Our mock private checkride continues with part 2 this week.
Please subscribe to our podcast, and share this week's episode! It really helps grow the show.
Also be sure to follow us on social media:
Facebook - Behind the Prop - Home | Facebook
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/behindtheprop/
and of course check us out any time at BehindTheProp.com!
00:01
Behind the Prop Intro
Clear prop S73 Cherokee number two following twin traffic three mile final one trolley bravo makesford in Runway two five going four mile.
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. About two weeks ago we recorded and published mock CheckRide Private Part 1 and it was all of the ACS components that we've been going through. We went through everything A through E and kind of covered some of the topics in great detail. If you didn't listen to that episode, jump back and go listen to part one. This is part two. We're going to start at 10 task F performance and limitations. We published that show the day Barrel came through Houston, Texas and we're kind of over the aftermath. But man, that was a rough week, wasn't it Wally?
01:07
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, that was. I mean I, I, I lost power at home and got it back pretty quickly and was feeling pretty fortunate and I lost it again for three or four days. And you had it. You were out for four for quite a while, weren't you?
01:25
Bobby Doss
My house was out for six days. The fly school was out for six days. I don't know how many people are listening that have never been to Houston, Texas, but let me describe Houston. It is hot and humid and so when you don't have any air conditioning in Houston, it's a really bad deal. I was fortunate enough to have a generator both here and at home. Had a window unit. Well, I went and bought a window unit and installed it in my master bedroom and the three of us and a big dog stayed in one room. I told my wife we could probably downsize to a one bedroom and she didn't like that idea. But it was a rough week. Without Internet, we had no good service. But we did some amazing stuff at the flight school we had.
02:08
Bobby Doss
We did three check rides thanks to Wally. He weathered the storm and did two check rides with no air conditioner. I think there was enough air moving in my office where y' all did the check ride that it probably felt like a breezy day. We had tons of fans in here and the generator was moving as much air as it could. But we couldn't get the ACS to work. Airport ran out of gas. We were siphoning gas out of other airplanes just to make the tech rides work. We did a CFI initial one day and Then we didn't get fuel back till Saturday. So it was a long five or six days without power and fuel. Power came back on late Saturday and we opened back up on Sunday.
02:51
Bobby Doss
So we've had a lot of pent up flying demand over the last week and have been gangbusters since then. But things are almost back to normal. If you're still in Houston and listening to this and don't have power, I feel for you, man, that's tough. But not everybody's got it back yet. And it was a little storm that knocked over a lot of trees. It was kind of shocking how much damage was done.
03:13
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah, I'm replacing fences at my house, but I feel very fortunate the lack of major damage, you know, as I did track, the storm really went right over my house, I think. I mean it was tracking north just to the west side of I45. And that's not far from your flight school, not far from your house. But I think it went almost directly over my house.
03:45
Bobby Doss
Yeah, were really close to the eye and that's where the highest winds are on the east side of that. And yeah, it's crazy how much, how much wind there was in that thing. And lucky, again, nothing major, just superficial stuff. And compared to most, were very, very lucky. So hopefully there's no new hurricanes coming anytime soon. But let's jump right into task F. So we've talked, we're in the oral. I've been nervous, I've been talking to you. We've qualified everything. We've talked about a number of things. Now we're going to start talking performance and limitations. And we, in part one, we really talked about, this is the acs. This is an open book test. We've talked about this for years. The ACS has been updated. But you have the knowledge, you have the task area, you have the title of the task area.
04:36
Bobby Doss
You have the objective that you're being evaluated on in plain English. You have the knowledge areas you have to have, you have the risk management areas and the skills. And Wally, you talked about this on the first episode. But let's just recap. What are your requirements as a DPE in each of these sections, each of these task areas? As an examiner, what are you supposed to evaluate?
05:00
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, well, when I look at these areas of operation, I do it a little bit backwards. The first thing I jump to is the skills elements because as an examiner we're required to cover every one of the skills elements. Now it's this the different elements in the knowledge and the risk management, a lot of times there's some overlap. So if I look at the skills like I'm in performance, if you're following along in the acs, I'm under task f performance limitations. Under the skills elements, it says the applicant exhibits the skill to compute the weight and balance, correct an out of CG loading errors, and determine if the weight imbalance remains within limits during all phases of flight. And then the next skills element is use the appropriate aircraft performance charts, tables and data.
05:58
Wally Mulhern
Okay, So I say, well, okay, if I cover those, if I can go back and now look at the knowledge elements, the first one, elements related to performance and limitations, by explaining the use of charts, tables, and data to determine the performance. So it's very likely that gets covered while we're covering the second task under the skills that I talked about. And then if you look under risk management, the applicant is able to identify, assess to mitigate risk associated with use of performance charts, tables and data. So again, we don't, you know, it's not. The ground portion of the checkride is not really compartmentalized, at least the way I handle it. I mean, it's not like, okay, we finished National Airspace system. Let's move on to performance and limitations. All this is covered within the context of a flight.
07:02
Wally Mulhern
And when I say that, so we're talking about a flight. We're going from home airport to whatever airport. And I'll ask the applicant, I'll say, okay, tell me what our takeoff weight is going to be, and they'll give me a number. And I'll say, what is the max takeoff weight? Well, right there, by asking them what the max takeoff weight, I'm covering. One of the elements under risk management, it talks about airplane limitations. Well, that's a limitation. The max takeoff weight. So without even really knowing it, we're covering a lot of this stuff. So they'll give me the max takeoff weight. And usually there's a spread of about 100 pounds or so. We're usually about 100 pounds under max takeoff weight. And so I'll throw out the scenario.
07:53
Wally Mulhern
Okay, well, what if I brought a friend along with me, you know, and if it's a lower amount, I'll say, let's say we're £50 under. I'll say, hey, I just brought my dog. Can my dog go? And he weighs 74 pounds. And, you know, I want to work through. I want the applicant to work through the scenario. Of putting an extra £74 in the back of the airplane. And, you know, are we within the weight limitation? We did a, we did a weight and balance show a couple of weeks ago where we talked about this. And you know, again, this is, I'm trying to do a real world scenario. This is really what happens. Can we go with this? And you know, a lot of times the applicant will say, no, we can't go. We'll be, will be 24 pounds overweight.
08:44
Wally Mulhern
And you know that is an option. And then I say, well, what if me as, as the person you're taking to the whatever airport says, well, I, I can't go without my dog. He's my emotional support dog. I gotta have him with me, so let's just cancel the flight. And you know, I, I, what I'm trying to get is, do we have other options? I mean, can we take something off the airplane to low? And by and large, the cross country that I give people is just out of the range of the airplane. So most people do make a fuel stop. But now we have two extremely manageable flights. We have two flights that are maybe two to two and a half hours each. So we're landing with plenty of fuel.
09:38
Wally Mulhern
So, you know, we start talking about maybe taking some fuel off the airplane and how much fuel we would have to take off the airplane. You know, obviously, in a case of 24 pounds overweight, we could get away with taking four gallons of fuel. Four times six, right? Or, you know, 24 divided by six, however you want to look at it. And, you know, we could fit the weight portion of it. So then I will have them compute the new center of gravity under those circumstances. And I'll use that time to say, well, let's say the center of gravity was way back here, you know, about as far aft as it can go without being out. You know, and then we'll start talking about the, you know, the disadvantages and, or maybe the advantages of an aft cg, and we'll talk about personal limitations.
10:41
Wally Mulhern
Would you go like this? Would you go. If you're looking at a weight and balance performance graph, the dot is as far to the top as it can go without being out, and it's as far to the right as it can go without being out. What do you think about this? And a lot of people are very skittish about it. No, I, you know, they'll say, I wouldn't do this. And so then we'll, you know, we'll kind of Go through that. Why not? Why not? And it's not a wrong answer to not go. But, you know, now with a commercial, it's kind of a different deal. I'll say, well, boy, you're, you know, you're being paid to move people and, or things around. And so, you know, you really need to think about this.
11:29
Wally Mulhern
So again, so the performance, then, you know, then we'll get into. Of course, that's the weight and balance element of things, but we'll get into more things. You know, when I'll say, okay, well, what is, what true airspeed are we using for this flight? And you know, they'll say 105 knots. And I'll say, well, where'd you get that? And occasionally you'll get the, well, that's just what we use answer. Okay, well, let's look in the chart and see what the real number is. I'll ask what the fuel burn is and they'll say 10 gallons an hour. Well, where'd you get that? Well, that's just what we use. Well, that's not the right answer. You know, I'd like them to say, you know, our fuel burn is 8.9 gallons per hour or whatever the chart says.
12:24
Bobby Doss
So it's really, again, just a dialogue through this material based on the scenario that was probably given to them in your DP letter or an email telling them what to prepare to come to this checkride.
12:37
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. It is going to sound, feel much more like a discussion the way I think most of us handle the oral portion. It really is. We're just going to talk about the flight and a lot of what ifs, you know, okay. You know, a lot of people will say, well, okay, if we're going to take Fido and put them in the back, I don't want to be at max takeoff weight. So I'm gonna. Instead of making one fuel stop, we're gonna make two fuel stops and say, well, okay, that's, that is an option.
13:18
Bobby Doss
So as you get into systems, which is the next task, G. Operations of systems. Man, that list seems very long. But again, if you read the acs, you need to be aware of those systems. But you're not going to test all that list, K1 through K2, you're only going to be doing three because that's what the ACS says you're going to do.
13:42
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah. And again, I will cover this in the context of a flight. I will give a scenario about starting the airplane. It may involve not being able to get the airplane started. It may involve having to get the airplane started using external electric. May involve a fire and start. So you know that again, I try to pick things that I think are pretty dang important. You know, I'm not going to ask what type spark plugs we have in the airplane. You know, that knowing that piece of information I don't think makes you a better or safer pilot. It's not something bad to know, but I don't think it really makes you safer knowing what to do if while you're starting the engine and we see flames coming out from underneath the cowling.
14:48
Wally Mulhern
Knowing what to do I think makes you a safer pilot and you might save an airplane. So I will talk through that. I will then take it one step farther and say, okay, well, we've taxied out and sometimes I'll talk about the run up. Okay, during the run up this happened, we got this indication that's a little abnormal. What do you think we would, what do you think's going on and what would you do about it? And you know, a lot of times the blanket answer is, oh, I'm going to taxi back and write it up. Well, that's, you know, that's the blanket get out of jail free card. And I try to say, well, okay, well how, you know, suppose it's a weekend and there's no one there to fix the airplane. Well, we just have to cancel the flight.
15:46
Wally Mulhern
And you know, I'm trying to make the applicant say, well, maybe there's something we can do. You know, if I, if I walk into, I, I don't, I'm trying to come up with a scenario, but I'm trying to troubleshoot, if you will, and fix the problem. You know, if I walk out to my car and I have a flat tire, you know, I'm probably going to try to put some air in it and monitor it, see if I, I have a leak, which I probably do. So we'll, you know, so I, we'll talk about the power plant from a couple of standpoints from the run up and from engine starting. I just, I just think it's really important. I mean, without that engine, we're not going anywhere.
16:39
Bobby Doss
Is there, is there something else that you talk about from what we might, what we may experience on the flight? Or is this just the oral portion and, or do you cover some of this portion on the flight?
16:53
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, there are times where you get up in the flight and you'll Give them scenarios of, hey, this. This is what's going on right now in the airplane. You know, I did this with a young man just the other day, and, you know, we're not allowed to teach, but just because we don't teach doesn't mean the applicant can't learn. And I would like to think that most people do learn something on. On my checkrides. And I. We were. We were talking about an electrical failure and, you know, on the ground, and. And. And I said, okay, well, were in a Cessna 172. And I said, okay, tell me everything that we're going to lose. And he went through the list, and he. He pretty much got everything except for one thing. And though now he did say avionics.
17:56
Wally Mulhern
And I said, okay, we'll expand on avionics. And he pretty much got everything. The thing that he missed was the intercom. And so we talked about this. We got in the air, and I said, let's simulate an electrical failure. And I said, take your headset off. And he looked at me like I was crazy. And we took the headset off, and he looked over at me, goes, wow, it's really loud in this airplane. So he. It was a newer airplane. It had a hand mic in it. And again, we. We. This is a little bit weird because if you had an electrical failure, you wouldn't have any radios. But we. We flew into the airport and did our last landing using the overhead speaker and him talking on the hand mic. And he thought, wow, that was. That was really worthwhile.
18:55
Wally Mulhern
He says, when and if I become a cfi, I'm gonna. I'm gonna expose my students to this. And his CFI was sitting in the debrief going, I've never done that, thinking, well, maybe it's something we ought to do. Losing the intercom. I know when I had my electrical failure in the Saratoga, that was. That was one of the big things, like, holy cow, we got to take the headsets off and scream at each other.
19:21
Bobby Doss
Yeah. You still want to be able to talk to your passengers? You probably need some help in a situation that is that big of a deal for sure.
19:28
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, absolutely.
19:29
Bobby Doss
Let's jump to task H. Human Factors. H for Human factors. I think as a private pilot, I struggled with this. I mean, I know it was important. There seemed to be a lot of memorization, seemed to be a lot of details that I had to know what was happening, if my fingernails were turning blue. What. What's the normal talk track for you, Wally, if you'll so share on what human factors the private applicant needs to understand when they meet with you in the DP or the oral exam room.
20:03
Wally Mulhern
Well, I'll throw all kinds of things out there. I will, you know, I will say to them, you know, we're getting, we're coming around the final turn on the oral. And I'll sometimes say, man, I'm just so tired. I didn't sleep under last night and man, I'm just under a lot of stress. I hope, I hope I'm okay on the flight. And I, I just, I like to get their reaction to them, you know, to what I'm saying. Of course, I'm not the pilot, they're the pilot. But you know, I, I, we will spend a lot of time, you know, a little bit of time talking about that. The other thing that I'll cover almost all the time is if you look at F, it's carbon monoxide poisoning.
20:54
Wally Mulhern
So here's an example of covering systems and covering a human factors element in the same scenario. You know, I will say, okay, we're up in cruise and we'll pretend it's winter time and we're cruising along at maybe 6,500ft. And I say to you, man, it's cold. Can you, can you turn the heat on? And you, so you turn the heater on and I say, oh man, that feels good. And then I'll give the symptoms of carbon monoxide, you know, of an exhaust leak. So in essence we're covering a systems. Because then I'll say, well, in a nutshell, tell me how that heater on this single engine airplane works.
21:46
Wally Mulhern
And you know, they'll explain to me that, hopefully they'll explain that there's some sort of a pipe that we call a shroud around the exhaust system and takes warm air from around the exhaust and vents it into the cabin. And that's where we're getting our warm air, you know, so we'll talk about that. So now we've covered our systems, but. System. But then how are we going to handle carbon monoxide poisoning? You know, are we going to just leave everything on? Are we going to land immediately? Of course, we're no doctors up there, so we really can't diagnose it, but we know what the symptoms are. And you know, of course I'm looking for them to say, I'm going to turn the heater off, I'm going to open up the vents and I'm Going to land the airplane.
22:41
Bobby Doss
Do, do you feel like this is an area of weakness for private applicants section?
22:49
Wally Mulhern
I do. You know, I will ask them about medication and I get a canned answer all the time. You know, I'll say, okay, you wake up the morning of the flight and you're ready to go. And you've got maybe some allergy symptoms. You know, you got a runny nose, you're sneezing, itchy eyes, and you go in your medicine cabinet and you look in there and there's some allergy medicine. It's, it just says allergy medicine. And you want to take a couple of those and you're trying to figure out if you can take this brand of allergy medicine. And still. And so I'd say 60% of the applicants will say, I'm going to call my Ame. Okay, well, there's a canned answer. Well, good luck with that. It's a, it's a Saturday evening. You, you do you have your ame's cell phone number?
23:53
Wally Mulhern
You know, is he going to answer? So, you know, we'll dig in a little bit deeper as to where you can actually figure out if it's approved medicine. And you know, that goes down to the effects of alcohol, drugs and over the counter medications. And then, you know, I'll talk about alcohol. You know, it's the night you're, let's say you're leaving at a given time, 10am today and last night at 6pm you met an old friend at a Mexican restaurant and you know, are you able to have a margarita right now? And you know, most people are very, you know, at least in this situation, they're, they're very careful. They say, well, yeah, legally I am, it's eight hours. But I wouldn't, you know, I get that more times than not. But I mean, if, if you want one, I mean, it's, it's legal.
24:59
Wally Mulhern
So anyway, so yeah, this is all stuff that, you know, when we think about learning to fly an airplane, we want to get in the airplane, start it, we want to go fly. We don't, you know, we don't sit here and talk about, oh boy, dehydration and nutrition and hypothermia, you know, optical illusion, spatial disorientation, motion sickness. That's one that, you know, it's more common than people think. I've gotten quite a few people and I think we actually did a show a Long time ago about combating motion sickness. It's not a deal breaker, it's something that needs to be managed. But man, sometimes you get sick. Sometimes you get sick in an airplane. Luckily me, it's only happened to me once, but I was a new pilot and I was flying with a guy doing pipeline patrol.
25:59
Wally Mulhern
So were down low in turbulence and I just remember ruining his water bottle. He had a nice, very nice thermos and that's all we had and I filled it up and I had to go buy him a new one the next day.
26:19
Bobby Doss
The next section really is a new section. It's area of operations. And we have a new task start. So it's task a pre flight assessment. I always want to ask questions of you, Wally, that we don't get to talk about as just acquaintances or buddies. What do you think the longest pre flight is you've ever watched on a.
26:39
Wally Mulhern
Checkride is in time probably 45 minutes. Yeah.
26:47
Bobby Doss
And this is a single engine. I'm assuming like this wasn't a multi engine, this was just a single engine. Private pilot student.
26:53
Wally Mulhern
Oh yeah. And, and these type check rides usually involve three or four walks back into the hangar or back into the flight school. You know, they'll go out and they start doing things and then all of a sudden they might realize that I need a quart of oil. So they'll walk in, they'll go get the quart of oil and then they'll put it in and they get a little oil on their hands. And so then they go back in to wash their hands. That's number two, back to the flight school. And then you know, before they're ready to actually fly, they go in to use the restroom. So that's number three. You know, I guess one of my frustrations as an examiner, you know, we're time limited and there are days that we're trying to get, you know, a couple of check rides in.
27:50
Wally Mulhern
And so many times I go out there and I watch the applicant walk around. I'll ask a couple of questions and then we're almost ready to go and I see them on their phone, I say, what are you doing? They say, I'm calling to get fuel. I'm going, wait a minute, we've been out here for 45 minutes and we are just now checking the fuel quantity. I mean, and now I've gotten to where before we even start the ground portion, I will say, hey, can we make arrangements to have this airplane properly fueled so we're ready to Go. So I joke that I'm going to be lying on my deathbed and I'm going to wish I had the many days back that I have spent standing around waiting for fuel trucks.
28:43
Bobby Doss
Oh my gosh, I can't imagine how painful that is. But you're observing, they're doing their pre flight, they're trying to be on their best behavior. They're trying not to miss anything. Hopefully they're using the checklist appropriately. But you're not expecting it to be an abnormal pre flight. You're expecting it to be the pre flight they're going to do the next day when they're taking their friend up for a flight.
29:05
Wally Mulhern
True. Absolutely. Absolutely.
29:07
Bobby Doss
That should be thorough. But not 45 minutes.
29:10
Wally Mulhern
Right, right. Yeah, we don't need to, you know, they're looking at data plates cross referencing serial numbers against that. I mean, if that's what you do every time, well, that then do that. But yeah, don't feel like you're putting, you know, I know you do feel like you're putting on a performance for the examiner, but just do your normal thing. Just do your normal pre flight that you've been trained to do. You know, it's one thing, I mean, you know, if you're doing a pre flight on an airplane that hadn't flown in two years and, or an airplane, better yet, an airplane that just came out of annual. Oh, they just brought the airplane from the mechanic shop. Yeah, we just finished the annual. Okay. That's going to get a pretty extensive pre flight from me. Okay. Now things can always break.
30:07
Wally Mulhern
Just because an airplane just flew in doesn't mean it can fly out. That's why we do the pre flight, that's why we do the mag checks. Because there's a point where, okay, that mag check is fine and then you know, at some point the mag check is not fine. So that's why we do it. But yeah, you don't have to put on a show.
30:29
Bobby Doss
So we've done with the pre flight. We're sitting in the plane together. I had a unique experience on my private. Where the DP would not close his door and I didn't know if it was a test or not. Are you, are you in the mindset of trying to trick people? Are you, are you on the up and just trying to observe?
30:50
Wally Mulhern
Well, that's a loaded question because I, I will say, especially in a Piper where there's a little bit more to do to close the door. I, I, there are many checkrides I've taken off and left that door open just to see how that applicant handles it. And a lot of them will say, I've never closed the door in my life. And I go, jeez, well, first of all, that can't really be true because you got to have some solo time. So there have to be some times where you close the door yourself. But to the CFIs out there, I would encourage you, especially, you know, some Cessnas, you gotta put the little handle down, but some of you just close the door, right? And that you know, you just slam it.
31:46
Wally Mulhern
But I would encourage you CFIs make sure that your, your student knows how to close the door. You know, and a lot of times on a Piper, I'll see them do the bottom latch and then they reach up and they do the top latch and it doesn't catch, but they don't catch that it didn't catch. And you know, sometimes we'll take off, we'll get in the air and I will come and I'll look up, I'll go, man, it's really cool how in this airplane I can see the sky and they look up and go, oh boy. And well, how are we going to handle this? I mean, I think if you've flown long enough, you're going to have a door coming open in the air or on the takeoff roll and it can be disastrous.
32:35
Wally Mulhern
I know of a flight school that lost a twin engine airplane because the door popped on the takeoff roll. And they, they tried to reject and it didn't work out very well and they totaled the airplane. But you know, I'm gonna say in, you know, my, however many thousands of hours, I probably had five, six, seven of them for real. And I'm not talking about scenarios where I left the door open.
33:09
Bobby Doss
So you're not tricking us, but you're gonna let us make mistakes. We need to do a passenger briefing. We need to manage the flight deck, which is task B. And again, if we go to the skill section, right, we have to make sure we do a couple of things, but it's an open book, literally. We understand that we're going to have to secure the aircraft, we're going to have to do a passenger briefing. We got to identify who's pilot in command, we got to demonstrate the shoulder harness. All of this is at the student's fingertips. And they could almost chair fly the flight portion of a Checkride by understanding the skills they're going to have to exhibit and probably be pretty well prepared for when they are in the plane with you. Would you agree with that?
33:55
Wally Mulhern
Yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And it. It is a little bit awkward because I. I tell the. I tell my applicants in the briefing, I will say, look, for the purposes of this flight, I have never flown in a small airplane. I've flown in airliners, but I have never flown in a small airplane. So brief me accordingly. Okay. So I want them to. To, you know, give me a good brief. And again, when I say good brief, it doesn't. Good brief doesn't mean long brief. You can brief. I think you can brief the required items probably in about 45 seconds. And briefing doesn't mean lecturing. Okay. And a lot of times people just start. They go off on their little speech, and I do my best to show them that I'm not paying attention. I mean, I'm looking out the window and maybe.
34:53
Wally Mulhern
Maybe even whistling. Or I'll pull out my iPad, which is my lap. I'll make it obvious to them that I'm not paying attention. And I want them to look at me and say, you know, draw my attention back in. So they need to, you know, you need to communicate that briefing, not just. Not just read a script.
35:17
Bobby Doss
So we're going to go through the normal procedures, hopefully. We've done this dozens of times with our flight instructor. But starting the engine, same thing. I think I shared this in the previous episode that we had a student or applicant recently fail for not clearing the prop. But it's. It's part of what this says, right? We have to be able to understand and be safe as it relates to propeller safety. And there's been millions of stories. We've told stories about dogs dying and other things in the past, but you gotta. You gotta yell, clear prop. You gotta make sure there's nobody gonna stand close to the prop when you start that plane. And then I think we've spent a lot of time in part one and part two here.
36:00
Bobby Doss
Then this is the acs where we start paying attention, I think is flight instructors, unfortunately. We talk about tax in the airplane, we talk about crosswind. And then everything else is now like a maneuver. Would you agree? Like everything else in the ACS is a maneuver, Wally. And it's where we, as, I think where we, as instructors spend all of our time trying to fly the maneuvers correctly. There's so much technique and there's so much that has to occur to be a good pilot. That I always joke it's a little bit less about the flying and more about the knowledge thereof. Because the turning, the yoke is pretty easy at the end of the day.
36:43
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, well, I laugh that if you look under the instrument elements, under the flying with reference to the instruments, one of the tasks is straight and level flight. And I think everybody goes, oh, yeah, we got that. All right, let's move on to turns, let's move on to climbs. Let's do this and this. It. You'd be surprised at how many people struggle with straight and level flight. And nine times out of 10, the airplane is out of trim. Well, no, 99 times out of 100, the airplane is out of trim. So that's somebody who, you know, they haven't done it very much. Okay, now you've got, you got to do a couple of cross countries with your instructor. But I think the instructor maybe we get up to our altitude of whatever, 3,500ft, 4,500ft, and as soon as we level off, they're okay.
37:48
Wally Mulhern
Now let's talk about this. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And all along the way, the student is struggling with properly trimming the airplane. You know, and it's such a basic thing. And, and I see Advanced, I see CFI's struggling keeping the airplane on an altitude. I mean, we're going, we're up 100, down 100, up 100, down 100. And it's, you know, we get to the point where I say, okay, let's put the hood on and they'll give me the airplane. And, and boy, I let go and we're pitching up at 700ft a minute.
38:29
Bobby Doss
They've been fighting that thing, choking that yoke the whole time.
38:32
Wally Mulhern
And I'll just give it back to them like that. I'll just, okay, oh, sorry, I got 300ft high. You need to fix that.
38:42
Bobby Doss
And they're thinking, man, I'm a better pilot than this DPE over here. I don't lose 300ft like that quick.
38:48
Wally Mulhern
Yeah, yeah.
38:50
Bobby Doss
So we haven't even really left the ground. Right. We've taxis, we're at the before takeoff task of task F. We've hopefully used our checklist. Hopefully we've got a taxi diagram on our knee board. Hopefully we've done all of the right things to this point. But we haven't got the areas of Operation 3 yet. And I think we got a pause. Maybe we do part three of this and deliver it in a couple of weeks so that everybody can really hear from you as a designated pilot examiner on what we're expecting because we haven't covered communications, as you said, instrument flying, all the maneuvers, we got a lot of stuff. I vote we do part three. What do you think?
39:29
Wally Mulhern
I definitely think so. This may morph into more, even more than part three, but yeah, I agree with that.
39:37
Bobby Doss
All right. Well, with that we'll wrap up today. As always, we really appreciate you listening. Hopefully you'll share the show with your friends, give us a five star review if we've earned it and as always, stay behind the prop. Thanks for listening.
39:53
Nick Alan
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. 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.