Gold Seal LIVE: Checkride Tips!

[Music] welcome everyone to tonight's presentation we're doing a special webinar of checkride tips and we subtitled this one low-hanging fruit in fact we actually have had another subtitle below that simple things that you might overlook we're not going to be talking about how to do Shondells or how to do s turns or the proper way to do shorter soft field operations we're going to be focusing in drilling down to the little things that are so easy to do they might not even be in the ACS but they're things that will really smooth your check ride make it easier for you and again didn't press the examiner too hopefully now we're really lucky tonight to have this program put on in affiliation with safe and the the safe director or chairman David st. George is with us on the panel so he's going to be our he's going to be our examiner giving us the examiner perspective on all of this so here we all are Nate has a briefly of escaped Atlanta he's out in Austin Texas Nate you need to come on back here now you're having too much fun out there and then David his call is calling in and with us from Ithaca New York so how are you guys doing tonight great Russ thank you for having us ok man awesome man great to be here ok well we're going to have a lot of fun I want you people watching to send us your comments using hashtag asked old seal let's see if we can make this more of a dialogue than a monologue let's meet let's get a conversation going we'll be monitoring your tweets and your facebook post a hashtag ash ass gold seal and we'll be trying to answer those questions as we go along David why don't you tell us a little bit about safe and let's let's get started with what safe has to offer the CF is or a via sure educators aviation educator yes well safe is an all-volunteer not-for-profit organization 501c3 educational and being all volunteers we love an select hissed because we can get the word out to people the acronym stands for Society of aviation and flight educators and we really like to point out that education is what it's about it's not so much instructing which one I learned to be a CFI we had a blue book blue book we called good dog bad dog it was all behaviorism but we've evolved further than that and we're trying to raise the level of professionalism of the educators through use of resources government advocacy mentoring and impact Aviation Safety exponentially by getting to the CF is and in that way affecting the students and clients okay well the it's a great organization I think we've got a lot of members in safe and this seminar this webinar maybe if we have some instructors watching perhaps you'll have some comments to chime in and join in with us to discuss - now the first document that any pilot or candidate has to be thinking about when he's going for a check ride is the airman certification standards the ACS it's broken up into areas of operation and within those we have individual tasks we're not going to try to go through all of these but I think David will probably have some comments about students coming to check rides and occasionally not being familiar with a document or the very least possibly not knowing what some of the performance requirements are you see much of that David hopefully well yeah you know that Russ I'm sure you've been in the business long enough that is the first sign of danger if we hear or see a student come in with a pts instead of an ACS um but in fact you know when we do the interview for the appointment we're required to make sure they're familiar with that and that they are familiar with the standard and then in a pretest briefing we're going to go through all that and make sure that that is you know understood to be the rules of engagement the ACS is not that new now in fact it's a year old and going on a second version so something every pilot and every CFI should be familiar with yeah got you and in fact the second version we'll be out June I believe it's June 12 for private I believe for commercial I'm not sure about instruments yeah I believe those two are coming out if you're watching this live tonight in the next couple of weeks so if you have a check rod coming up after that date make sure that you're training now using the the upcoming ACS and Nate as a CFI how do you go about incorporating the AAS the ACS into your training is it just normally happen as a part of the function or do you actually how do you tie that in well like like you both mentioned it's kind of the first document that you want to really show to a student when that when we start training because it is what what everything that we're going to do is is sort of based around and it's it's kind of the natural progression from from the what the pts used to be it's it's changing its changing the standards from you know simple check marks that you can check off as you advance through your training to something that's a little bit more comprehensive and makes you a better more rounded pilot switching switching the focus really to risk management and as an instructor you that's that's great for us because that's what that's what you want in your pilot anyway is to make a safe effective pilot that can mitigate risk risk effectively throughout their career and there's not a tons of there's not a ton of differences as far as what you do in your instructing style there's a few small things one of the major ones is maneuvering during slow flight rather than keeping the stall horn on while you're going through you're you're required to maintain a certain airspeed so you're not actually going to hit the stall horn so it's all in a matter of safety that really bass yes has evolved got you now one of the first people who are going for a private pilot check ride their first time going through a practical test one of their big questions is what can I do to mess this up or what should I not do and in the ACS in appendix and appendix eh they're quite clear about the reasons that check rides might not go as planned David I know you've got these five or six items memorized can you just kind of walk us through these so for people who have maybe haven't taken a check ride before they know what to be watching for what they need to do or not do well you know it used to be special emphasis items in the pts and now in the ACS it's pretty much embedded in every every one of those elements in areas of operation the big joke you know usually is don't scare me as an examiner but obviously anytime the examiner has to intervene verbally or take two controls it's going to be an unsuccessful check ride and just because it's unsuccessful you know I think everyone knows you know one element can be unsuccessful and you can continue to check ride or you can finish it and just test off the one area that's unsuccessful failure the clear is very common people are fails to look out the window the ACS more than anything embedded judgment into what used to be the pts so that we're expecting pilots at every point to show good judgment it's kind of a hard call for the examiner to but it gives us also a tool to make sure that the pilot who's flying is doing it at a more of a correlation application level not just a rope wiggle a stick level but if someone violates the standard if they go through a you know 100 feet up or down it's not an immediate failure and a lot of people get very anxious and nervous when they you know touch the edge of that um but failure to promptly correct is what the document says so if you exceed 100 feet up or down 10 degrees left or right and you're promptly correcting back to the standard you're doing fine so when you exceed a tolerance it's not an immediate failure take prompt corrective action the bottom one that you see on the screen near the risk management that's sort of the new one in the ACS and we're looking carefully and largely evaluating at by use of scenarios and different examiner's use different versions a lot of them will use one overriding scenario and keep you know playing that one scenario long we're flying to a wedding you're taking this and this and this and what's the weight and we're looking for risk management at every point in the flight because it's obviously what gets pilots in trouble it's what we see in accidents so we're looking very carefully for that okay so I think the big takeaway is if you're a private pilot going for your first check ride you don't have to be concerned that if you exceed the tolerances on one or two items that it's over the key word is consistently exceeding and not making the proper Corrections you want to see people you don't mind seeing people make a mistake as long as they correct it right well yeah and that's I you know we've we've talked offline but the idea is that you know you know one's going to be perfect on that day and a lot of pilots go into it just with this idea that you know it's going to be a hundred percent but really it's pass/fail and if you're doing pretty good on everything we're going to have a good day but you can't totally drop it on the floor on one item and you know 500 feet up or down on a steep turn it's just not going to work out so what I tell people is you know it's like throwing darts and we have to get them all on the on the target they're not all going to hit the bull's eye but they all got to be within you know acceptable I hear you then I think that's important for every student going in on a check ride to really know because most pilots that I know of anyway are pretty perfectionist type people tends to be that way it's kind of like if you ask a pilot what are the top two pilots in the world they'll have trouble naming the other one it says it's that kind of scenario sometimes well when somebody comes in and they're getting started and again if you're if you're getting ready for an instrument or a commercial or an ATP check ride you've done this before you know the story but if this is your first practical test walking in the door with everything in an envelope all your your everything from your log books to your 8710 to ooh your check for the examiner having all that stuff together smooths the way makes it go easier everybody in agreement on that I know Nathan chewing you specifically go through with your guys and make sure that they have everything all squared away even long yeah absolutely not and I'll show you right here if you look at a logbook that I've got for one of my students I've got everything tabbed at the top all the different FTD times or endorsements last flight and then I've got everything labeled on your marked on the side to the suit so the examiner can go say training 461 129 Bravo four you know and it's got a tab on there because those are listed in the far so that way they can open their forum this is what's required here's what I've got it's gear marked in my logbook you know it makes the whole process take 20 minutes rather than an hour and that's and that's really a mark on the instructor I've talked to David about this before it's one of those things where it's the instructors job to really prepare the student and if the if the student doesn't have the right paperwork if they don't have things earmarked if they don't have things tabbed and ready to go and quick to access with the maintenance logs and their logbook that just looks really bad on the instructor and you as a student if you're watching as a student and you're about to go take a check ride really take it upon yourself to kind of corner your instructor and say look man I you know I want to go in and make sure that I've got all of this really locked down and ready to go so so put that on your instructor because that's he's there to help you for that or he or she is there to help you for that got you okay well before we move on into the oral exam let's see if we've got some questions here that we can we can take all right Elizabeth has written in she says if my written for the commercial was taken in March will a checkride be using the pts or the ACS well I know the answer to that one but anybody want to tackle it David why don't you bunch you take this one thank you first of all was a bith four right again I've seen you on Facebook frequently I appreciate your participating the ACS goes into effect June 12th every test after that is going to be with the ACS so you're going to be sort of in-between because you did the knowledge test with the old questions but the ACS is what you'll test with okay all right good thanks Lisbeth we if we were taking taking questions so please a hashtag ask Gold Seal and we'll we'll keep this thing going as a dialogue okay so we've talked about coming prepared to your check ride having everything together getting those that was an engine log those aircraft log books tab so you can show where the annual and inspection was done without having to fumble around and get all nervous checklist usage is something that's used or mentioned throughout the PTF excuse me the ACS and in so many places it's possible that the producing a checklist and trying to go through a checklist during flight might become a distraction in itself David tell us how you as an examiner look and a checklist and how you expect candidates to handle checklist usage in a practical test well checklists are mentioned I think 20 sometimes I did a search of the document and it comes up pretty frequently so we want you to in all normal operations to be using a checklist and it can be a flow and in check it doesn't have to be you know a think and do kind of situation but certain areas where a checklist might be inappropriate would be in an emergency situation um where the engine is suddenly stopped there are four every manufacturer usually immediate action items in bold like get to BES collide check the fuel check to car beats which tanks pump on those are usually going to be something the examiner wants to see you do get plane trimmed up find a place and now if time allows go through the checklist so that that would be you know the most obvious time when a checklist might be inappropriate for immediate consultation ok we've actually got a graphic here showing where the checklist is mentioned throughout the ACS and let's see if we can pull that one in and just take a quick look at it and run down through them there we are okay so these are all the places now this is a private pilot checklist but you can pretty much figure that in any in any private practice will test you go to you're going to see the checklist mentioned on these items pre-flight inspection yeah of course you're going to use a checklist that's what they're going to be looking for engines start there's all the time in the world you always use a checklist hopefully for your engine starts anyway before takeoff you're used to doing that after takeoff though if you're used to flying you know a trainer or 172 or a piper warrior or something like that after takeoff generally you're climbing out and you may tend to go to that checklist or more to go more to a memorizer set of items David what do you how do you draw the line there about when when to do that when to do the checklist or when to go from a memory flow boy I'll tell you you might find a little difference between examiner's and that's why we'll often discuss that very thing before the test in the oral when we do the pre-flight briefing we're required as examiner's to do three briefings before the test to be for flight after it up and so we'll often cover that but my personal preference is that you know after takeoff people are watching for traffic clearing the area talking to the controller and then as you know we get to it you know maybe a cruise climb and the workload is dropped that's when we get to the checklist and Nate for your turbine experience coming up you'll you'll have a company policy on that that might be different from one company to another so there's a little variation here but handle the you know immediate fly the plane and then consult the checklist okay all right good Nate you have a comment on that oh well I was going to say yeah just having the check was ready also it's not in the nowhere in the ACS does it say where do you put your checklist right so when you're sitting in the cockpit and you've got the checklist I see a lot of guys you know they might stick it up on the dash or under the under the visor or down here have a place where it's going to be easy for you to get to and easy to access the last thing that you want is to get up with your examiner you're already a little bit nervous you might not be thinking about you know where's my checklist where to put it have it in a place that is is just ready to go and accessible think about that before you get in the checkride so that that way you've got and you should have this for normal operations anyway you should always have quick access to your checklist but especially on the exam have it tabbed out for the emergencies I always put a little red tab on a paper checklist if it's if it's a foot one that folds or even a single piece of paper highlighted or if it's got if it's a spiral book have it tabbed out have all your checklist ready so that you don't have to fumble when it comes time to you've gone up in cruise and you go oh crap I forgot my cruise checklist and you've got to search the cockpit for it you want to make that's that's what I have to offer really on uncheck checklist usage in the check rest ok all right makes sense ok so we've used our checklist we've got the engine started one thing that we have to do and it's not only in the ACS there's actually a far that requires it it's ninety one point five one seven there's a passenger briefing now that's something you'll do in your practical test and there's normal items that you add in there like you know how to how to put how to take off your seat belts how to exit the aircraft where is the emergency equipment but Nate can you think of a couple of items that we that as someone in a check ride might actually want to add to a normal passenger briefing in order to help not necessarily impress the examiner but to let the examiner know that I've got this stuff in my head but a couple of other items that you might want to add yeah sure absolutely it really starts when before you start the engine right so the new the new ACS really goes by risk management and so what you want to tell your examiner and what I encourage my students to say in their check writers use the words risk management literally when you can and when as soon as you get in the plane before you start the engine you'll give your passenger briefing and you're going to say all the normal things that you're used to saying like where's the fire extinguisher where the exits here's how the seatbelts work but certain things that aren't in the ACS that will really impressed your examiner will be something like positive exchange of controls you want to tell the examiner you know this will be a three part exchange of controls my controls your controls confirmed my controls and really walk them through that step by step you also want to say that we're going to have a sterile cockpit while we taxi to the to the run-up area again not part of the ACS but definitely something to impress your examiner to let them know that you've got safety on the brain and on the mind yeah absolutely and also it's a it reinforces it to you because when you say something it kind of gets it back in your forefront so saying these things sterile cockpit positive exchange of controls and adding these to the passenger briefing probably not a bad idea okay so we've got the airplane started and we're taxiing we're taxiing out to the to the run-up area what are some of the things that we might do not necessarily in the ACS but things that we should be concerned about during the taxi operation now we have to remember that this is a very low low work load time there's not a reason in the world that we can't try to score a hundred and really stack the deck in our favor during these low stress periods the taxi is a great time to do things right so things that we might want to do you're probably used to checking the brakes once the airplane starts to move Nate has a comment about that one how how hard do we hit the brakes Nate just enough so it doesn't spill the coffee the first one of my first one of my first chakra is my private check ride I was so nervous and I took off with the examiner and we started taxiing out and I the brakes and he goes well the flight attendant just spilled the coffee everywhere nicely done captain and from then on I always I've always said we whenever we break we just don't spill the coffee yeah we don't have you don't have to bring the airplane to a complete halt all we're doing is checking the brakes to make sure that we have equal equal braking pressure on both wheels taxi diagrams that's something that's in there and that's something that even if it's an airport that is you know it like the back of your hand you should have a taxi diagram out and be and be using it I think we've got a graphic here let's pop that graphic up if we can so yeah and also you know you're eating it you know well which taxi way we're going to take you can see there's hot spots you know it's going to be better if the applicant volunteers that information as opposed to the examiner happening to you know what is that circle what is this you know someone would say okay I'm going right on alpha there's a hot spot we're going to hold short of 2/1 right until we're cleared that's the kind of heads-up piloting we like to see failing that we're always going to drag it out of you some way we're going to ask questions so volunteer what you know and it'll be a better right okay let's put that graphic back up again this goes continue working on through it okay obviously and this one is in the in the ACS position the controls for wind now if you're flying a nosewheel airplane really doesn't matter that much if I can tell if you can experience if the winds are enough that it really matters you probably shouldn't be flying at all if you're in a taildragger that's something else but nonetheless the ACS says you should position the controls properly based on the winds so the examiner is going to be looking for it so don't forget to do it taxi slow there's no reason to to go too fast you want to make sure that you're going slow enough that you keep a good positive control on the airplane if you keep the RPM setting between 900 and a thousand that should be just about the right speed and really focus again this is a low workload time period low stress time focus on staying on that yellow line as David says he doesn't have anything else to do so he's watching over the cowling to make sure that yellow line stays underneath the nose wheel yeah okay that's good advice okay and I like the fact David when you pointed out that a actually briefing the taxi diagram with the examiner both it's a double check for you to make sure that you understand the taxi and instructions and it also shows a level of professionalism and it lets the examiner see that you understand and what the task is at hand yeah you know when I was telling you the other day I mean I've had a guy at his home Airport turn he's cleared the three two he turns and he's headed for one four and I'm going you know and that's not a failure it's just you know he's just shaking so bad you know it's like calm down where are we going you give them a few you know hints and then we're off in the right direction finally but you can't believe how nervous people get so taking your time talking through it is going to really help you settle their nerves and you know once the plane is flying a lot of people finally start to calm down yeah then I think talking talking through it like like David just mentioned talking through it is huge and what I like to really emphasize with my students is the examiner can't read your mind so the more you can talk through what you're doing and you don't want to talk too much but just being able to walk through what it is that you're doing in a in a verbal way will help the examiner know what's on your mind it will also help you not forget things if you maybe you're stumped on a certain if the examiner asked you a question you're and you know the answer and it's there and you've studied this and you're you're beating yourself up because you know you just went over this with your instructor you just can't get it into the front of your brain if you just start talking about it a lot of times that kind of work itself back in so there's a there's a few good ways to kind of beat the nerves and I think that's that's a big one gotcha and it does make a lot of sense uh verbalize what's in your head it's good for you and make sure that you have it right there and it lets the examiner know that you know it okay so we've taxi we've taxi doubt we've completed the run up any comments about anything up in the run-up area a little low-hanging fruit that we might take advantage of before we taxi on out to the whole short line well I did mention I think when we were when we were talking that's frequently an error in the run-up when the examiner might ask more questions what we're trying to do is take you to situations which might occur and we want to see how you work through it and handle those sort of extemporaneously you know we might ask okay if if you turned the mag to to one position and you had no drop at all is that a good thing is that even better than no drop you know and what's the excessive drop as we're taxing out we might you know say okay I'm seeing a decrease in rpm ah you know as we're taxing at a constant throttle setting what's going on here um we might want to hear some discussion of carburetor heat and why it might happen we're always looking to put you out of the ordinary and sort of see how you would handle those situations as a pilot because that's where you're going to be you're going to be a fully certificated pilot taking your friends and family flying and we have to make sure you're going to do that safely and so we're always pushing you a little on things that might happen if that makes sense any and a run-up is a big place where that will happen to you so make sure you know all the procedures all the abnormals there and you're ready to discuss that once the once the planes in motion we're flying is our very little time for oral questions anymore so we try to get them all out of the way before we get airborne okay but generally speaking you know the oral exam is usually carried out primarily in the FBO or back in the office before you leave correct they always say yeah I can still go you know it it can continue and it is your prerogative as the pilot command once you're in the air is to say you know I'm busy flying a plane sometimes we'll throw a question at a very difficult time and we want to see that student take charge of the plenty and say I can't talk right now I'm busy you know doing this that's perfectly okay yeah excellent excellent point yeah shall we uh there was an examiner that was kind of famous around the Dallas Texas area for offering a student a piece of candy or a piece of gum on final approach and it's as that you need as the pilot in command they're looking for you to you know safely fly the airplane and be the pilot in command and so he was famous for offering a piece of gum you know right before a year down checklist or if it was a if it was a private check ride just on on final approach or say his phone's ringing on one second let me get that any-any abnormality that throws you off your your loop and you know creates an unsterile cockpit and it's throwing you off your game a little bit you know they're looking for you two to either shut them up or go around or say you know hey let me finish this and well you know take take command that's a really important point Nate and you know we are looking more than anything to see that this person has transitioned from being a student to being in charge of that plane to being pilot command it's one of the hardest things for people to do because you've got all that time sitting in the other seat you know and this is something if CF eyes are listening in here tonight um you got to make your student master of that plane incrementally so that when they get to that check lock right they're flying they're in charge and they'll tell the guy to shut up you know it's um you are the pilot of that plane you are actually it's your first hour of pilot-in-command time when you're fine with the examiner your logging pilot in command so make sure you exhibit that to the examiner and they will be um not upset they will be gratified to see that you're in charge okay that all sounds good yeah the sterile cockpit thing makes a lot of sense to and I'm sure David if if you try to engage a student in a conversation about is about the family dog while you're while you're taxing out to the run-up area and he told you to stop don't take to mate yeah you're not going to hurt his feel the pace yeah okay well we've we've we've tax it from the run-up area we're out at the hole short line we've been cleared for takeoff some obvious things again be thinking about it's real easy first of all when you roll out check your check your runway heading with your compass it's real simple to do the examiner is going to probably like seeing that you did something small like that another one and we discussed this the other day and David I know this is this one is one that you important to you is to is to have the candidate actually verbalize what how he might handle problems during the takeoff roll you know if he loses an engine during take off roll does he have enough runway left if he's in the air what's he going to do if he loses power land straight ahead what's your comments about that um that's top one you know because again we do different things we usually I'm personally speaking for myself on that first I cough I usually don't try to monkey with it because they're so nervous anyway I don't want to create problems but when I'm training pilots and I still do teach you know I may pop a window open to see what they do whether they you know get over there and try to fix it they should have briefed that and said you know any problems on the takeoff roll I'm going to probably abort the takeoff and come around and fix it if the plane is rotated we're going to fly the plane but obviously the briefing before the takeoff is critical because it puts you in that state of mind where you're ready for anything um I think we discussed you know takeoffs are everyone gives them very little concern because it's hard to miss the sky you know I had the power little rotation and up we go you know it's it's probably the most toxic part of a flight though you're full of fuel you're getting airborne and statistically it's it leads to a lot of problems so I'm on my checkride on that first one I usually don't do anything but at some point in there I'm going to create a problem on the takeoff roll and if we go into things like multi engine it's required we pull an engine on the takeoff roll nice we're getting so weak we've got to be prepared for that yeah sure I was I was thinking more along the lines not of what you as an examiner might do during a takeoff roll but how the student or the candidate might verbalize his plan I see four well you know when I taught rate what I taught students it's always you know when we line up it's you know we have a certain you know whatever your mantra might be but you're checking the heading oil pressure oil temperature any problems we're going to do this and you're ready to go you really want to verbalize so what your expectations are in what your immediate action would be in case of you know certain difficulties is that what you're thinking if it's a if it's an airport that the student knows you from airport I usually try and make sure my students have they've got an exact plan so if we're if we're taking off runway five and we know that Airport from the back of our hand and we know that there's a highway just to the you know just a sidestep off the runway centerline I mean even if you can verbalize if if the airplane if we lose an engine below a thousand feet we're going to take a sidestep and land immediately on on this highway you know if it's a thousand four above a thousand feet we're going to turn back and come back to the runway but actually having a specific point of this is I'm going to turn left and I'm going to aim for that highway having an exact plan of action so there was no thinking involved you've got it down you've told the examiner you're ready for that emergency if it is to happen and if you brief it it probably won't happen on check right yeah exactly hopefully I want to fly with your students Nate you really sound like you do a good job preparing them good good for you yeah we have fun the the door the David you were talking about popping the window open that's that's one of my favorites too and I'll do that on on flight reviews it works especially easily if you're in a an assessment 172 or a 182 because you can I can just put my left arm back around the seat over here and I can flip the window open so I'll usually do that once they get up to about twenty or thirty or forty knots and the takeoff roll and seventy percent of the time they're going to reach over there and try to shut that window so if and I would not expect an examiner to do something like that during a check ride but if you do have a door that pops open inadvertently during a take-off roll just ignore it if you're if you're going slow enough and you have plenty of runway if you like you can abort the takeoff you can reject it you can pull power off you can taxi back and fix it but if you're committed just keep flying it'll might be a little windier in there and if it's if it's winter and perhaps it might be a little colder but if take care of it later you don't have to do it during the take-off well guys we've been doing this about a thirty five minutes now it's been a lot of fun or goal here and I think we met it was just to point out some simple these these low-hanging easy items to do they can enhance your ability to have a successful practical test with an examiner so I want to thank everybody for joining us tonight David we appreciate safes involvement and you being here Nate thanks for dropping in come on home now absolutely and everybody else good flying [Music]

Channel: Gold Seal Flight Training

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Keywords: #AskGoldSeal, Gold Seal, SAFE, Pilots, Private Pilot, FAA, Checkride, Check Ride, Webinar, GoldSealLIVE, flight training

Id: EFMRIOYBXOo

Length: 35min 51sec (2151 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 01 2017