otherwise have glossed over.
The fourth area where people often struggle is Systems.
You'll go out and you'll fly the airplane.
You'll do your 40, 50, 60 hours of instruction but you're ready for a checkride, but you
may not know what all of this stuff in the airplane actually does.
So if you can't actually just look at a panel and tell me what every single instrument in
here is, and exactly what power it is, how it works, then you're probably not ready for
a private pilot checkride.
You need to know if I pull that out, what does that actually do, what does it affect
in here.
If you're told, "Hey, you need to stop squawking mode C or stop squawking altitude," you need
to know how to work your transponder to do that.
That may be something you've never heard throughout your flight training.
Anything to do with these radios, any of these switches up here, oftentimes you may not flip
a lot of these excess switches that don't pertain to us.
But if the DP happens to reach over and twist that to Com 2 one day, even though this airplane
only has one Com radio, that could really put you in a world of hurt on your checkride
if you don't catch that and you don't know exactly how this panel works.
So take the time with your CFI to sit down in the cockpit, look at all the buttons, switches,
and point to every single one, and make sure you know exactly what it does.
Also, take the time to do a thorough walk around prior to your checkride with your CFI
and be able to point out and identify all the parts of the airplanes, all the antennas
on the airplane, and what all of them do, and what they correspond to, as well as look
under the cowling and know what all those parts and pieces do for you.
We've got an awesome video that explains all the parts under the cowling, and it's really
pretty much the same on any airplane you fly, and I'll include the link to that video in
the description below as well.
The fifth thing that will cause a failure is simply being disorganized.
Showing up without your logbook all totaled up, or showing up without a sectional chart,
without certain documentation, showing up with a 2016 FAR/AIM because it's January 3rd,
2017, showing up with any out of date documents, not all your required endorsements, most commonly.
You might get through the oral with that sort of stuff because you're on the ground, you
have time to dig for paperwork.
When you get in the airplane and you leave your sectional chart in the backseat, and
you take off on your cross-country flight or your simulated cross-country flight on
your private pilot checkride, and the DP asks you to deviate somewhere else, or he asks
you, "Where are you?" and you go, "Oh, let me look at my sectional."
It's way back in the back seat, and now you have to somehow get that out of the back seat,
and still fly the airplane, and stay on course, and altitude and all of those things, compared
to if you just had a kneeboard, and had it all strapped on before you ever started taxi,
you'd be a lot more prepared.
We do occasionally see runway incursions, or taxi issues with students on private pilot
checkrides, especially if you're taking a checkride at an airport that you haven't trained
at.
Before you taxi the airplane before it ever moves, you should have a taxi diagram out
on your leg, or somewhere else in the cockpit, pinned up, or suction-cupped to the side there,
ready for that airport that you happen to be flying out of today.
That way you are fully ready to accept any taxi instructions from ATC, you can map it
out on the taxi diagram, and of course you're on a checkride, but don't try to impress the
guy, just simply say, if you're not sure what to do, "Please repeat those instructions,
" "Give me progressive taxi instructions," or anything else.
Use as many tools as you have, and if you seem to be relying on other people or other
help too much, then the examiner may ask you to do it a different way.
But certainly, use all of those tools at your disposal up until the point that you can't.
Hopefully, that gives you a good idea of five holes that people often get stuck in.
Hopefully, none of those happen to you.
Make sure you check out the links in the description below to some really helpful videos that can
help you prepare for your checkride and check out all of our videos.
They've got some awesome information in them to help you prepare for private pilot instrument
reading and commercial pilot checkrides.
Even if you're studying up to be a CFI, really review all that information that you may have
kind of forgotten since you first started out.
As always guys, thanks so much for watching.
Any questions at all, leave them in the comments below.
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We'll see you all next time.