Student pilots fear them. Professional pilots never forget them. Every pilot experiences them. Checkrides! In this week's episode Bobby & Wally run through some great tips, tricks, and stories to help make your big day a successful one.
Wally has been a DPE for years, and it's safe to say he's seen almost everything! This episode includes some great pointers for checkride preparation, as well as some things NOT to do. If you come prepared you will reduce your stress and anxiety on the day of the checkride... and you will also increase your chance of success!
Clear prop! Number two following twin traffic on 3 mile final. JB using runway 25 on a 4-mile final.
This is Behind the Prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot, Bobby Doss. and it's co-host: major airline captain Designated Pilot Examiner, Wally Mulhearn. Now let's go behind the prop!
What’s up Wally hey Bobby how are you I'm good this is a show that I think might blow off far top 10 charts hopefully this is going to be a new series that we're going to be doing every month called checkride turbulence and that's a little bit of play on the words check ride and turbulence but these are going to be stories from a flight school owner and a DPE should make the check ride a little less bumpier we're going to help people smooth those flights out and those check rides out and this week we're going to start with preparing for the check ride and if you have Checkride stories and that is you want us to do with as part of this check right turbulence every month show let us know that this month is all about preparation for the Checkride. Wally I'm sure you've seen just about everything in your first 450 check rides but on a scale of 1 to 10 10 being the most prepared student that you've ever had that would have been me probably on the instrument of course What would you say the average level of preparation is for a check ride? I would say somewhere around a 7.so not but but just short of 70% is normally a failing grade. Right? Right. And so 7 still not really really good right for professional Pilots or people who want to do something or taking something that could be dangerous we want we want to shoot for better than seven. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. You know, it's it it all goes back to school preparation and at least with me I have an online scheduling system if you if you book a check ride with me you're going to get an email confirmation along email confirmation is going to be a letter it's the letter is is just over a page-long and there's a lot of information on the letter and if you use that letter basically as a checklist you're going to be in pretty good shape I know several of the other examiner's here in Houston use the same type of system where you you book it online and you will get a confirmation what what I see is is the the farther out in advance that we can schedule a check-ride and the farther out before the check ride that the student are the applicant is actually signed off in iacra the better I would guess that probably 50% off Of applicants before we even meet I find in some sort of missing something or other on the application the IACRA application itself and it usually has to do with flight times. There's a little column for class totals and its PIC class totals and a lot of people miss that so, you know, maybe it's a private pilot candidate and they've got 7.9 hours of solo time and Thursday or actually I'd be cross-country. Let's say they got 12 hours of solo time. They should have in that class totals. They should have 12 hours of single-engine land PIC time and a lot of times they they missed that and those are really easy things to fix because as I'm I'm sitting at home relaxing in the evening. I'm I'm looking a week ahead of time. I'm pulling up applications I'm taking a look at things and I'm I'm looking at the numbers on these applications and I see that it's real simple for me to go into my scheduling system and send you a text say I was looking at your application I noticed you left out a column I'm going to send it back to you right now and it's no big deal it's absolutely no big deal you know I deal with iacra daily I've I've dealt with it on on hundreds of applications and as a student pilot this may be your your second time to really deal with it IACRA the first time being when you got your student pilot certificate now you're working towards your private and even the CFI’s aren't extremely familiar with iacra so you know I kind of know what things to look for I'm looking for to bring the minimum requirements making sure there's three hours of inch and we're talking about private and we're talking about Parts 61 making sure there's three hours of instrument three hours a night time you know a lot of times you will See them putting in the application that they have PIC night Landings, which most of the time at this point the student may not have that and unless we're talking about simulator time solo time plus dual time should equal total time. So a lot of times I'll see you know, tenth errors, you know twelve hours of solo time 50 hours a dual time.
And total time is 72 hours where it would be 62 hours. So, you know, I'll kind of make a a mental audit or a quick audit of the times to make sure they make sense. And again, I would say probably 45% of the applications I get before I ever even meet the applicant, I find some errors and we're home. Fix that so that's probably the first thing and you know, obviously if the application is done the day before sometimes it's not as easy to see those errors and and then the morning of the check ride or the afternoon of the checkride were trying to fix these things and I see the anxiety level on the applicant raising as they're dealing with this. They're thinking oh my gosh, I've made the examiner mad which isn't the case at all. I mean, I just want to get it right? Yeah, and so 70% just is not good enough Wally just shared a lot of things that he sees before he even meets applicants that really does show a lack of preparation and preparing for the checkride. So we're going to give off a number of things today. That should help you prepare for your checkride. We're going to talk a lot about preparing yourself, which was a lot of what Wally just shared and I think your CFI can help you with it, but your pilot in command here dog. You got to own your checkride. We're going to talk about qualifying and making sure things are ready and and good to go with the aircraft that you're going to use and then share a few best practices along the way as well. And if you do these things, I hate to ask Wally, but how much better is it going to look when they sit down with you and they're really well prepared. But it's it's a very much a better look, you know, I I will bend over backwards to work with the applicant to make make make the check ride happen. But you know before we can even start the checkride we are required to qualify as the applicant and be qualify the airplane so we go in there may be okay. Do we have a legal and qualified applicant? In other words? Do you meet all the requirements? Let's take a look at your cross-country flights and and I'm going to I'm going down. Plug the numbers in into Foreflight and make sure that you meet the leg distance requirements. I'm going to look if it's an instrument cross-country. I'm going to make sure that took the you did three different type approaches if you did your cross-country and they're all RNAV approaches. Well, I'm sorry that doesn't meet the requirement. So we're not even going to technically get started on a check ride is not even going to start so we got qualifying the applicant. And of course that's making sure you have a a valid government-issued ID a Pilots certificate of medical certificate appropriate logbook endorsements appropriate Ground School logged, you know, I had a young man A couple of years ago show up with a driver's license for his ID that expired three months ago and you know, he he thought I was being a little ridiculous by not Allowing it and and the one I showed him that when I even plugged the numbers into the computer system it it said no you can't do this. So he had to come back another day and you know waste of my time wasted his time and a way, you know, there there's somebody out there who would have liked to have had the check ride that day that that didn't get the check ride. So there's a lot of stuff and and we talked a little bit before so I recorded maybe maybe behind the prop comes up with the best doggone checklist ever for for check rides because this should be super simple for for students and CFIs to put this together and share it you obviously need all these documents. So again, I'll go back to and I'm trying to be a little facetious but if I came to you for a check ride the room that I'm in and my dropped my non expired driver's license was laying on the table, my student pilot was laying off. Pilot's license was laying on the table. My IACRA 8710 was laid out on the table all accurate and verified. I had everything you would need to ask me of personally for my my person laid out log book was maybe tabbed out with a logbook audit form that said, I did my three night did my three hours of night on these two flights. They're the two blue tabs. If you want to look at my log book and see them my long cross countries are in the red tabs in my log book and here's the verification that they meet the requirements. Cheat sheet like that all these things laid out. We're going to have a pretty good start to our check ride. We are yeah, I mean first impression that that when I see that and do you know if it's a morning checkride breakfast taco are just kidding those donuts work too. Seriousness when I when I do walk in and I see that I'm very impressed and it it's it's just a very good first impression. It's like, you know, I'm not going to buy a new car or if the car is all clean and shiny and all vacuumed out. You're probably much more inclined to buy that car than if it's all muddy and there's mud inside it so long I when I see that I do smile and think my first thought is okay. Not not that I'm biased or anything but it is a nice way to start the day off. Yeah, so I highly recommend and say to everyone that you should you should audit your log book and make sure you meet all the requirements. Don't just trust your CFI. I've heard horror stories while you've told me horror stories of everything being accomplished except point one of something. Yeah. It was a miscalculation. It was an oversight. It was they they they maybe He did ten Landings over two nights a controlled-out airport, but they wrote down for and they wrote down five and you've now spot checked it and you count nine that's one landing shy of the requirements. Right? Are you able to finish that checkride? I mean, well, we're not even able to start check ride. So begin, you can't even begin until we log into our and the applicant signs the check ride and we go through all the required processes there. The the checkride doesn't even begin. I I had one recently were the the student pilot only had two take offs and landings at a control airport solo takeoffs and landings that a controlled airport and and the requirement is three. And so I sat around while he went out at this particular airport, which was a controlled airport. He'd come in with the CFI and he went around and did a lap in the pattern. And then he came back and logged in and I said, okay now you have three so now we can begin and you know that that whole process took forty-five minutes and I could tell when he got back in, he was his little shaken up and you know it he wants to be relaxed you want to just have all your ducks in a row and be ready to go. Yeah. I remember that day and I remember being prepared but I I get how much information there is and how maybe we're not able to do it on our own Private Pilot yet, but man seek help have someone else review your information with you. Don't wait till your meeting a DPE for the first time to realize it's either all they're not all their jobs do the inspection and use some of the tools will we will commit to getting a check list out there and maybe some logbook audit forms to help the listeners as well if you keep inviting people. Listen to the show, but it's not that difficult. It takes the time to prepare to get it done. So now we've we've we've qualified the applicant. We've we've meet all the requirements for whichever checkride doing we have all of our legal documents that are not expired. They should all be laid out and ready to go that helps you that helps the student that helps set the tone. The next big one is the aircraft and you've probably flown a lot more types of aircraft than the listeners from single-engine trainers and general aviation. You know that off the aircraft has a myriad of options in it. Yeah, and they need to the student and their CFI and if it's a good flight school, they will help that student as well. But they need to make sure that that airplane is ready to go from we all know the acronym AVIATE that's a big part of it and they should days before if not the day before not the day of the checkride but the day before weeks before birth. Make sure they understand the the the logbooks for that aircraft and that they know where to find the annual sticker and and that the annual was completed and all that stuff should be tabbed out those books. They should have those books in the exam room where you're meeting them. tabbed Out ready to go as well. It shouldn't be a hey, I'm Wally. Hey, I'm the applicant Can you run and get the logbooks like every little piece of setback? I would think would begin to create some anxiety for the examiner as well going. Yeah. This is not going to get this we're supposed to get done in time. And isn't going very well, right, right, you know one one thing. I feel like a lot of the applicants when it comes to looking in the logbooks the aircraft log books I feel like this is the first time they've done that and case since I did a check ride last month and I asked the young man to show me and show me an airworthy airplane and and as he was looking through the month I had the the check ride happened to be on November 30th as he was looking through the logbook he showed me an annual which was dated November of the month of last year the check ride was on November 30th 2020 and the annual that he showed me was was done in November 19th I believe 2019 and I said to him I said is this is is this this is the latest annual he said yeah it's legal I said yeah I know it's off But it's 2:00 in the afternoon the airplanes legal for about another 10 hours. I said suppose we end up at another airport and we have a mechanical issue with the flight schools going to have a ferry permit to get the airplane back. I said that and it was a you know, I said it it doesn't quite pass the smell test for me and then he actually kind of dug deeper and said oh here's here's an annual that was done 11 of 2020 and okay now that's that's the annual that we're looking for. And you know, there's there's confusion about where to find the annual, you know, a lot of these airplanes have three logbooks. There's a there's an aircraft or an airframe logbook. There's a log in log book and maybe even a propeller log book. So, you know, they're in the engine log book looking for the annual which you're not going to find it there. It's going to be in the airframe or the aircraft log book and then you know, if you think of the annual as being the airplane and you think of a hundred hour is being the engine that that sort of helps because that's where you're going to find the hundred-hour stuff in the engine log book and the and all in the aircraft log book or the airframe log book and then some airplanes actually will have a fourth log book for Avionics. So one thing that I think are reflect on from my check ride day was this discussion around ADs and I know I learned about ADs. Well, I take that back. I know I was taught about ADs. I don't know that I actually learned much I'd I don't think I took it all in now as Flight School owner. I'm very astute and know a lot more about airworthiness directives you you tell me the way you described them. I think it was the best way I've ever heard it and I only heard that today. What is an airworthiness directive Wally. Well, I basically a recall on the airplane in a nutshell just just it's uh, the the FAA or the manufacturer and it could be the airframe frame could be the engine could be the avionics or whatever component on the airplane has come up with you know, that there's an issue with the airplane something on there needs to be addressed and it may be something and it needs to be addressed immediately and maybe something that needs to be addressed on the next scheduled inspection made maybe the next hundred our next annual and it may be something that needs to be recurring, you know, every every couple of months something needs to be done or every hundred hours something needs to be done. But you know, we're all familiar with recalls on cars. We've all gotten the notice on the car and you know the the The the letter in the mail from from the manufacture of your car and you open it up and I think we all look at it and say okay. That's a big deal. That's something that maybe we should get addressed tomorrow or well, okay, maybe maybe when it's a little bit more convenient and the and the FAA when the issue in AD and airworthiness directive. It's the same thing some are critical some need to be addressed immediately and some not so much and I think that's the big difference in in the in an aircraft versus a vehicle recall is they they will have some sort of a Time requirement. You know, Ford sends me something on my truck. I kind of can get that done whenever I want to get that done right and they want me to bring it in and get it done cause they don't want something worse. Mm. Of course, that's why they created the recall, but I'm not necessarily required to do it as much as at a flight school planes that are for rent or higher in anyway, There will be a 100 hour or 50-hour requirement more than likely on most airworthiness directives and I think and and they they all probably get done. I'm sure there's someone Shady out there that doesn't do them all but the mechanic took the operators going to do that and the flight school owner and or the flight school mechanic will do those things. But the one thing that the pilot in command has to do is also verify that the one of those two people said that they did all that before they got on that plane to go fly and I was overwhelmed, you know, researching airworthiness directives trying to prepare for my check ride and seeing these hundreds maybe even thousands of airworthiness directives on 172 is like where do I go to begin? Like and I'm afraid the most students just go. Well, I'm going to assume that the flight school or Bobby or the mechanic did all that and just go and in reality, the best way to think of that list is your aircraft probably doesn't by itself have a thousand airworthiness directives, but the collection of that model May. Model has certain equipment on it. And most of those have probably been superseded the FAA does this where they superseded something? So it might be it might be an engineer were than is directed. But you're playing the longer has that engine so that airworthiness directive doesn't apply and then if it's been serviced since then and was done once then it's superseded. It doesn't have to comply with ever again. So there's a way that this list of thousand probably gets chopped down to half dozen for your aircraft and you you may have one recurring and it's. It's probably not something super super dangerous. We have a seat track a d for one of our craft that has to be looked at. It's got to be examined every fifty hours so she can take puts a flashlight in their looks at the seat track checks for the tolerances that the AD says that it needs to be puts a logbook entry in and we're done and that's that's a recurring AD And out of all my fleet, I think there's maybe two or three of those across the fleet. So it's not as overwhelming I think as private students and and maybe some cfi's make it out to be but you as pilot in command have to make sure that those have been complied with and normally there's a sticker or a logbook entry that you could flag to prove that those have all been handled great flight schools like this one keep a list of those active and then Super the ADs that have not been superseded so that a DPE and the FAA and the student quickly see that short list and make sure that they've all been complied with. So don't assume it's so overwhelming that you can't get it and then ask someone for help. There's probably plenty of senior people around your flight school. There's an AD guy or girl who loves it and we'll walk you through it and make you understand it all don't just do it once and never do it again, right and a lot along those lines. This is going off the script. Basically the script of this podcast a little bit but I think this is something worthwhile. If you do have an airplane that has a Time constrained A D. Like you said a 50-hour for people who own their plane privately. They're probably thinking well, I don't need to do a hundred our I don't need to do a 50-hour the airplane. It's not operated for For Hire. Well, that's a true statement. But if the AD States a time constraint and you go over that in a year to actually be compliant, you do need to comply with that AD for sure something to look at home and I'm sure there are a lot of ADs that like are like that that our annual have to be done as part of an annual inspection or something as well. But make sure you understand that if you are the owner and operator that that aircraft could it could could hurt you in the future. We talked about a bunch of documents for the person. I think it makes a lot of sense for a student to take the time to do all that review page. Maybe make Xerox copies of those logbook entries again highlighted tabbed out ready to go for you but to summarize all that and and have the log book sitting right next to it so that you can change the summarization open the logbook verify it check it do your part to qualify the aircraft before you go. I think we mentioned this on one other show in the past but a good trick for the aircraft would be to have a copy of the registration sticker in the airworthiness certificate. Yeah, in that room as well. Yeah, you'll obviously verify it at the aircraft later but disaster Feist for you in that room to qualify that definitely the one thing I hate to see I unless it's a privately owned airplane and nobody else going to fly it I hate when I go to a flight school and somebody has gone out to the airplane and taking the registration and the airworthiness certificate and brought it into the room for me. I appreciate the effort. I really do but I'm always scared of airplanes going to go fly while we're sitting there doing the ground portion. And so if I see that I use that as long as I see it. I had the applicant take it back to the airplane. Put it back in the airplanes same with the POH, you know in my letter I encourage people to have I think at the letter actually says like copy of the POH and so I don't actually mean the POH out of the exact airplane because it's not unusual for us to to schedule a check-ride at 8:00. We're not going to get in the airplane till about 10 or 10:30 and the airplane has a two-hour flight at 8 to 10 before us and the applicant gets there at 7 in the morning to get the room all nice and ready and and they go out and grab the POH of from the airplane and then the next person who age That airplane right? It jumps in and maybe it doesn't notice that something's missing and they take off and so they're they're not quite in compliance with the regulations. So, you know keep the stuff in the airplane. That should stay in the airplane, but just really just just snap a picture with your phone and print it out and that that makes things go fairly smooth off. Yeah, as a flight school owner, please don't Reserve that plane for four hours for a 1.4 Private Pilot checkride. I would really like that aircraft to get flown and it needs what it needs to be legal was flying. So have a copy most fly schools would have a pilot information manual which is a representation of that POH that can be used for checkride purposes study purposes et cetera. So we've we've shared a lot of little tips and tricks but to quickly recap as the as you're qualifying the pilot all the documents page. Out ready to go follow a check list. If you don't have one will have one for you soon on legal documents all non-expired legal documents laid out ready to go. This could be easily put in a note book with a couple tabs said pilot aircraft all this stuff laid out make sure that you're you have all the things for the aircraft log books in the room logbooks do have to be in the aircraft should not be in the aircraft. So they'll be available for you to have in that room and then a copy of the airworthiness certificate the registration other things that you might want to point to in the logbook may be available to the DPE all that stuff collectively together nice and organized ready to go before you got there. It's going to set the tone for a really good check ride. Yeah, for sure. It's nice and probably the third thing is have the ability to log into IACRA. Don't wait till the morning of or the the day of of the check ride to try to login page. Into our IACRA. I joked that you know, we're all going to die. I hate to sound morbid here. But but it's a fact we are all going to die. And and I joke that when I was in college a bunch of friends and I decide to go to a movie this is back in the eighties to give you an idea and somebody said hey, we're going to go see this movie and it was called Ernest Goes to Camp and I went with a bunch of guys are probably about eight of us and I remember sitting in this movie thinking of myself. This is the absolute worst movie I've ever seen in my life and and we left we're walking out and I just I just remember I remember saying to my buddies I said man that movie was horrible and and they all agreed that it was horrible. Thought I'll look to each other and say well, why didn't we get up and leave and and everybody so I thought I thought you where I thought you were enjoying it. And and I I joked that at some point. I'm going to be lying on my deathbed and and. I'm going to wish I had those two hours of my life back where I sat in that movie of Ernest Goes to Camp. Well, I feel the same way with is watching applicants trying to log into my IACRA. I have spent hours of my life watching applicants sitting across from me with my computer or their computer saying oh my gosh. Oh my gosh wrong password is course with with the IACRA system. If you try to log into it too many times. It'll lock you out. And now you're you're making a phone call and talk into the the iacra help desk people who are very helpful, by the way, but it's you know, I try to calm the applicant down. I say it's okay. It's all right. Don't worry about it. We'll get through this but I see the blood pressure Rising on the applicant right there. And and you know, it's there should be something fairly easy. So, you know the day before you check ride a login to IACRA, make sure everything's there. You know, it'll tell you if if itwants. You to change your password it will it will tell you that your password is going to expire at the end of the day today or whenever and if that's the case make the appropriate changes. Will I could I could just say I mean do a dry run with your CFI asked the chief of your flight school to do a dry run check ride. Make sure all that stuff's done go through all those processes print out your IACRA stuff as well I would help as well but don't don't wait and log in for the first time in six weeks for the day of the checkride. Make sure you're logged in for sure that that is another thing occasionally. Iacra does go down for maintenance. In fact, it was down just this past Tuesday and it was down for a couple of hours and I I was in the middle of checkride. We were able to get into it before I went down and then we finished it when I had come back up. So it didn't really affect us but one thing that you can do is and you should do is log. And print your your application which we call the 8710. It's the 8710 form just print that out and have a hard copy of it. So if we get to the check ride and for whatever reason IACRAis down that day we have the ability to switch to a paper check ride which creates a few more issues but it's doable. It's very doable. But if we don't have the application its kind of creates some issues, I guess the last few tips and tricks are best practices that we've we've talked about on the show and off the show, but if I have a log book home, I better sign every page of that logbook. I should have those totals totaled totaled up. Yeah, I recommend if people are using a paper log book that you use a paper log book with the total should be in pencil because you're going to make mistakes and if you use a pen total should be in pencil that'll save you some some some heartbreak, I can assure you if I'm using for foreflight, I should print that out. A log book out signs all those pages obviously foreflight does all that for you or makes it available for you so that you can sign all those pages as well endorsements man. Don't make this hard on the DPE you have those endorsements if you've been endorsed to take the check ride, he he or she's going to need to see that have that printed out put in your either in your notebook or out on the desk, but have the log book there. Yeah, available for the DPE foreflight can make that easier but can make it more complicated. If you can't get on Wi-Fi didn't download all that information having printed it etcetera change your thought process going into that should be, I'm going to make this as easy as I can for both myself and this designated pilot examiner so that this goes as good as possible. Right and I can't tell you how many times we're helping students get get a glue stick to log of endorsement in their log book that the CFI sent to them in for flight and it's not it's not this or it's not that I mean Thursday. just it doesn't make anybody feel good about the way that the day's going to go for sure so knock all that stuff out before any closing thoughts as we finish our first check ride turbulence episode titled preparing for a check ride I would say this Ground School is required to be logged and I I need to see some record of some ground school as an examiner not it's not real specific but we do need to see some ground School logged and at least around here the instructors are getting pretty good I haven't run into any in quite a while but that that has been an issue in the past month well hopefully this helps you a whole bunch hopefully if you have a check ride in the short-term Horizon you'll the short-term Horizon you'll use all these tips and tricks no matter who your DPE is I know it's going to home You as always until you listen to the next show fly safe and stay behind the prop. Thanks for listening. Thanks for checking out the Behind The Prop podcast. be sure to click subscribe and check us out online at BehindTheProp.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Show creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co-host is Wally Mulhearn. This show is for entertainment purposes Only. and not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember: fly safe!