Now that I've got some time to sit down and put the checkride into words, here it goes...
I scheduled the ride about a month in advance. My CFII was familiar with the typical checkride profile and what my specific examiner likes to hit on. Two days prior, I received the 'instructions'. I was to plan an IFR flight from FGU to ROA with my weight, his weight (220lbs), a 150lb passenger and 25lbs of bags and save the weather that I use to plan the flight to discuss during the oral. So I go on Garmin Pilot and plan it out with one stop, as that loading didn't allow for a non-stop flight with the given winds aloft. I used a 2008 Cessna 172R G1000 for reference. I planned the flight from FGU to VJI and then VJI to ROA and saved the two briefings and weight and balance charts for discussion.
I didn't sleep a whole lot on the night before the checkride as my mind is racing through everything that he might throw at me and how I'd respond. One of which actually occurred - more on that later.
I arrived at the Airport around 745am and we just sat around drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. Surprisingly, once I got to the Airport, I was pretty relaxed and felt I was ready as I'd ever be. We began by reviewing logbooks, mine and the aircraft logs and found a discrepancy with the prop log, but realized the appropriate sign off was there but placed in the wrong spot so the test continued (whew!). I handed him a big wad of cash and the oral began around 845am. It was more or less right in-line with the ACS, which I studied and made sure I could provide answers to each of the items on there. We discussed weather a good bit. Fronts, ice, fog, thunderstorms, wind, frost, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, the different types of NOTAMs etc., and came up with various scenarios for each. We then spent a good time on cross-country flight planning and discussed a lot of things related to that. We spent time going over the IFR-Low charts and asked about every symbol on there and then we moved to approach charts and subsequently asked about everything on there. We went over the flight plan and he came up with situations where it may or may not be a viable trip to fly or not. We covered the PAVE, MARVELOUSVFRC500, AV1ATE, IMSAFE, SHARPTT and GRABCARD acronyms and lost comm procedures. All in all, the oral was quite thorough, but the Pilots Cafe IFR, ASA Oral Guide and the ACS prepared me well and only a couple of obscure things came up that I didn't know about. The oral ended around 11:15am and he gave me the brief for the flight portion. He indicated that I would call him and pretend he's ATC to give me my clearance and then takeoff and depart to the east to do unusual attitudes and then go into the various approaches. He told me we would go straight into the approaches after the unusual attitudes and said we would do the RNAV with a Circle, an ILS and a LOC and the Hold would be accomplished at the IAF for the RNAV. When he said that, I immediately got nervous, I had never done a hold at the IAF and while it sounds trivial, I was trying to think through how I would make the G1000 do that. During training, we would always hold at some random fix, but never hold on the IAF or a fix on an approach. I got in my head a little, but I just figured I'd make something work. After the unusual attitudes, I got the ATIS at CHA and made the initial call for the RNAV 33 with a Circle and that I'd like to hold at IYODA (the IAF) before proceeding inbound. They cleared me as such and said to advise when ready to proceed inbound. I loaded the approach with the full procedure. As I approached the fix, I did the paralell entry and once established back inbound I hit SUSP on the G1000 and BINGO, it drew the holding pattern and kept me suspended at the IAF. I think a 10lb weight fell off my shoulders after I got that right. I did a turn in the Hold and then did the approach. I almost made a mistake that could have blown the ride, but I recognized it right away. Right after unsuspending the GPS, I brain-farted and hit direct to the FAF on the approach, which cut off the IAF. I was scanning the instruments and caught what I did about a half mile from the IAF and went back direct to IYODA. Anyway, this was also the partial panel, so right after we crossed IYODA inbound, he dimmed the PFD and I flew the approach on the MFD and standby instruments. Easy done. We did the Circle to the active and then went out for the LOC, nothing much to say about this one, it was straightforward. We then went back for the ILS and again, just a straightforward procedure. I took it to mins and he said remove my foggles and take us home. His only critique was that I was stairstepping the ILS a bit much, but I attributed that to the bump air preventing me from holding a steady rate of decent. We got back to FGU, I tied it down and he went inside to where he gave the celebratory handshake and asked for my ticket to punch a hole in it. Man, that felt good. He printed out my temporary and gave me a short debrief to which he said "really not much to say man, that was a good ride."
Whew! I could breathe. Over all, it was straightforward. No big surprises just a thorough evalution. Onward to Commercial in mid-January!
I scheduled the ride about a month in advance. My CFII was familiar with the typical checkride profile and what my specific examiner likes to hit on. Two days prior, I received the 'instructions'. I was to plan an IFR flight from FGU to ROA with my weight, his weight (220lbs), a 150lb passenger and 25lbs of bags and save the weather that I use to plan the flight to discuss during the oral. So I go on Garmin Pilot and plan it out with one stop, as that loading didn't allow for a non-stop flight with the given winds aloft. I used a 2008 Cessna 172R G1000 for reference. I planned the flight from FGU to VJI and then VJI to ROA and saved the two briefings and weight and balance charts for discussion.
I didn't sleep a whole lot on the night before the checkride as my mind is racing through everything that he might throw at me and how I'd respond. One of which actually occurred - more on that later.
I arrived at the Airport around 745am and we just sat around drinking coffee and shooting the breeze. Surprisingly, once I got to the Airport, I was pretty relaxed and felt I was ready as I'd ever be. We began by reviewing logbooks, mine and the aircraft logs and found a discrepancy with the prop log, but realized the appropriate sign off was there but placed in the wrong spot so the test continued (whew!). I handed him a big wad of cash and the oral began around 845am. It was more or less right in-line with the ACS, which I studied and made sure I could provide answers to each of the items on there. We discussed weather a good bit. Fronts, ice, fog, thunderstorms, wind, frost, AIRMETs, SIGMETs, the different types of NOTAMs etc., and came up with various scenarios for each. We then spent a good time on cross-country flight planning and discussed a lot of things related to that. We spent time going over the IFR-Low charts and asked about every symbol on there and then we moved to approach charts and subsequently asked about everything on there. We went over the flight plan and he came up with situations where it may or may not be a viable trip to fly or not. We covered the PAVE, MARVELOUSVFRC500, AV1ATE, IMSAFE, SHARPTT and GRABCARD acronyms and lost comm procedures. All in all, the oral was quite thorough, but the Pilots Cafe IFR, ASA Oral Guide and the ACS prepared me well and only a couple of obscure things came up that I didn't know about. The oral ended around 11:15am and he gave me the brief for the flight portion. He indicated that I would call him and pretend he's ATC to give me my clearance and then takeoff and depart to the east to do unusual attitudes and then go into the various approaches. He told me we would go straight into the approaches after the unusual attitudes and said we would do the RNAV with a Circle, an ILS and a LOC and the Hold would be accomplished at the IAF for the RNAV. When he said that, I immediately got nervous, I had never done a hold at the IAF and while it sounds trivial, I was trying to think through how I would make the G1000 do that. During training, we would always hold at some random fix, but never hold on the IAF or a fix on an approach. I got in my head a little, but I just figured I'd make something work. After the unusual attitudes, I got the ATIS at CHA and made the initial call for the RNAV 33 with a Circle and that I'd like to hold at IYODA (the IAF) before proceeding inbound. They cleared me as such and said to advise when ready to proceed inbound. I loaded the approach with the full procedure. As I approached the fix, I did the paralell entry and once established back inbound I hit SUSP on the G1000 and BINGO, it drew the holding pattern and kept me suspended at the IAF. I think a 10lb weight fell off my shoulders after I got that right. I did a turn in the Hold and then did the approach. I almost made a mistake that could have blown the ride, but I recognized it right away. Right after unsuspending the GPS, I brain-farted and hit direct to the FAF on the approach, which cut off the IAF. I was scanning the instruments and caught what I did about a half mile from the IAF and went back direct to IYODA. Anyway, this was also the partial panel, so right after we crossed IYODA inbound, he dimmed the PFD and I flew the approach on the MFD and standby instruments. Easy done. We did the Circle to the active and then went out for the LOC, nothing much to say about this one, it was straightforward. We then went back for the ILS and again, just a straightforward procedure. I took it to mins and he said remove my foggles and take us home. His only critique was that I was stairstepping the ILS a bit much, but I attributed that to the bump air preventing me from holding a steady rate of decent. We got back to FGU, I tied it down and he went inside to where he gave the celebratory handshake and asked for my ticket to punch a hole in it. Man, that felt good. He printed out my temporary and gave me a short debrief to which he said "really not much to say man, that was a good ride."
Whew! I could breathe. Over all, it was straightforward. No big surprises just a thorough evalution. Onward to Commercial in mid-January!
