Hey all, I'm going in for my CFII ride. Already have my CFI. Wondering if anyone has any advice form their rides/how they went? Thanks
My understanding is it's much easier than the CFI ride. The ground is all about the rules and the airwork is basically your instrument checkride done from the right seat with the "added complexity" of having the DPE fly 1 or 2 of the 3 required approaches as a student would and you having to monitor and correct the DPE's errors. Of course, I only have my -i though I am starting my -ii work tomorrow and hope to be doing the checkride towards the end of the month.
It's simple. Read the PTS and determine what you will be tested on. Study, and be able to teach those areas. Rules are only one small part of the checkride, and it is not an area that much time gets spent on around here. Remember, as with all flight instructor checkrides you're being evaluated as a teacher. It doesn't stop just because you already hold a flight instructor certificate.
Lol I tried during my instrument training to get a working adf airplane. Never succeeded so.... hope it doesn’t come up.
You'll definitely want to know your METAR abbreviations, especially the ones that reduce visibility. More important for IFR.
My CFI ride wasnt too bad but it did further cement my belief that the CFI ride really should be done in 2 parts scheduled separately. Without going into too much detail and hijacking the thread, my day started at 7am, left the house 8:00am with a 1 hour drive to the airport, then after preflight a 1 hour flight up to the examiner’s home field which was 1000ft brkn so I got to shoot an ILS from the right seat. We got started on the oral after checking in and validating all the forms and identity around 10:45. Oral was about 4.5 hours of quizzing which was about 6-7 hours with breaks. We went up fling around 17:30, did 1.4 hours demonstrating required manuevers before coming back to do takeoffs and landings. I guess I was feeling the fatigue (and excitement of getting that far on my first attempt) as my first landing into a strong, gusty crosswind wasnt that great which ramped up my anxiety. I proceeded to teach a shortfield takeoff during which I uttered “accelerate in ground effect” earning me a disapproval. We landed, did the the paper.work and I was on my way back to my home airport around 19:30. Got in at 20:30, did a quick couple of circuits for night currency before calling it for day. I tied down and was on the road for my hour long drive home around 21:30 and got in just before 23:00. I went back a few days later and it took 0.4 hours and 3 laps around the pattern to get my approval. I was disappointed (and still kick myself) for such a stupid error on the first attempt especially since I was “home free” with all the “difficult stuff” behind me.
The FAA has pretty much retired the NDB approach. There are still several out there waiting for decomissioning or conversion but you wont be asked on a checkride or written about NDBs. NDBs are still good to know though if you have any plans to fly internationally as they are the "norm" in many places outside the US. As to the checkride itself, I did mine about a week ago and it was probably the 2nd easiest checkride I've ever done. About 1.5 oral and 1.5 airwork. (Easiest was my CPL SES add-on) The oral was big on the FAA emphasis areas and legal regulations around IFR (0-0 takeoffs, legality of approaches with conditions below minimums and requirements for alternates) along with a few other questions about weather (icing and response, turbulence and response, flight near convective fronts and what to do if you find yourself in convective clouds/storm, etc) Flight portion was pretty straight forward. We created our own departure procedure to the local VOR (which was also the missed approach procedure for the runway we took off from) did a 2 turns in hold, then flew off to do steep turns under the hood, unusual attitudes and stalls. Then we did an ILS to missed (modified missed procedure) followed by the same ILS to missed flown by the DPE (again with a modified missed procedure) during which I had to instruct and correct the DPE's flying. My DPE flew it pretty spot on and I "left" teach mode so to speak when on the missed he assigned an altitude to maintain, took control to allow me to pull up the next chart (we were already inside the IAF for the next approach) so he caught me a bit out as he climbed above our "assigned" altitude while I was looking away. It was even more confusing because the minimum altitude for the approach where we were at that moment was above the "assigned" altitude so my initial thought was he was climbing to the approach altitude; didnt realize he was playing the student and deviating from the assigned altitude and he wanted me to catch it until after he started asking me about it. We talked about it a bit and he understood my confusion and why I didn't catch it right away as it took me a minute to brief the approach and figure out where we were on the approach but reminded me to be ever vigilant with a student. I then took control back, completed the approach which was a VOR partial panel, landed and that was the end of my checkride. All told the checkride including paperwork, breaks and pre/post-flight was about 4 to 4.5 hours.
The CFII it not nearly as much info to be covered as the CFI, but know your IFR regs and procedures inside and out. If you know that stuff and can shoot precision and non-percision approaches easily then you will be good to go.
Well I passed. I haven't been on here in a while. Went well. Biggest emphasis was being able to walk talk and chew gum my way through instrument procedures. Honestly was a pretty easy checkride.
