Hey guys! Jon here from fly8MA.com and today we're going
to talk about five of the most commonly failed things on a private pilot checkride. Five things that people consistently make
mistakes on, and forces some to have to go and do a retake. So, these are five things you definitely want
to make sure you're up to speed on before you actually go take your private pilot checkride. The number one thing, and probably the simplest
thing out there, to avoid doing on a private pilot checkride is when you don't do clearing
turns. That's one of the most commonly failed things
on the private pilot checkride, on the flight portion once you get out. You've already been through the oral, and
you go fly the airplane, everything's going great, you've done everything perfect at this
point, but if you don't do a clearing turn, you're not only demonstrating that you're
not being safe in the airplane, it's also a required area on the PTS, or now ACS. The examiner really doesn't have much of a
choice other than to fail you on that. So, whenever you get out in the airplane,
make sure you do clearing turns. You can do them one of two ways. You can either do, just a simple 180-degree
turn and clear the area, or you could do a left 90 degree and a right 90 degree, and
maybe a right 90 and then a left 90. You can do either two 90 degree turns, or
one 180 degree turn. Either way, it clears the area and remembers
clearing the turn should be no more than 30 degrees of bank. Next thing that gets people on checkrides:
airspace. Either on the oral portion, the DP may find
that you're very deficient on this, may let you get through, or may give you a disapproval
on the oral portion if you really don't know your airspace. The best way to go about this is simply just
to look at the sectional, put your finger somewhere and be able to say the airspace
all the way from the ground on up to 18,000 feet. What is it? From the surface all the way on up. Be able to point anywhere on the sectional
and know what the symbology is, what it means, and what the airspace is surrounding certain
things. Like, a certain airport or what the airspace
is surrounding a certain antenna, or whatever it might be. So, if you really understand the sectional
chart, and know your airspace-- we've got some videos that I'll put the links to in
the description below that you can watch to help bring you up to speed on that stuff--
but if you know your airspace, you should be pretty good. Now, when you get in the airplane, make sure
you can actually apply what you know of the map to actually flying the airplane. Don't just go take off out of some airport,
and fly into another airport's airspace unaware of it. For example, if you take off out of Fort Myers
Page Field here, then you could very easily wind up in the Class Charlie airspace of Fort
Myers RSW-- Fort Myers International. Same thing if you were taking off out of Venice
and you're flying north, you might wind up in the Charlie airspace of Sarasota. If you're flying out of Anarbor, Michigan,
you might wind up in the Delta airspace of Willow Run next door to you. Just be aware of the airspace you are flying
around, and really be able to apply that to actually flying the airplane when you're up
there, and really visually seeing it even though, obviously, there are no airspace lines
drawn for us in the sky. Now one thing I want to quickly add here that's
really important: don't sweat too much on the actual checkride portion. During the oral, yes, you need to know the
airspace and sectional charts pretty much for your area and almost anywhere in the country. The DP can ask you about those things. But when you're in the airplane during your
checkride, you're not going to be flying more than twenty-five miles from the airport. Simply due to time and what's relevant on
the test, the DP is very very unlikely to be taking you anywhere more than 25 miles
from the point of departure. So just be very familiar with the airspace
in your local area. Don't sweat stuff that's 50, 60, 100 miles
away. For the oral, you'll need to know it, but
for the actual checkride and flying it's very unlikely to happen during your checkride. The third thing where people get into trouble
is talking too much. It may have happened to you earlier in life,
but usually, your mouth can get you into trouble. I know it's done that for me a lot of times
and it still does quite a bit. But anyways, try not to say too much. Try not to say anything really, unless you're
asked to talk. If the DP asks you a question, give a nice,
short, sweet answer. "Is the weather good today?" "Yes." If he wants to know how good it is, he'll
ask you, "Well, what makes it good?" You don't have to say, "Well, the weather
is "this" and "this," and it turns out that you may have misinterpreted a METAR or a TAF
or something somewhere along the way. Just short, sweet answers. "What kind of airplane is this?" "It's a Piper." That's it. You don't have to elaborate on if it's a single
engine, and its category is "this," its class is "that." Don't try to show off what you know. He'll find out exactly what you do and don't
know to the level that he needs, that's satisfactory to him. Remember you're not going for an A+ on a checkride,
that should be your goal, but whether you get the A+ or the D- you're still a private
pilot at the end of the day. Not that we should ever aspire for the D-,
but there's no need to really shoot yourself in the foot by opening up your mouth and admitting,
or letting the DP know that you may be deficient in some area, where he may otherwise have
glossed over. The fourth area where people often struggle
is Systems. You'll go out and you'll fly the airplane. You'll do your 40, 50, 60 hours of instruction
but you're ready for a checkride, but you may not know what all of this stuff in the
airplane actually does. So if you can't actually just look at a panel
and tell me what every single instrument in here is, and exactly what power it is, how
it works, then you're probably not ready for a private pilot checkride. You need to know if I pull that out, what
does that actually do, what does it affect in here. If you're told, "Hey, you need to stop squawking
mode C or stop squawking altitude," you need to know how to work your transponder to do
that. That may be something you've never heard throughout
your flight training. Anything to do with these radios, any of these
switches up here, oftentimes you may not flip a lot of these excess switches that don't
pertain to us. But if the DP happens to reach over and twist
that to Com 2 one day, even though this airplane only has one Com radio, that could really
put you in a world of hurt on your checkride if you don't catch that and you don't know
exactly how this panel works. So take the time with your CFI to sit down
in the cockpit, look at all the buttons, switches, and point to every single one, and make sure
you know exactly what it does. Also, take the time to do a thorough walk
around prior to your checkride with your CFI and be able to point out and identify all
the parts of the airplanes, all the antennas on the airplane, and what all of them do,
and what they correspond to, as well as look under the cowling and know what all those
parts and pieces do for you. We've got an awesome video that explains all
the parts under the cowling, and it's really pretty much the same on any airplane you fly,
and I'll include the link to that video in the description below as well. The fifth thing that will cause a failure
is simply being disorganized. Showing up without your logbook all totaled
up, or showing up without a sectional chart, without certain documentation, showing up
with a 2016 FAR/AIM because it's January 3rd, 2017, showing up with any out of date documents,
not all your required endorsements, most commonly. You might get through the oral with that sort
of stuff because you're on the ground, you have time to dig for paperwork. When you get in the airplane and you leave
your sectional chart in the backseat, and you take off on your cross-country flight
or your simulated cross-country flight on your private pilot checkride, and the DP asks
you to deviate somewhere else, or he asks you, "Where are you?" and you go, "Oh, let
me look at my sectional." It's way back in the back seat, and now you
have to somehow get that out of the back seat, and still fly the airplane, and stay on course,
and altitude and all of those things, compared to if you just had a kneeboard, and had it
all strapped on before you ever started taxi, you'd be a lot more prepared. We do occasionally see runway incursions,
or taxi issues with students on private pilot checkrides, especially if you're taking a
checkride at an airport that you haven't trained at. Before you taxi the airplane before it ever
moves, you should have a taxi diagram out on your leg, or somewhere else in the cockpit,
pinned up, or suction-cupped to the side there, ready for that airport that you happen to
be flying out of today. That way you are fully ready to accept any
taxi instructions from ATC, you can map it out on the taxi diagram, and of course you're
on a checkride, but don't try to impress the guy, just simply say, if you're not sure what
to do, "Please repeat those instructions, " "Give me progressive taxi instructions,"
or anything else. Use as many tools as you have, and if you
seem to be relying on other people or other help too much, then the examiner may ask you
to do it a different way. But certainly, use all of those tools at your
disposal up until the point that you can't. Hopefully, that gives you a good idea of five
holes that people often get stuck in. Hopefully, none of those happen to you. Make sure you check out the links in the description
below to some really helpful videos that can help you prepare for your checkride and check
out all of our videos. They've got some awesome information in them
to help you prepare for private pilot instrument reading and commercial pilot checkrides. Even if you're studying up to be a CFI, really
review all that information that you may have kind of forgotten since you first started
out. As always guys, thanks so much for watching. Any questions at all, leave them in the comments
below. Make sure you give us a thumbs up, subscribe
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then fly8MA.com. We'll see you all next time.
