Time to talk IFR checkrides! This week we continue our chat with two awesome DPE's! Our own Wally, and special guest Pat Brown. The guys tell us many of the common checkride mistakes they've seen, and how you can avoid them!
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00:01
Wally Mulhern
Clear prop SR73 Cherokee number two following Flint traffic three mile final one trolley. Bravo Makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
00:07
Nick Alan
This is behind the prop with United Flight Systems owner and licensed pilot Bobby Doss and his co host, major airline captain and designated pilot examiner Wally Mulhern. Now let's go behind the prop.
00:25
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:27
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:28
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic. We are recording part four of common checkride Errors, a series that has spanned a few months now, a couple months now and we have Pat Brown back on the show. Thanks for joining us again, Pat.
00:42
Pat Brown
Hey, my pleasure. This has been fun.
00:44
Bobby Doss
Heck of a time for sure. And I'm sure based on the statistics that our listeners are loving these shows. They are jumping up the top listens list very quickly and I think everyone's going to love this show. We have finally made our way to instrument checkrides and common errors and we got a lot to talk about. But Wally wanted to kick us off with something he thinks a lot about and it's important for all of us. So go ahead Wally, tell us where we're starting here.
01:13
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I just want to talk about instrument flying as opposed to maybe an instrument checkride. Just think of governmental certifications or licenses or whatever in across the board, medical, legal, whatever. Try to think of one license or certification that you can get without ever having done what you're being certified to do. And that's an instrument rating and instrument rating. You can get an instrument rating never having flown in the clouds. And that's essentially what you're being allowed to do with an instrument rating. I mean that's an oversimplification of it.
02:04
Wally Mulhern
So what I would encourage the instrument students to do is to the best that you can to insist from your instructor that of that 40 hours of instrument time, at least some of it is actual time because there's just, well, you can put on a view limiting device, you can put on foggles, a hood, whatever and meet the requirements. But there's just nothing like actually getting in the clouds and flying. And you know, once you get the instrument rating, you know, instrument flying is a highly erodible skill. In other words, as a new instrument pilot, it goes away in a hurry. It really does. So it is something that you need to get out there and do. And I think what a lot of people probably do, they're probably okay with getting six instrument approaches within the last six months.
03:11
Wally Mulhern
But I, I question how many people are actually going and flying in clouds. And it's not A requirement. It's not. So look for that day, you know, after you get your instrument, look for that day that's 1800 broken and go out and fly and maybe get vectored around at 2,000ft where you're kind of going in and out of the clouds. Okay, get your confidence level up a little bit, then go out and do it again. Then find a day that's maybe 1600 broken, then a day that's 1900 overcast. And I don't know, you know, keep pushing yourself. We certainly don't want to do anything unsafe. You know, we don't want to go out in icing conditions or anything like that. But this is something that, you know, once you check the box of why I have my instrument rating, you've got to use it.
04:05
Wally Mulhern
You absolutely have to use this to be a safe pilot. And at the end of the day, that's what we're trying to do. I can remember hearing a flight instructor one time say that they were nervous about the student that was coming in that afternoon. It was an instrument student. And this particular flight Instructor only had 2/10 of actual instrument time legal. Yes. And maybe that instructor was a very good instructor. I don't know. But a little bit of a head scratcher to me.
04:42
Bobby Doss
Yeah, yeah, I can remember that I, I did something similar we're talking about, but it's probably 3,000 broken when I first did it. And I would, I went to New Bronzeville's on my first solo cross country IFR flight and it was 3,000 broken. I was in and out the whole way there, but felt very confident that if I needed to, I could also get below it and fly safely the rest of the way. But there was, it was a great experience and without that little bit, Little bit, little bit. It would have, you know, I would have never got to night IFR with my wife in the plane. And the, each experience makes you a better pilot for sure.
05:17
Pat Brown
You know that you, that pilot that you describes me to a T. I got my instrument rating in 91 days here in Houston without one minute in the clouds. And I could tell you a story, be 20 minutes. And I'm not going to take that kind of time. But I'll just tell you that two weeks after that I had a meeting in another city. And I was bound and determined, come hell or high water, I'm going to fly IFR to that trip. I don't care what the weather is, because I got my instrument rating. And anyway I scared myself so bad on that trip. And this is not a joke. I scared myself so bad on that trip. I didn't fly IFR for five years after that trip. And in fact I had my double I.
06:06
Pat Brown
Some time after that I went and got my double eye just because I figured, let me just get it added on to my cfi. And I didn't have any actual time as a double eye when I got a telephone call from a very good friend of mine, excellent pilot, who wanted to get his instrument rating. I thought, crap, what am I going to do? I can't turn it down. So we just won't fly in the clouds until the day that we had 800 foot overcast. He says, let's go fly and what am I going to do? You know, I should have told him no, but you know, it's one of those male testosterone pride things that said no, you know? Okay, so I didn't. He never to this day he doesn't know.
06:45
Bobby Doss
He does now. He's listening.
06:47
Pat Brown
Yeah, well, I would have to call his name so he knows who it is. But. But the point is that Wally's point, it is a perishable skill. I tell everybody I sign off on an IFR ticket every flight you make for the next six months. VFR or ifr, I don't care. Every flight you make the next six months. File and ask for an approach on both ends.
07:11
Bobby Doss
Yeah, yeah, yep, I agree with that.
07:15
Pat Brown
You got to keep up the buttonology skills and then go find, don't be afraid to find the clouds and get a safety pod, get somebody just go with you just to help you. The gauges, help you watch the dials, make sure you don't feel. Forget anything that you're. Any buttons you're supposed to push. I mean, there's a lot of things that you can do to boost that confidence. It doesn't necessarily have to have it. Be an instructor in the right seat.
07:39
Bobby Doss
Yeah, no doubt. The last thing I'll add is I see a lot of opportunity for even private students for some of that three hours to be actual. And I think that's the best.
07:48
Wally Mulhern
Absolutely.
07:49
Bobby Doss
I think they're the best instructors in the world when they proactively teach that. Look, this is going to be fine. Rated proficient, current. And I want you to see what it's like because this will prevent you from ever actually getting in the clouds because you're going to do everything you can to prevent it from happening. Once you feel what it's really like to go in There so doesn't have to be all three hours, but man, if you can get 0.5 in a little bit of overcast, you know, 6,000 overcast, get up there and stay in it for a little while and come back out.
08:19
Pat Brown
One of the questions, sorry, Bobby. One of the questions that I'll ask when we're talking about cloud clearance visibility requirements in a private check ride is at some point I might ask the question, you know, because when they talk about personal minimums, well, you know, if I got three miles visibility or, you know, blah, blah. And my first question is, well, have you actually ever flown in three miles visibility? No. Okay, let's talk about that for a little bit because that is monumentally stupid. But anyway, I know we're not here to talk about that, but it kind of tied in for a minute.
08:56
Bobby Doss
So as we got started, I asked the guys, the DPEs, what was some of the stuff that may happen before or after. And that topic came up. The other one that came up is being qualified for these check rides is the first step that any DP is going to do. So we've talked about private for quite a bit over two shows. We talked about commercial, now we're talking about instrument. To qualify for the instrument rating, we, there's instrument checkride. There's a number of things that you have to be able to do. And one of those is this mysterious 10 hours of instrument or simulated instrument flight time to qualify. And what's the best thing that they should do to do this? 10 hours. And I think I'm talking commercial checkride.
09:40
Bobby Doss
But what's the, what's the way that CFIs need to log it and students need to make sure their instructors are logging it to save them a lot of headache down the road?
09:50
Pat Brown
Well, of course, you know, in your logbook you should be the instructors to be logging. You know, we did a VOR approach or we did an ILS or we did a local, whatever, you know, we did, I don't know, steep turns under the hood. We did unusual attitudes. I mean, those things should be in the logbook. But at least 10 hours of the instrument training should refer to 61.129, which is a commercial reg, but it's the one that requires the 10 hours of instrument time using a view limiting device. And that's a really important phrase with the use of a view limiting device. Actual, even 10 hours of actual conditions don't qualify, as silly as that may sound. And there are FAA interpretations that say just that. Just because you have an instrument rating doesn't mean that you qualify for the commercial certificate.
10:55
Pat Brown
And as silly as that may sound, it's monumentally silly as far as I'm concerned. But that's the way the regs are written. So if you have any inkling at all, at some point that you're going to go for your commercial certificate, make sure that at least 10 hours of your instrument training are logged in accordance with 61.129. And if you really want to make sure that it's right, add the phrase with the use of a view limiting device. So that would be. That would be my caveat. Yeah.
11:25
Wally Mulhern
And all the instructors have to do is make the, you know, when they sign it, put IAW in accordance with 61.129. That's all it takes.
11:39
Pat Brown
Yeah. And that's a relatively recent thing, too. I don't know exactly when it came into play, but back when I was doing a lot of instrument training, when I had the flight school, I don't think I ever referred to that reg and yet sent people up for commercial rides. And it was never questioned. But then it became a thing, and I'm just going to arbitrarily say six or seven years ago, it's probably about right. And because it is a thing now, it has created some real problems. In fact, without. This is maybe slightly off topic, but the other thing is, on the 250 mile ride, it used to be, up until about six or eight months ago, it used to be that you had to fly three approaches using three different types of systems.
12:35
Pat Brown
But that was rescinded, that FAA interpretation was rescinded about six or eight months ago to indicate that you just have to fly three different types of approaches. So where in the past the ILS and the localizer were considered the same system and therefore were not acceptable, now there are two different kind of approaches and an ILS and a localizer would be acceptable. So that's a big help for the instructor community now.
13:06
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah.
13:08
Bobby Doss
I think I got my writing about five and a half years ago, and when I went to my commercial training shortly thereafter, it was not a big deal, but it was something that started getting questioned and we made sure everything was correct in my logbook at that time as well. So much like the other episodes, let's talk about pre. The oral, the pre. Before the flight, we're in our exam room or wherever you take your check rides at your flight school or airport. You sit down with the dpe and I've now been qualified. And kind of the clock starts. The orals began. You guys have to have a million stories, but let's hit the high ones. Where do people struggle in the oral for the instrument rating that should be called out?
13:55
Pat Brown
Wally, go first.
13:57
Wally Mulhern
Well, you know, I, I start with my, with my applicants. I start talking about the cross country flight that I, I gave them. And I, I will always say to them, you know, I'll say, okay, for our purposes, you are instrument rated and qualified. And I'll say, you got your instrument rating three months ago. And I'll just make something up like that. And one thing that I always find very funny is I will say, can we make this flight today? And they may say, oh, no, it's, it's IFR at the destination. It's, it's 900 broken. So I can't go. And I'll say, you can't go? Oh, no. And I'll say, okay, you can go or you will not go. No, I, I can't go. And I said, but you're instrument rated.
14:52
Wally Mulhern
And, and sometimes you kind of see a light bulb go off in their head and they go, oh, I can go. And, and of course, for the purpose of the oral, we're gonna go at least in our little role playing thing that we do. Then probably the next, you know, one of the, after we discuss the cross country and the need for an alternate. A lot of people learn things with crutches and maybe acronyms. I'll say, okay. I said, well, tell me when an alternate is required. And they'll say, oh, it's the one, two, three rule. Okay, what does that mean? And boy, sometimes they struggle. They can throw out the 1, 2, 3 rule.
15:41
Bobby Doss
And I'm going to defend all of them. Wally, you know what the 1, 2, 3 rule is? Why don't you accept that?
15:46
Wally Mulhern
Well, I, you know, 1, 2, 3. It's 1, 2, 3 strikes and you're out. Right? Okay. Are we talking baseball? And speaking of baseball, I will say, well, tell me what you need to be considered current. Six hits. Okay? Is that two singles, two doubles, a triple and a home run. What is that? And, and a lot of people struggle with it. So. Yeah, I mean, if you're gonna learn that, don't, you know, just make sure you know what it really, what it means, what it says.
16:21
Pat Brown
Yeah, I tend to hit the weather a little bit harder than I do. On private, in commercial, because that's what you're flying in. And you better have a reasonably good idea of what kind of weather you're going to encounter when you're flying in the vicinity of a low pressure system or a cold front or something like that. And there's some nuances to the kind of weather that you could expect on a cold front. Is it a Pacific front or is it a blue northern coming down from Canada with a huge amount of energy behind it? So, you know, they don't need to be a meteorologist. And I would never try to hold anyone to that standard because I'm certainly not.
17:09
Pat Brown
But I think it's fair to be able to point to a random surface analysis chart to some sort of a weather symbol on that surface analysis chart. And they're all common symbols. And just say, you know, if our flight path were to take us across this, let's just say random is a warm front or trough or a dry line or whatever the case may be. If our flight path were to take us through or in the vicinity of this, what kind of flight conditions could you expect? And then just sit back and watch them kind of, Some of them kind of really flail and some of them just really don't have a clue. And you know, there, there starts to be like your one strike, you know, and maybe two depending on.
18:02
Pat Brown
And then, and then some of them will struggle reading coded metars and taps. Well, okay, I, I get that you can click a button and have it decoded for you, but there's some really compelling reasons. We don't have to get into them here, but there's some really compelling reasons to know how to read coded weather. One of which is I think it's just easier, but that's beside the point. So they struggle with reading metars and TAFs. And personally, I really like it when they pull out foreflight and pull out the briefing. I'll ask them, well, you know, where did foreflight get all of this weather information from? And you know, I get all kinds of answers for that come, you know, it goes from the faa, you know, or from the weather Channel or the Internet.
18:55
Pat Brown
Okay, well, let's, we'll talk about that a little bit. But I really like it when they open a foreflight and we start going through the actual briefing for the trip. And that gives me an opportunity to ask them to decode a metar to look at the little wind barbs and how strong are those wind barbs and you know, look at it in the context of the checkride. So I actually like it when they pull foreflight out. Yeah.
19:18
Wally Mulhern
And another thing, speaking of reading those charts is as simple as being able to convert to Zulu time or uct, whatever we want to, whatever want to call it that's a problem. You know, and most people at least these days, you know, an Apple watch is something a lot of people have. You can put a second time zone on there. I happen to have one of the really, I think really cool Garmin pilot watches. I have GMT always displayed online. So if I can't add five or six or whatever, it happens to be based on your time zone. If I'm struggling with that, all I gotta do is look at my watch and it's right there.
20:08
Wally Mulhern
So that's something that's, you know, and I'm gonna tell you, I mean, you know, as my airline pilot, about six hours ago I was reading this, I was flying from Maui to Denver. And before we can continue into ETOPS airspace, we have to have certain weather minimums and we got to look at our ETOPS alternates and you know, it comes across the printer and there we are discussing with first officer. Okay, Honolulu right now is looking good. It's for the next six hours. It's going to be good. San Francisco is this. Yes, we can continue. So it's not something that is, that we just do in a classroom. It is something that is very real world.
20:56
Pat Brown
So I hit that pretty hard. And along with chart symbology, you know, they don't have to know everything, but you know, when I point to that little A in the triangle on an approach plate and because at some point when we're talking about the cross country, I'll say, you know, with the subject of an alternate will come up because I'll give them something like you do. It's 900ft or, you know, it's a quarter mile visibility or a half mile visibility or whatever. And how does that affect your flight planning? Well, we'll need an alternate. What's your alternate? And normally they'll choose, you know, whatever. I don't want to give away too much on the oral, but, you know, they'll choose an alternative, kind of expecting them to choose.
21:41
Pat Brown
And I'll have a copy of the approach plate printed and I'll put it out in front of them and say, well, what's that little A right there? And alternate minimums. Okay, great. What are they? Well, they'll start reading the text next to it, but that's not Necessarily what I'm looking for them to do. And sometimes they don't realize that I'm expecting them to go to the, you know, in foreflight and you know that where you can find the alternate minimums or look in the approach plate packet that they have where they can actually go to the alternate minimums. And you know, maybe alternate minimums at that airport or 1,000ft and three miles is mildly, I don't know. But they don't, they don't understand what alternate minimums are. Oftentimes.
22:32
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
22:33
Bobby Doss
So all good stuff, all things that are going to come up. Do you spend much time talking about lost comms in the oral component? Yes, and I gotta think they use some of their acronyms to think through their thought process and control that mental conversation for themselves. Do people do pretty good lost comms?
22:57
Pat Brown
Yeah, generally speaking. But when you throw a situation at them that allows them perhaps not to follow the avenue F. MEA Speaking of acronyms that, where they can legally deviate from that they don't stop to realize that they have emergency authority.
23:24
Wally Mulhern
Right.
23:25
Pat Brown
So I'll throw them a scenario like that. How about you, Wally?
23:29
Wally Mulhern
Well, what I talk about with that is, you know, I talk about, I do talk about lost com. And, and I, I say, well, in a given airplane, I said, what probably is the most likely reason to have lost calm. And you know what, Most of the airplanes that we fly have two communications radios and what are the chances that just both of them are going to go out pretty remote and it'll eventually get to a total electrical failure. And in a total electrical failure you have lost comm. You also have lost nas. Okay, so now what are we going to do? And you know, you can't. And, and there's really, there's not a whole lot. Well, the book answer is to find BFR weather and go land.
24:28
Wally Mulhern
Okay, but what I tell them is it is 1000 overcast ever, you know, within the range of the airplane. There's nowhere we can go. What are we going to do?
24:40
Bobby Doss
Well, Molly, don't people just squawk 7700 at that point?
24:43
Wally Mulhern
Well, that's what people tell me. I'll say. Okay, so you must have one of those new solar powered transponders. Oh, oh yeah. The transponder is not going to work. Well, I'll just navigate to here. Okay. You got one of those solar powered GPS's. Oh yeah. So what are you going to do, how are you going to navigate? Well, I'll use my pre computed and am I printed out now? Blog. Okay, that's great. Yeah, it's got headings, it's got times and all that. Okay, well, how are we going to get down? And there's no real book answer to it, but I think it's a scenario that can happen. I mean I, most people have listened to the show know that I've had a total electrical failure in a Saratoga and it was a clear blue, beautiful day.
25:38
Wally Mulhern
So I was on an IFR flight plan and I went and landed and then called up Houston center and, or approached and said, hey, I'm on the ground, everything's good. I had an electrical failure. Had that happened in the weather, it would have been a challenge. So, you know, we get into that kind of thing.
26:02
Bobby Doss
Yeah, I don't remember why I was so worried about it, but I spent a lot of time memorizing like VOR service volumes and you know, all this stuff that are probably on cheat sheets and things. But what's the practical, what is just practical part of that? Like, I mean, that's important, I guess, but it's not in that situation, I'm not going to worry about the volume limits of vor.
26:27
Wally Mulhern
Right.
26:28
Pat Brown
Well, you know, some of this is, you know, some of this is changing anyway because of the minimum operational network. And you know, we will, as of January 2020, were supposed to have had about half the number of VORs that we had 15 or 20 years ago. And so that means maybe what, 500 of them around the country when the mom is finally finished. And part of the MON is that if you're above 5,000ft AGL anywhere in the country, you should be able to pick up a vor. So at the end of the day, this, you know, memorizing business about service volumes is really kind of a moot point because things are changing with the Mon. But above 5,000ft anywhere in the United States, you should be able to pick up a vor.
27:19
Pat Brown
And in fact, I had a chance to test that out when we're flying as fun and fun. The other day there was a VOR that was really close. We were, I think, 9,500ft heading over there or 9,000ft where I fire flight plan and I like to triangulate on my way over, even though we're following the gentleman and the autopilot's doing all the work I still like to triangulate my position with VOR as it keeps me occupied and keeps those skills sharp. And there was a couple of them that were on the map that I couldn't pick up that were really close to us. So, well, maybe they'd be commissioned. I didn't notice in the notams that they weren't operational, but so I just started going to see how far away I could find one.
28:04
Pat Brown
And I don't remember what the distance was now, but it was probably 100 miles or more and I was able to find a VOR that worked. But again, were at 9,000ft. So testing out that, you know, that idea of above 5,000ft you guaranteed a reception. Well, at 9,000ft I certainly was. So anyway, I don't. That's, that's a waste of time in my opinion, memorizing that kind of stuff.
28:29
Bobby Doss
Gotcha.
28:29
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I agree.
28:31
Bobby Doss
I guess I'm talking about my own experience. But holds and hold entries, how much time in the oral. Surely Bobby's not the only one that struggles with this.
28:43
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I definitely, I talk about it. What I do is I give them a diversion scenario in the cross country. I'll say, okay, we're going from here to there. Let's say we get halfway there and one of us has to use the restroom really bad and we decide we're going to divert to here. So it's an airport that they probably were not expecting to talk about. And I'll say, okay, based on the actual current weather right now at that airport, so they have to go and look it up. You know, what approach could we expect? And of course, you know, it's usually based on the winds. Okay, we, I'd expect the RNAP to Runway one eight. Okay, well, let's talk about that. Let's say we, we fly this approach and you know, get into, you know, the minimums on the approach.
29:41
Wally Mulhern
Is it a precision approach, non precision approach, all that kind of stuff. And, and somewhere on that approach is a holding pattern. So we'll talk about that again. It's, it's hopefully one that they're probably not expecting. So, you know, they're going to have to look at some different things.
30:05
Bobby Doss
Anything with you specific to holds, Pat?
30:09
Pat Brown
You know, I don't talk too much about that in the oral week. I mean we covered a little bit, but for me in flight is where the, the Deficiencies really show up because invariably that during GPS with the magenta line is going to fail just about the time we hit the holding point. Go figure. And you know, I really need to talk to Garmin about reliability there. But the situational awareness is huge and my experience with instrument check rides is if they're going to bust a ride that certainly is a high probability of the place where it's going to happen. How about you?
31:00
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, no, I, I don't think I've ever really thought about it, but now that you mention it, I think you're absolutely right. You know one thing that when we're trying to establish ourselves in a holding pattern, a lot of people just, they never factor in wind and okay, I'm gonna turn to this heading and those are all, you know, that, that initial turn to fly a teardrop entry or whatever, that's just kind of a, you know, 30 degrees off, that's kind of recommended. But if you got a, you know, if, let's say you're heading 270 and you're going to turn to a heading of240 but you got a strong wind out of the north, you know, 240 may be too much. So we got to factor those things in and use some pilot knowledge.
32:01
Wally Mulhern
We, you know, we're pilots, we've got to, we got to use our brain a little bit.
32:07
Pat Brown
Yeah, yeah.
32:09
Bobby Doss
So we softly transitioned really there from the oral to the flying opponent. And, and I'm not sure how much you'll spend on an IFR taxi checklist or you know, how many people really fail. That's probably written on their knee board or something. Unless you guys say otherwise. Let's jump right to the flight.
32:25
Wally Mulhern
Right?
32:25
Pat Brown
I'd say let's jump to the flight.
32:28
Bobby Doss
So we're wheels up, we're heading on our cross country, we enter the clouds assumingly putting our foggles on if it's a VFR day and you don't have to give your secrets of how you start your rides, but I assume there's an immediate attempt to track or get on something pretty quickly there.
32:54
Pat Brown
I don't, I mean mine's no secret. I mean, I'll tell, in fact, we'll have a discussion. It's exactly what we're going to do before we take off because I don't like there to be any surprises, you know, in that respect. And I typically start off with Unusual attitudes and then out of hooks.
33:15
Bobby Doss
We'Ll.
33:15
Pat Brown
Usually head over to Navasota and I'll have them intercept a radial and track it over there. We'll do the whole, that's published and then we'll do the procedure turn and do the VOR circle to land, take that takes care of four or five of the requirements. Right. And then come back and finish the ride. So it's no, it's no surprise for me from me when we get in the airplane, I know exactly what.
33:44
Wally Mulhern
We'Re going to do.
33:45
Bobby Doss
Got you.
33:45
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I, I, I, I do. Minus very similar. I mean we didn't compare notes, but it's kind of interesting how similar they are. But you know, this is crazy, but I have seen this on multiple occasions. I, I won't have them intercept a radio as much as I will have them intercept a Victor airway which is a radio. But so you know, I won't say fly heading so, and so intercept the 090 degree radial up the Navasota VOR. I will say fly heading X intercept Victor 306.
34:29
Pat Brown
And.
34:31
Wally Mulhern
It'S crazy. I, I, I have seen people put 306 in the course arrow and then they fly and they track outbound on the 306 degree radial. And you know, I got that's just a head scratcher thinking, oh, what are you, what are you doing? And it's scary, quite frankly. It's scary.
34:55
Pat Brown
Yeah.
34:56
Bobby Doss
I've told the story many times, but Wally, you made me shoot a partial panel VOR approach and desetta I believe and I, you know, I had never practiced that and I think students, applicants need to understand that they're getting certified to be able to do anything in any airplane.
35:14
Wally Mulhern
Right.
35:15
Bobby Doss
That has the equipment and they got to be ready for those sorts of things. As we have a few minutes left, what do you think some of the, you mentioned one head scratcher, but what are some of the things, the biggest gaps in the actual flying components that people struggle with that either CFIs need to do better teaching and spend more time on it, or applicants need to spend more time studying and working on it related to the flying components of the checkride?
35:42
Wally Mulhern
I would say a lot of times I just see a lack of familiarity or competence with the equipment, you know, that they just don't really know how that 530 or that G1000 or whatever works, you know, and that's a big deal. And that's something that, you know, a Lot. Most I don't know. But many flight schools have simulators. This is stuff that can be done in a simulator on that really cruddy weather day and for a lot cheaper than in an airplane. And so I see that. I don't know about you, Pat.
36:34
Pat Brown
Yeah, that's a big deal. Forgetting to do simple things like switching the box back and forth from GPS to V lock is a thing too. Misdialing frequencies, misunderstanding. Oh, rebacks to clearances. Some of them feel like they need to reback the clearance word for word and they don't, you know.
37:00
Wally Mulhern
Right.
37:01
Pat Brown
ATC really cares about altitudes and clearances. So, you know, they tell you to turn X heading and you're X miles from the final approach fix, turn left heading X and maintain Y until established. They don't really care so much about the heading, but they sure as heck want to hear the altitude until established and approach.
37:27
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And they certainly don't care that you read back six miles from such and such intersection.
37:32
Pat Brown
No, no, no, no. In fact, if you do that in busy airspace, you're going to piss them off. So, you know, I stress with my students and in the debrief I stress with my applicants, you know, be selective about, read back what you have to. We don't want, we don't want to make them play 20 questions. But don't read back any more than you absolutely have to. And for the most part, most of the time that's altitude and cleared for the approach or altitude and heading if they're giving you a, a vector somewhere, especially if there's a change of altitude. You know, turn left heading two seven zero climb and maintain 3,000ft. Okay. Two seven zero, 3,000ft. Okay. But like Wally says, you don't need to read back six miles from the fix.
38:20
Pat Brown
You know, and in fact, if they say add or above, you know, cross X fix at or above 3,000ft, my response is 3,000ft at X. Yeah. And because they just don't want me, you know, below that at that point. So.
38:37
Wally Mulhern
Right.
38:38
Pat Brown
So just try to simplify it. And so instructors and instructors could do a, really, do a real service for their applicants to help them figure out how to properly edit a read back.
38:51
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And please don't read back altimeters. The controllers don't care. And if you read it back wrong, the controller is probably not going to catch it anyway. Yeah. So what's the point?
39:03
Pat Brown
Yeah. You know, and then, you know, that Actually brings up a little something called expectation bias. You know, Wally, we've talked about that before. You know, I used to teach my students and we'll have a conversation about that with applicants as well after you phone for a while. You kind of know what to expect when you're, when a clearance is coming. But just because you think you know what to expect doesn't necessarily mean that's what you're actually going to get. And I've had students, and I've had applicants read back what they thought they heard based on what they expected to hear and not what they really did hear.
39:44
Wally Mulhern
Right.
39:45
Pat Brown
And on checkrides, I've had that happen and that becomes a real issue.
39:52
Wally Mulhern
Yeah.
39:54
Bobby Doss
So let's say we've shot these great approaches. We're coming in like we're on our last approach. Do, do people struggle with MDA and DA on these different approaches? I seem to hear a lot of chatter about that in the hallways and conversations. What are your views on that ending part of the go miss? And what my altitude should be? When, when should I stop?
40:19
Wally Mulhern
They do. And one thing I, I ask when I do that divert scenario, I will say, okay, tell me what the missed approach point is on this approach. And you know, if it's a precision approach, which it's usually not, you know, it's usually a distance from a VOR or maybe it's an actual fix. But the answer I get a lot is it's the end of the Runway. And, and now that fix or that DME might be at the end of the Runway. And, and then I will say, well, if we're in the clouds, how do we know we're at the end of the Runway? And they start to scratch their heads. So don't say the end of the Runway is the missed approach point because you may not see it.
41:18
Wally Mulhern
So you need to know how we define at what point we go missed approach, which, that's called the missed approach point. So, and again, on a precision approach, it's usually a decision altitude. It's an altitude at which the decision to continue or promised approach is made. Okay. On a non precision approach, it's not, it's something else. It may be time you could do, you know, a VOR approach. You might need to do a VR approach. Maybe all you need is one VR. Well, how do we know when we're 5.1 miles from the VOR? We don't know it, but we can look at the chart on the bottom and come up with a ground speed and again it's ground speed.
42:07
Wally Mulhern
So if you're coming in at 90 knots in your 172 and you've got a, a, you know, a 10 knot headwind, well, you got to make adjustments because now your ground speed is 80 knots. So.
42:21
Bobby Doss
Good stuff. Anything to add there, Pat?
42:25
Pat Brown
When you tell them that we're going to go missed or that we're going to go a low approach, they, some of them think that a low approach means we're going to go right on down through the minimums and buzz the Runway. And that ain't it right. We're going to, we're going to stop at the MDA and we're going to fly to the missed approach point and there's your, that's your low approach and then we're going to go ahead and execute the mist. Some of them will execute the mist before on a GPS approach in particular will execute the mist and start the turn before we actually get to the missed approach point. They'll get down to the, and they'll start to turn and they don't understand the difference between a flyover point waypoint and a fly by waypoint.
43:11
Pat Brown
And that, I mean that's not so much on the approach. But I remember when the Eagle Lake VOR was still working and we would go out there and we would hold west of the VOR and then have to fly over the vor, intercept the outbound and did procedure, turn and come back in. And because they have the GPS on board showing them anticipating the turn, they would, almost all of them would actually start to turn when the box said turn, five, four, three, two, one, turn. And they hadn't gone over the GPS yet or over the VOR yet. And you know my point, depending on how well the checkride went, that might just been a debrief item. But my question is how do we know that we passed the vor? How do we know that? Because we didn't get a flag flip.
44:03
Pat Brown
That's a flyover. That's a flyover checkpoint. You know, it doesn't look like a flyover waypoint, but it's a flyover checkpoint. And so I think a lot of applicants don't fully kind of understand that just because the GPS says you can cut the corner doesn't necessarily mean that's the best way to do it.
44:22
Bobby Doss
Yeah, agreed. Well, everyone listening and all the flight instructors out there, these will probably be four episodes you share with your students often over the next few years. We appreciate you listening, Pat. We appreciate you coming back to the show. I'm sure we'll see you again very soon. And as always, fly safely and stay behind the prop.
44:46
Pat Brown
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@bravetheprop.com behind the Prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss.
44:56
Bobby Doss
Co host is Wally Mulhern.
44:57
Pat Brown
The show is for entertainment purposes only.
44:59
Bobby Doss
And is not meant to replace actual flight instruction.
45:02
Pat Brown
Thanks for listening and remember, fly safe.