There's nothing worse than a checkride that ends before it even begins. We discuss properly qualifying for your checkride in this week's episode of Behind the Prop!
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00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop 773 Cherokee number two following Flynn traffic three mile final makes for in Runway two five going four miles.
00:10
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.
00:24
Bobby Doss
What's up Wally?
00:26
Wally Mulhern
Hey Bobby, how are you?
00:27
Bobby Doss
I am fantastic as always. You know, a lot of times when we record these shows, we get to deal with the topic that we've been dealing with recently. And most recently you and I and other DPEs have been dealing with the conversation around qualifying for a checkride. And that is today's title of the show, Qualifying for a Checkride. We talk a lot about checkrides and the do's and don'ts in the oral and on the flying and the mistakes that students make. But, but we clearly have missed the opportunity to share the ideas and the thoughts and the things that go on with the qualification, the qualifying for a checkride. And unfortunately, and I don't think we're unique, but occasionally we have a checkride scheduled and that checkride never starts.
01:17
Bobby Doss
That is in today's world where we need more checkride slots and we need more DPEs and blah, blah to have a checkride scheduled and for that checkride never to get started for a clerical or administrative reason or whatever else. It is a kick in the gut. Wally, in the last short term memory, not just ufs, but how many times does a check ride? And if you know a percentage, that'd be awesome. But how many times does a checkride not even get started?
01:47
Wally Mulhern
I would say now we're not talking about weather because weather is something that we can't really control. But I would say for a qualification issue, I'd say somewhere between 5 and 10%, which you can look at that and say, well, that's not very much. But it really is. If, I mean, if there's a month where I'm doing, you know, I've had months where I've done 30 checkrides and that's three check rides.
02:23
Bobby Doss
And I'd kill for three check red slots. I would kill for three check red slots right now.
02:26
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. You know, and a lot of it is, you know, when people contact me about checkrides, I tell them I don't schedule more than two weeks out. And the reason I don't schedule more than two weeks out is for a couple reasons. First of all, I Don't want to schedule someone until they're pretty much signed off, ready to go. I don't want to say, okay, I'll get you done on November 18th. And they're starting their private pilot training today, and they're saying, well, geez, we should be able to get it done in two months or seven weeks. Well, maybe not, but.
03:05
Wally Mulhern
But the other reason is why I don't want to schedule more than two weeks out is if I have a weather cancellation with somebody today, I want to be able to get them in within the next few weeks, maybe the next three weeks. So I leave. I leave some slots open two weeks down the road. You know, I don't want to tell the person who we had a weather cancellation or weather discontinuance today, yeah, I'll get you back. We'll finish you in, you know, November. So that's the reason. That's the reason for that. Other examiners have different philosophies and it works for them. But I'm just telling you my philosophy. I get requests all the time from people saying, can I get a check ride the beginning of November?
04:01
Wally Mulhern
Well, first of all, I don't even know what my November airline schedule is until, you know, around the 22nd, 23rd of October. So the answer is going to be no, I can't. I can't schedule you for, you know, the beginning of November. I'll put you on my call list. But, you know, I mean, I. Nothing's guaranteed, and I think that's hard.
04:25
Bobby Doss
For applicants to understand. But I mean, that is a reality. I've been doing this. I took my first checkride eight years ago, and I remember that being a problem even back then. The, the scheduling for airline pilots has always been starts around the middle of the month. And you get it, like you said, around the 20th, 22nd. That's not going to change next month. The. They're just not gonna change it. So if a DP is an airline pilot, they don't even know what days they have available yet. And like you're saying, there's hundreds of people calling and asking, so it's just not realistic.
05:00
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. And I will say this. If you're an applicant and you're reaching out to an examiner, the more information you can give the examiner when you make that initial contact, the better I get all the time. Hey, Wally, I want to see about scheduling a check ride the beginning of.
05:18
Bobby Doss
November from an unknown phone number, by the way. Like, he doesn't know who you are, where you Are no one uses area codes like where they live anymore. So, like, right. It's got to be annoying. You have 20 text messages when you land from a professional flight, and they all say the exact same thing from unknown phone numbers.
05:36
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, exactly. And I'll say, okay, who are you? What flight school? Who's your cfi? What type of checkride? Because a lot of times it might be a CFI initial checkride, which I'm not even qualified to do. So that's easy. Sorry, I'm not authorized to do initial CFIs. Okay, all right. And you know, we're done. But, you know, and a lot of time, you know, I'll get requests from. My name is so and so I'm in a Cessna 172. I'm out of Opa Locka Airport in Miami, Florida. I said, okay, you know, I'm in Houston, Texas. Oh, well, will you come down here? And you know, in a nice way? I say no.
06:20
Bobby Doss
No, but let's say all that minutiae which we're all dealing with right now is taken care of and you end up accepting a date and time or giving a date and time when you're willing to do a checkride for an applicant. And at the start here, we'll just stay at, say, a private pilot student part 61. We talked a little bit before we got started. What are the three things that have to be qualified before that checkride even begins? Now, everybody might do it a little bit different, but I'm envisioning this is before the payment is made, and I could be wrong there, but if this, if we don't get past this stage, I'm assuming it's a zero sum game. Nothing happened, nothing good, nothing transacted as well.
07:02
Wally Mulhern
Right. And you know, different examiners had different payment policies. Some require a deposit up front, some don't. But all that aside, three things have to all be qualified. First of all, the examiner has to be qualified. Now, I think it's safe to say the fact that the examiner has shown up that he or she is qualified. And when I say the examiner is qualified, well, we've met all our recurrent training requirements, were current and qualified in the class of airplane, you know, we have a medical, we're not sick, all that stuff. So assuming that, that check mark can be checked off, we have to qualify the applicant and we have to qualify the airplane.
07:58
Wally Mulhern
So, you know, technically, if we want to get technical, if an airplane is out in the hangar and maintenance is being done right now, technically, the Airplane isn't qualified because it's, as of right now, it's not airworthy. So technically we need to wait until that airplane is finished and we have the appropriate documentation. But let's talk about the applicant, because the applicant is usually where the log jam happens. So my, you know, my initial hello to the applicant is, hey, you know, we say hello, we. And we exchange pleasantries. I tell him who I am, he tells me who he or she is, and I say, okay, so let's go ahead and get started. I said, I need a valid government issued photo id, a pilot certificate, a medical certificate, knowledge test results and logbook endorsements. And as crazy as this sounds, I can't.
09:05
Wally Mulhern
There have been several applicants that have handed me expired driver's licenses. And I'll say, and I can't even if I wanted to do it wrong, I can't even do that because if I entered the expiration date in iacra, it's going to say, nope, this is no good. So IACRA is smart enough to know that that driver's license is no good.
09:35
Bobby Doss
And we joke offline a lot or we talk about these things and we're like perplexed, like, how did this happen? And I'm the flight school owner. How did we let this happen? How we get to this point sometimes. But there's also some ways to save these occasions where people don't do the right level of troubleshooting. Right. So if my driver's license was expired, but I had a concealed handgun license with my photo on it, does that count?
10:01
Wally Mulhern
Absolutely, absolutely. Or a passport.
10:06
Bobby Doss
So if I have my passport card, boom, produce it's there.
10:10
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. The other thing is a military id. Those, those are the four things that I see most of the time. I'd say, you know, 80% of the people, it's your driver's license, 18% is a passport, and 2% is other things, whether it's a license to carry or a military id. But yeah, it has to be valid. It has to be legal. You know, there have been times where, you know, the applicant will look at me like, oh, come on, can't you make it work? No, no, the answer is no, I'm not gonna make it work because it's just wrong. So, so that's the, the first thing, you know, valid government issued id, a pilot certificate. Those are usually fairly easy to come by. I will say, oh, probably 30% of them are not signed on the back.
11:10
Wally Mulhern
So it's not technically a valid pilot certificate unless it's signed. So when that thing comes in the mail, sign it. I'm not gonna stop a check right over that. I'm gonna hand it back to you and ask you to sign it on the back. And now we have a valid pilot certificate. A medical and basic med is fine if we're, you know, in an airplane that qualifies for that, which most of the time we are. What else? Pilot certificate. Oh, knowledge test results. And those are, you know, vast majority of people there. They've been taken pretty recently.
11:56
Wally Mulhern
I will say one thing that helps examiners immensely is there's a website called acscodes.com acscodes c o-e s.com and you can go in there, you can go to this website and you can enter the codes on your knowledge test, and it will print out a report that will basically, in plain English, tell me what you missed. And it's extremely helpful to me. When I see somebody that comes in and has acscodes.com it. I kind of think, okay, all right, this person means business. I'm not saying they get any bias because that's not the case at all. But it's. It helps the CFI as well when you're going over the, the missed things on the knowledge test. So, yeah, I haven't had, you know, any issues with that.
12:59
Wally Mulhern
I know during COVID they extended the window on the knowledge tests, but we're out of that area. I haven't seen any real issue with the knowledge tests at all. And then logbook endorsements in general, you need three logbook endorsements. One that says that you've. You're ready for the checkride. Basically one that says you've been given the proper instruction within the last 60 days or two calendar months. And then one that says that the items missed on the knowledge test, an instructor has gone over those. Now, occasionally you'll get someone that makes 100 on the knowledge test. Well, do they need that third endorsement? No, there's nothing to go over. So, you know, it's kind of a anomaly. But occasionally somebody does make a hundred. Those usually aren't an issue. Most of the people have all those.
14:06
Wally Mulhern
And most of the log books have the canned endorsement in the back that the instructor can just go ahead and fill out. But there are occasions where it's partially filled out and maybe the instructor didn't sign it. It needs to be signed by the Instructor. For most of the checkrides, there is a requirement to log and receive ground school. And sometimes that's not there and that would be a reason to not complete the checkride. There's no log of ground school. And you know, you'll always get from the applicant, well, we did it. And I'll usually say, well, did they charge you for it? Oh yeah, they charged me for it. And I said, well, they didn't log it, so we have to have that.
15:04
Wally Mulhern
And then, you know, I'll go through and I'll look at the logbook and you know, I just totaling the pages. I mean, this is so basic. You know, it's like lock your car when you get to where you're going. I mean that's kind of a basic thing. But so many people don't total the pages. And so it might be an instrument checkride. And so I'm having to go through and finish, figure out how much instrument time do they have because we haven't taken the time total the pages, you know, and the, the if it's dual given, it should be signed off by the instructor and you know, just make the logbook presentable. You know, I, I took great pride in my logbook. I used the same pen for every single entry in my logbook. Not just the same color, but the exact same pen.
16:12
Wally Mulhern
And occasionally I'll get someone in that logbook looks like that. And it's. Oh, it's a beautiful thing. So then, you know, once we determine that the logbook has met the court requirements, the next thing for us to do is to log into iacra.
16:32
Bobby Doss
Can I also bring up a couple other little things? I know we've talked about them in other shows, but maybe they're not applicable here, but at what point, I know I said part 61, but if we're a 141 student, do we need to present you with a graduation certificate?
16:47
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, 141 makes things a little bit easier because the 141, I really don't even need to look at the logbook as far as the entries. I still need to see the endorsements. But because the time requirements are different, you don't need five hours of solo cross country for a private. There's different things. But what I do need to see is the graduation certificate. And that graduation certificate needs to be less than 60 days old. So that actually makes life a little bit easier. Part 141, if, you know, and we need to have the graduation certificate a lot of people, you know, a lot of people with 141 schools, they just look at me like I'm crazy. So, yeah, you do have to have a graduate. You, you. That, that is required to have that certificate.
17:38
Bobby Doss
And then just in case, probably a little bit rare, but if we had a disapproval or a discontinuance. Do I need to present those letters to you as well?
17:49
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. Now the examiner will have access to them through iacra, but if IACRA is down and we now have to do a paper check ride for the recheck or the continuation, you need to be able to present to the examiner what has been completed or what was unsatisfactory. So, yeah, anything that you have, you should always bring.
18:17
Bobby Doss
And I was gonna throw that out when finally, what if IACCURA was down? Doesn't it make a ton of sense that we have an 8710 printed out and then we have our application printed out and signed? There's no reason to let the Internet be a reason to let one of these valuable checkrids go to waste, right?
18:34
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely. So when you, yeah, when you complete your 8710, it would be of in everybody's best interest to go ahead and print it. Iacra, you know, it goes down occasionally, it seems to me. I wish they would. When they do upgrades, I wish they'd do them in the middle of the night, but they seem to do them in the middle of the day. So I, we have, you know, it's not like they just arbitrarily do these upgrades. We'll know about it. And there have been times where I, you know, they'll say we expect IACRA to be down for two hours. And there have been times where I've started a checkride before it went down. It went down and by the time we finished the checkride, it was back up.
19:21
Wally Mulhern
So you sometimes, you know, just a, a little planning can alleviate the problem of having to do a paper check ride.
19:30
Bobby Doss
Well, it was real deal this past weekend prior to this recording, there was a DP who had a password problem. And if that DP had a password problem, the help desk at Hiacra is not open on the weekends. And if they couldn't log in and get started for whatever reason, they might have been able to do it if you had the paper printed out. So just a best practice in general, People print that 8710, print your application out and maybe have more hope that we can get something started in the event that The IACRA system's down or there's a problem with the DP getting logged in.
20:06
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, and I will say this. You know, if you were sitting around waiting for a checkride, you, it's in your best interest to be ready and at a moment's notice last weekend I, I had some plans that fell through and you know, Bobby, I, I, I called you about what, a day or two ahead, maybe it was the day before, and said, Hey.
20:37
Bobby Doss
26 hours before the option.
20:39
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. And you know, I know you had a list of people who are ready to go, but when it came down to it, maybe they weren't.
20:50
Bobby Doss
Yeah, that list got shorter throughout the day. Let's call, let's make it that way. But we did get them there. Yeah, and we had, we did have one no go. That's why we're making this show because it's so disheartening that the no go happened. And it was a formality and we'll talk about kind of as we wrap up in that exact instance. But you know, the last thing I'll say is it relates to this kind of pre qualification and you're about to say log into Iacra. Golly, people, if you've ever listened to the show, and maybe this is your first time, log into Iacra 24 hours before and make sure you know your password because this is the big moment. You've got all this other stuff done. Wally's gonna log in because he's logging in daily and then it's your turn.
21:33
Bobby Doss
You haven't logged in six months and you do what, Wally, what do they look like when they can't remember their password?
21:39
Wally Mulhern
Well, well, I will say this. I'm, I will say Even less than 24 hours, I, I think you should log in the day of the checkride because the security system is such that your passwords expire. And, and I don't know how long it is. It's not 90 days, 180 days, whatever it is. But you know, I can't tell you how many times you see the look on the applicant's face and it's like, oh boy, we got password issues. And they're over there and you see the blood pressure go up and that's when I turn it. Psychologist. And I'm saying, it's okay. Let's just reset the password going to be okay here. Now, you know me before as I'm Drinking my coffee in the morning before I head to the airport. I'm, I'm going through and I'm looking at everybody's applications.
22:34
Wally Mulhern
So I, 99% of the time, I log in a couple hours before the check ride. So I know my password is good. Because, you know, again, every however often it is 90 days, 100, whatever it is, I'm gonna have to redo my password as well. So, yeah, if you can, you know, just confirm that your password is good to go. And I don't know at what time. I don't know if it's midnight Central time, because the FAA is in Oklahoma City. I don't know. I don't know when that 90 days to 91 days happens. But more than, well, many times it's, you can see just the very uncomfortableness of the applicant kind of squirming over there.
23:27
Wally Mulhern
But so we, when we log into iacra, you know, the first thing I will do is I will, you know, I'll go through the application and I will just kind of make sure it look for reasonableness. And a lot of times we'll head this off at the pass. You know, if the applicant is signed off a couple days before the checkride, I will look over these applications and if I see any errors, you know, I may text the applicant and say, hey, this is not right. You need to go in and fix this. And once the instructor has signed it off, if you need to go in and make adjustments to it, the applet is perfectly able to do that. The instructor at this point is out of the loop. We don't need the instructor anymore.
24:21
Wally Mulhern
But the things that I'm looking for is nationality. I mean, if you have just become a U.S. citizen and you're changing your nationality, you can't just go in the next application and put United States. You, you have to do that with the faa. So nationality on the certificate that you present me has to match with the nationality on the application. Occasionally we run into that, but usually the issues that I see is the flight times. The flight times just don't make sense. Somebody may have, you know, 15 hours of solo cross country time and 12 hours of solo time. And you want to say, well, how can that happen? How can you have 15 hours of solo cross country time but 12 hours of solo time? One thing that gets missed a lot is there's a section called class totals.
25:30
Wally Mulhern
So it wants to know all it wants to know about is pilot and command time. So it wants to know well, pilot command and second in command. And for the most part none of ours usually will not have second in command time, but it'll have sel single engine land pilot and command time. Mel pilot and command time. So for a private pilot applicant under Part 61, you better have at least five hours of single engine land pilot command time. You know, other ratings it's going to be higher but that gets missed a lot. I don't, you know, I don't look at the instructor portion of IACRA very much, although I did recently have a couple of sign offs but I don't recall what it looks like.
26:25
Wally Mulhern
But I do know what it looks like on my end and I see, I'll see there's no time there or the other error is under single engine land pilot and command time, it will equal their total time. And again it's pilot and command time. So for a private pilot that has 55 hours total time, maybe 12 hours of solo time, they'll put 55 hours in single engine land pilot command time. In general for private solo plus dual should equal total time. There are some situations where it might not and we're not even going to talk about that. But in general, solo plus dual should equal total time. And I look at that and a lot of times they're way off, might be a decimal misplaced, but I think we need to look for reasonableness.
27:27
Wally Mulhern
You know, if you go to, and I've used this analogy all the time, you go down to the little cafe at the airport and you go and you have lunch and you order a burger and fries and a Coke and the person says that'll be $71. I think you would say, huh, not.
27:48
Bobby Doss
In an airport, Wally. That sounds about right.
27:50
Wally Mulhern
At the airport, yeah, actually it does. But at our airport, I mean it probably about $12. And I think you, you know, it passes the smell test, it passes the reasonable test. So that's what I'm looking for on the flight times and again and in defense to the applicant and the cfi. I mean I've looked at close to a thousand of these, so I'm used to looking at it. But you know, I, it takes me about 60 to 90 seconds to scan through this and kind of look for reasonableness. So all I'm asking you is the applicant or the CFI really? And the CFI. The applicant and the CFI spend 10 minutes on it. Spend 10 minutes making sure it's really right. I mean if I were going to go in and have a significant medical procedure, you know, our heart transplant.
28:47
Wally Mulhern
And the transplant doctor wanted me to fill out paperwork. Man, I would be trying to get it right. You know, I wouldn't just wing it. I would be getting the paperwork exactly right. So let's just get it right.
29:02
Bobby Doss
Amen to that for sure. So once we've done all that, let's say we passed the smell test, we're ready to go after the IACRA review. Does that, Is that where we say we're qualified and we move forward?
29:16
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I will log into iacra, I will have to enter the government issued photo id where, you know, I have to tell it if it's a Texas driver's license or a passport or a military id, I need to say the issuing state. I need to put in the expiration date, the number. And then we talk about the pilot bill of Rights and we talk about the Privacy act. And then I have the applicant sign in and you'll actually sign the application. And at this point I. Okay, now back up. We didn't even talk about qualifying the airplane. This qualifies the pilot. So before we even have done this, we're going to look at the airplane as well. Okay, so the airplane, the app man has to present a legal airplane. And so it has to have annual or progressive.
30:17
Wally Mulhern
You know, some places are on progressive inspections. And you know, I've been fortunate to actually fight with some people that have fairly new airplanes that don't have annual. The first time I did that, the, I said, okay, let's take a look at the latest annual. And the applicant says it doesn't have annual. And my eyes got really big and they just kind of smiled and said the airplane's 60 days old. And I went, oh, okay, well let's see what you got.
30:50
Bobby Doss
Yeah, that's a treat to get to go in.
30:53
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. So, you know, I'm going to look at and I'll, I'll give the people different things to look at. You know, sometimes I'll ask for the ad list Pedot, static annual. Just, just be able to prove that the airplane is airworthy. And I'll usually ask, I'll say, does everything in the airplane work? And you know, most time they'll say yes, but occasionally they'll say no. The, the, whatever, the nav light. Yeah, okay. DME doesn't work. Okay, well show me in the Logbook where the DME is placarded and up.
31:38
Bobby Doss
And the thing that happens for a flight school owner here, right? We've, we've, I've seen everything crazy, everything good, everything bad. What would you think if you were at a random flight school, Wally, and they presented you with the actual airworthiness certificate out of the airplane? Like they handed you the original airworthiness certificate out of the airplane.
32:01
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I would prefer they not do that. You know, the thing that I like is a picture. You know, this is me personally. I'm going to go, when we get in the airplane, I'm going to look at it, make sure it's still in there. But you just, you have issues with, you know, it not getting back in the airplane.
32:29
Bobby Doss
Oh boy, would you ever. And I don't know that I have a real world example of that, but it scares me every checkride to make sure that they don't have the real one. But pictures are okay, I guess is my point. Right. And I think you should make a binder or something and put the air worth a picture of the airworthiness certificate, a picture of the registration, because that's going to help the DP know that you've done your due diligence. And I would think all biases aside, someone who comes out prepared, you're probably feeling pretty good about that. Like, yeah, they got their A game on for sure.
33:01
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely.
33:04
Bobby Doss
Do you, do you want to see all the like the 337s and do you make them look at the hundred hour annual VORs. Do you do all that stuff or is it just more of a, hey, if I see half of them or a few of them, I kind of know that they've done their due diligence. Or is it like everyone we're gonna go through them.
33:25
Wally Mulhern
I don't go through every one of them. You know, some of these airplanes have a lot of time on them. They're, they've been around a while. It would take a long time to do that. But you know, I, I go through and I, I have to be, I have to feel pretty comfortable with the airplane. A lot of the times there's, you know, it's an airplane that I flew yesterday. Yeah, okay, so I, you know.
33:51
Bobby Doss
It not only flew yesterday, you qualified yesterday. So.
33:55
Wally Mulhern
Right.
33:55
Bobby Doss
You might have seen the other half of the things yesterday that you know aren't expired and today you see the other half that you learned now aren't expired.
34:04
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. Yeah. And so I will, let's take a look at this today rather than that.
34:11
Bobby Doss
And so the one thing that I think always as I see students that are preparing for their check rides and for whatever reason might not have looked at the maintenance records until five days before that checkride for the first time. Right. What is an ad? What exactly is an ad? If you, so if you say what's an ad list and where's the ad list? And they kind of look like they don't even know what an ad is, that's probably going to be an issue.
34:37
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. And I will say this. The, the sign off in the annual saying that the airplane meets has complied with all the ads, does not meet the requirements of an ad list. Okay. So you know, I, I own an airplane. I've, I've owned airplanes. Every annual I do My amp provides me with a current ad list of the airplane. It's. So it's not that big a deal to get, but we ought to be able to produce the ad list.
35:08
Bobby Doss
When I think someone's a little too confident, Wally, and I'm not a flight instructor yet, but I, when I feel there's a lot of confidence, I just ask someone, well, what was the last 337 that was done on the aircraft? And they, you can almost see the blood leave their face. Because the 337 is brand new. They've probably not heard of it. But it's a major alteration. Right. And as a par 141 school, our records are tip tap shape and we have a lot of 337s on these aircrafts. If you put a 430 was unit in an airplane as it relates to the rules of the faa, that's a major alteration. And there has to be a 337 and that has to be filed with the FAA.
35:54
Bobby Doss
So if you get asked about a 337, I would suspect if the airplane's more than two months old, there's probably been some major alteration and you need to be able to be ready to present that to a designated pilot examiner when you get asked that question.
36:09
Wally Mulhern
For sure. Yeah.
36:11
Bobby Doss
Prop change, an engine change, like these planes have all had these things done and those 337s must be up to date, right?
36:20
Wally Mulhern
Absolutely.
36:22
Bobby Doss
Okay, so now after we've even just talked all this time, are we qualified and ready to start the checkride?
36:29
Wally Mulhern
Well, yeah. Now we're going to log into IACRA and the applet skin is going to sign the application. And as soon as that happens the test has begun.
36:41
Bobby Doss
Now we start getting nervous because Wally's going to ask us our first question about whether or not whatever we hate, that's what we're worried about the most at this point now.
36:50
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah.
36:51
Bobby Doss
But the reality is, in my opinion, there's still a ton of things that flight instructors can continue to improve upon. Candidates can continue to improve upon. Because we probably got a letter from Wally. Wally has a PDF. You can go to Wally's website. You're going to get the PDF. If you request the checkride. There's going to be things that we have to do. Now normally it's going to be a cross country for a private commercial, maybe an instrument. I guess all three of those, we're going to have to come prepared. We're going to have to know what those things are. That's the checkride piece and we've done a lot of shows on those. But boys and girls out there, you can do a great job of becoming really well prepared.
37:32
Bobby Doss
Printouts have it electronically on your iPad if you want to, but have the printouts have the paper documents have backup batteries. Just show the designated pilot examiner that you truly are prepared and that this isn't just a I'm gonna wing it. This isn't a Saturday flight to a airport that 30, that's 30 nautical miles away. This is a big deal, right?
37:55
Wally Mulhern
And I will say this. Part 61 outlines the requirements for a checkride. You know, I'm sitting here looking at Part 61, Subpart F, Commercial Pilots Aeronautical Experience. It has right here what you need to have completed to take this checkride. I can remember graduating college. You know, I'm sitting there with the paper degree requirements going through. I went through it over and over again. Make sure, okay, did I take English 101? Did I pass English 101? Did I take Physics 205. Did I pass that? Yes, yes, I did. I did. Same way it's in the regulation. It tells you must have 250 hours total time, 100 hours empowered aircraft, 50 of which must be in an airplane. X amount of cross country. You know, it just goes through all this. It's right there in front of you.
39:05
Wally Mulhern
You know, it talks about the cross country requ, whether you have to have night cross country, all that kind of stuff. It's all in the regulation. It's available to you. So take ownership of it. It's your checkride. Go in and make sure you absolutely meet all these requirements.
39:25
Bobby Doss
I thought it was my CFI cigarette.
39:28
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. Well, you get that a lot. Well, my instructor said this. Well, okay.
39:34
Bobby Doss
You know, there is an acs. You can read that. Acs. It's got a checklist inside of it. They're free on the Internet. Go download it from the FAA's website. They should help guess. But it's yours. Own it.
39:49
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. Yeah.
39:50
Bobby Doss
So we talk about a lot of things throughout the week. While a couple notes I had for this show was, how do you feel about my Social Security number being on my application for the faa?
40:02
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, I, I, I, I wish people would click the box that says do not use. I mean, when you initially put in a, an application into iacra, I, I think you're required to put the Social Security number in there. But when the, when it comes down to filling out an application, there is a do not use option. And please, people click the do not use. I don't want to see your Social Security number. If we print this, we have to go paper. Your stuff gets lost in the mail. Well, you know, there's a Social Security number that's out there and everybody knows those are very important. So if you don't have to do it, don't do it.
40:56
Bobby Doss
No doubt. And I think it's just one of those history things where the FAA used to do it. There weren't bad guys, there weren't hackers, man. Just, just do not do it anymore for sure.
41:07
Wally Mulhern
Well, until about the 90s, your pilot certificate was your Social Security number.
41:14
Bobby Doss
There were no hackers in the 90s. Right? Hackers. Hackers happened after the 90s.
41:19
Wally Mulhern
So every time I signed a logbook, you know, every time I signed a student's logbook, back in the day, my Social Security number was in there.
41:27
Bobby Doss
All right, well, everybody's got Wally Social Security number then.
41:31
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. All my old students, they're now pulling out their logbooks, if they can. If they're still alive.
41:39
Bobby Doss
Yes. The other things that I put down here is a logbook audit. Right. You just went through it. No question. But there's, there is a way to go through that summary in each subpart and know whether or not you meet those requirements before you sit down with Wally or the DP in your area. Again, if you don't have. I've seen it and it's so painful to see it. A student pilot is ready to go. They've got 55 hours and they've got 4.9 solo non cross country time. They got, they got 5.0 cross country and they got 4.9 other hours of solo, and somehow they just missed that point one. And that zero point one prevents it. I think I've actually seen it where someone's actually done the 0.1 and then came back and finished the checkride. Right. Meaning they went solo, the point one.
42:30
Wally Mulhern
Well, where the problem is when they have 4.9 of solo cross country. Now they're a big problem cross country, but now. So now they got to go 50 miles away to get point one, and.
42:43
Bobby Doss
It just can't get done. And I guess that's a good opportunity to talk about the troubleshooting that we talked about this week, right? If you're missing point one of solo time, not the solo cross country time, use your brain. Ask the dp. Can I go do a lap in the pattern? Yeah, can I. Is there a way you can help me solve this? Can I talk to my CFI for two minutes? There's got to be some thinking that's involved. You are the pilot in command now, right? These things aren't always unsolvable. They might feel like they're unsolvable. You may have never experienced this opportunity. Wally may have your site, your flight instructor might have, your flight school might have. Just don't throw up your hands and go, I don't know what to do.
43:27
Wally Mulhern
Ask.
43:28
Bobby Doss
Drive it, Own it.
43:30
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, troubleshoot, problem solve. You know, we do that in the airplane. If we're flying along and, and something is not working. I mean, the, the answer is not, let's go put it down in Walmart parking lot and then fix the nav light. You know, let's try to solve this problem. Can we solve it with it? And, and a lot of times it's a missing endorsement. And I'll say, okay, well you're missing this whatever. And I'll say, okay, I guess we'll need to come back. And I'll go, well, when I walked in the flight school, I saw your instructor maybe go, oh, yeah, okay, I guess I could go talk to him or her.
44:17
Bobby Doss
Yeah, don't be that guy.
44:19
Wally Mulhern
Or girl.
44:19
Bobby Doss
Go get some help. We talk a lot about, you know, the iPad and the paper and do I have to do it on paper? Can I do it on the iPad? I think the reality is if you did on the iPad, I would Suspect most DPs will accept that today. But why not print it out? Why not have a backup copy? God forbid that your iPads overheated or the battery dies. And that's the reason why your checkride doesn't get started or going. Those things are easily solvable. Try to solve for those things that are easily solvable. Another big bullet I have on my list for this podcast is if you're an instrument person, you're taking instrument checkride. Wally, other DPS are going to make you disable the aircraft in foreflight, right, Wally? You're going to make them do that?
45:07
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
45:10
Bobby Doss
If they've never done it before. Do they look like they've never done it before?
45:14
Wally Mulhern
Oh, yeah. Because they say to me, how do I do that? Okay, well, so now we're going to do something for the first time on a checker ride. Okay, awesome.
45:24
Bobby Doss
Not gonna go very well.
45:26
Wally Mulhern
Right, Right.
45:28
Bobby Doss
If you're a commercial student, really? If you're an instrument student, hold your CFI team accountable to making sure they're logging your instrument time, both under the instrument rules and 61 129, which are the commercial rules you want to speak about. I know you're passionate about this one, Wally.
45:45
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, let's talk about 61 129. Looking at it right now, 61129 is the Aeronautical experience required for a commercial pilot certificate. And under this, it says 10 hours of instrument training using a view limiting device, including attitude, instrument flying, partial panel skills, recovery from unusual attitudes, and intercepting and tracking navigational systems. Five hours of the 10 hours required of on instrument training must be in a single engine airplane. This is a rating for a single engine, obviously. So what does that mean? Well, a lot of commercial cf, you know, CFI teaching, a commercial student will think, well, hey, that, you know, he or she has his instrument rating. So they've got 10 hours. Okay, well, the FAA has interpreted it to mean that this is in addition to the 10 hours. However, there is a caveat.
46:48
Wally Mulhern
This training can be accomplished concurrently, in other words, along with their instrument training, as long as it is logged appropriately. So if the instrument instructor is giving the person this time. And again, it says using a view limiting device. So we're talking about simulated time, not actual time. But if an instrument instructor is giving instrument instruction and they use a view limiting device, they can log this under instrument time and they can also put in the logbook endorsement in accordance with. And most of US will accept IAW in accordance with 61.129. And in that case it would count toward that 10 hours. This comes up a lot. And where it comes up most of the time is when applicants have switched flight schools, they did their instrument at a different flight school. Then they come to this flight school, they're getting their commercial.
47:59
Wally Mulhern
A lot of times the CFIs just are unaware of this. And if anybody is interested, if I have the copy of the letter, I'd be glad to email it to anybody. It's the letter of interpretation from the FA that states all this. Just email me at Wallyehindtheprot.com and ask for the letter, the interpretation letter for 61 129. I'd be glad to email it to you. But this is something that our FISDO is very serious about and they've, they're very, they've come down on the examiner saying you will check this. So it's something we're looking for all commercial applicants.
48:42
Bobby Doss
Well, I have to say this has been one of these kind of grindy things for me over the last probably year. We've had some check rides not get started. We've had some crazy ones where people have been at multiple flight schools and some of their old endorsements didn't look right and their solo time really didn't count. That that's always gonna be hard. But you gotta work with your CFI team to figure these things out. This might be the longest show we've done in some time, Wally. Now almost 50min. Hopefully this helps everybody. If we said anything that wasn't quite accurate or you think there's things we need to talk about and share with listeners, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
49:21
Bobby Doss
As we said, bobbyhindtheprop.com and Wally, behindtheprop.com we would love to hear your feedback, hear your show ideas and hear how we're doing. Don't forget, five star reviews are awesome as well. Wherever you listen to our show, as always, get qualified for your checkride and stay behind the prop. Fly safely.
49:44
Nick Alan
Thanks for checking out the behind the Prop podcast. Be sure to click subscribe and check us out online@brave.theprop.com behind the prop is recorded in Houston, Texas. Creator and host is Bobby Doss. Co host is Wally Mulhern. The show is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to replace actual flight instruction. Thanks for listening and remember, fly safe.