Private Pilot Checkride: Oral Exam (Tips, Advice, Experience, How I studied)

hi everyone my name is Hannah and I'm officially a private pilot now I took my checkride about two weeks ago and I passed and so since the information is still pretty fresh in my brain I thought I would make a video talking about the oral exam I won't go into the practical test so the flight portion unless anybody wants me to so let me know if you want me to talk about it another video but for now I'm just gonna be going over the oral exam so I'm gonna talk about what I studied how I studied materials that I studied with things I brought to the oral exam the overall experience of the oral exam and then things that I didn't really do that well on during the oral exam as well as things that I did great on so I hope you find this useful if your check Reds coming up and let me know if you have any more questions after all so I apologize for the video quality and for my awkwardness because I don't really make youtube videos and I'm talking to my laptop photobooth so I keep going in between looking at myself and looking at the camera I'm not really sure how to do this maybe if I make more videos in the future I'll figure it out but for now okay so first things first you got to get this book this really is the best resource and as you can tell I used it so much that the pages have now been ripped out but it's simply an amazing book and if you understand everything that's in here you will do very well on your oral exam so I walked in the FBO and I met up with the dpe and we kind of made small talk for a little bit and then we went right into you know proving that the airplane is air worthy and proving that I'm eligible to get my private pilot's certificate huge tip do you not make the oral exam the first time you ever look at your airplanes logbooks make sure you're really familiar with that before you go any oral exam if you need to go find an A&P and have an explain stuff with you you know ask your CFI because some of the entries can be like a little bit hard to find like I know my annual was really difficult to find for some reason or it was something like that but like really make sure you can spot all the important tests and inspections and things like that you know the 88th annual view are like like all that kind of stuff like you want to be able to like find that so it is open book you can bring any FAA publications so you can use your far aim the pilots handbook of aeronautical knowledge the track and then you can use the airplane flying handbook I like anything like that you can use I actually didn't open my far aim or either one of those books once during our oral exam and that made me feel really good because I didn't have to look anything up I would recommend tabbing at you far aim I was ready to go in case I needed to look something up I would know where it is in the beginning of the far aim there's actually a suggested study list so it gives you the chapters and pages of both the far in the aim the aim is the aeronautical information manual it's in the back go through those highlight them tab it just like this especially the really familiar with part 91 like I said the test is open book and open resource but that doesn't mean that you should be relying on it as a crutch it should be like good cross reference material to something that you're explaining or if you're explaining a concept and you need a photo and another thing is that just cuz it's open book you know open poh doesn't mean that there's some stuff that you shouldn't like innately know like these speeds are super important you like you've got to know your airplanes these speeds like if you don't know they are and you're at your hey you're at your exam like VR vxvy know you're like max gross weight you know your basic empty weight um know how to calculate your weight and balance know what kind of engine you have like know what kind of airplane you have like is your Cessna 172 the Micra the November model you know like there's basic stuff about the plane that you're flying that you really should know what type of hydraulic fluid does your aircraft use and what color is it and it literally says like m IL h 8 3 - 8 - don't don't memorize that um I thought I would have to don't memorize stuff like that like really long numbers like don't don't like work yourself up over that but definitely know basic stuff about your airplane so something that my examiner did was he got on a piece of paper and he wrote vvvvv and then you know and continued on and he wrote VR and then he asked me what does that mean and I said rotation speed then he asked what is it on a airplane said 60 and then he went to vfe and he's like you know what does it mean flaps extension speed what is on airplane it's 102 and so that was one portion that went really well because I made flashcards so that's what I'd recommend is make a flashcard deck of everything about your airplane including your category so utility aerobatic normal you know know the load factor know those numbers like really really know the specific important numbers about your airplane that's what I can recommend the week before I was a nervous mess so here's some of my notes that I kinda just had lying out around my room that I would keep referencing so this is like a little thing I made for ATC lightgun signals so it's like oh the Green sorry it's it's really like crumpled right now but it's green and you're on the ground and you flip it up what does it mean it means you're cleared for takeoff red on the ground stuff like that I found this really helpful okay so five one main takeaway from this entire video it's this piece of paper this is a list of everything that I missed on my written exam and I can tell you that made up like most of the portion of my oral exam was just the material that I missed a my written they give you a warning they will beat that to death like everything you missed on your written um I got a 75 so I didn't do that great I took it a really long time ago like I think I took it oh I took it so long ago just make sure that you know everything you missed and know like subdivisions of like know anything that's like related to things you missed cuz like holy cow he was just going down the list and I was like when is this gonna end a way that you answer questions is going to dictate how your oral exam goes so at some points I was looking him right in the eye and I would answer the question like that no hesitation you know just straight eye contact and then there was other times when I would kind of have to wander my eyes were like you know on the ceiling my eyes around the floor cuz I there was some that I really had to wrack my brain for and at that point he would prolong those sections the most painful part of my entire exam would have to be airspace and the sectional chart that was like I know my airspace I know my cloud clearances I know my equipment requirements and pilot qualifications and how to enter and you know I had all that memorized but I wasn't ready for the way that he asked me he kind of went and he drew like I guess this would help if I didn't in my hand but he drew kind of like little like arrows and he was like okay so how is Bravo different from alpha and then he would go in and be like okay so how are the cloud clearances and Charlie different from Delta they're not but like stuff like that the way of like relating things and kind of comparing the air spaces was a way that I hadn't really thought about okay so let this be a lesson please take this a new account oh my god bring current charts um bring current materials I don't know what I I don't I don't know what I was thinking I was stressed out I hadn't really slept I hadn't really eaten I brought um I brought a non-current chart supplement u.s. I don't know what I was thinking thankfully I have a subscription to for flight on my iPad that I used for flying and so I was able to go on there and open the chart supplement us on there and say yes I do have current material because wow I thought at that point I was done I thought I thought I was out the door at that point because I don't know how I could have been so stupid um I didn't bring a terminal area chart I didn't have one and I didn't even think about that until the night before and of course I'm freaking out because I had a plan across country to go field which is wicked Bravo so I go I go and do this uh I didn't even take this out because after the chart supplement us deal and I was super embarrassed I was like there is no way I'm gonna show him this I went to a print shop I printed out a terminal area chart Savan field is in a class Bravo and so that unleashes you know its own monster with flight planning look up like if there's any arrival or departure procedures because of course there are four Boeing field and of course I didn't look them up so so something that I didn't do that well on was parts of the sectional when we were looking through them a paper chart is not actually like current without the airport facilities directory or chart supplement us I always want to call the aft it's not current without that so if you don't have a current charts of them at us your paper chart isn't current and airspace changes and obstructions change and you know things about airports changed and airports close and so that's why you have the charts up in the US so really use that in pairing with your paper charts this one question that I got that really threw me off was about this little tiny airport that I had actually done a solo cross-country too and so we're looking at this little airport that I've flown into you before by myself on the chart looked at the details on it and it says R P star so I definitely when I had gone in there by myself had definitely flown a left pattern but on the chart it says R P with a star and so I look in the chart supplement us and I see glider activity and I'm like oh it's right traffic for glider activity I'd seen you know that L with the little asterisk on it not a star an asterisk is a better word for what I'm trying to say but and that means you know like part-time lighting or like lighting limitations exist and so anytime you see that little star and as I did with the RP with the star um know that there's more to the story than meets the eye on the chart and that you should look into charts with me us a few days before the night before my checkride um filled on a piece of paper with a really good overview and like stuff to keep in mind and like things along the route and so I started really looking at it and I wanted to really know the route I wanted to know any mo A's and you know like safra's that were on it any on TFRs that might pop up so here is here's my flight plan um don't know if you can see it very well it's very very detailed and it took me a long time to do and it continues on to this page I mean it's just like all this stuff if you want me to sign your photo let me know and I can send a photo and then there's like this back once I've got like the sea weight and balance sheet I'll show you that in a second and then I got I did a weather briefing on a separate page cuz I type it up because they talk so fast and then here's the flight plan that I showed him I wrote down very tiny they arrival information and frequencies and stuff like that and in my notes section I have all my via wores and so um what I tried to do when I was planning my route is use a very good variety of different navigational methods and so he asked me like how are we gonna be navigating and I said I'm gonna use a combination of you know radio aids GPS and of course pilotage and so he really liked the I guess diversity of different methods is he also asked me what my power settings were gonna be and fuel burn and time to get there you know all like the basic stuff like what the winds are gonna be doing and I got some pretty important information that I wrote kind of along the top so I've got like you know our route of play and then I wrote here that we're gonna have a glide ratio or not a glide ratio but we're gonna have a glide distance of nine point seven nautical miles so I planned this off of a established you know set of winds and temps and so it might vary because it was obviously it was a forecast and so I made sure to print out um the forecast that I used to plan this so he could cross-reference it so now I've also got up here um you know 75% power is what we're using best power you know leaned not for best economy and he asked me you know why I'm using that I'm like well cuz I want to go there I want to get there fast it's my brother's wedding and so I've got my rpm down for what that's gonna be so here's a binder that I brought to oral exam are organized so the first tap says you know like um the rap to Boeing field the second tab says my airplane basically so it's like it's the airplane tail number and that's kind of all the information about my airplane and then the third tab is weather and then the fourth tab is supplements and then the last tab is ACS first tab is the route itself so I've got the weather briefing that I received that morning and I put down what time I got it out and then as you can see if you've ever gotten a weather briefing and you understand the chicken scratch because there you go fast this is something that I made just in Microsoft Word just like as a simple table at the bottom I calculated my VA which is maneuvering speed and so he really liked like that when I referenced it so I've got that our VA at our current weight will be 109 knots so he asked about that and that came up so that's also important to know is your mini bring speed so this is really important I printed out from the aviation weather Center the winds and temps that I used to play in the cross country here's an enlarged Airport diagram that is easily accessible of Boeing Field and then you know home Airport as well I actually got this from my friend Abby I would recommend watching her videos veni vidi MOV she makes awesome flying videos I got this from her oral exam video so it's a personal minimums list so the next tab in my binder is my airplanes callsign so this is everything about the airplane that I'm flying so like I said before I went into a coffee shop and I enlarged all the charts because they're a lot easier to write on and yeah more performance charts this is you know I just circled how I got the true airspeed and here's a an ad that might be coming out for the PA 2181 I really checked on an oil so it might be I don't know but I just put that in there so if he asks about ATS I can mean a reference it made a passenger safe safety booklet of like basic information and then on the back page there's some tables about like symptoms and illnesses hypoxia you know like even like anxiety carbon monoxide poisoning like everything's in there next tab is weather um there's not a lot in here I've got the Seattle weather just from what you know like The Weather Channel and I've got current winds and capsule off that I printed out that morning and then I've got some prog shirts finally in the back I just had some like my own pieces of paper and then most importantly the ACS that is a question on the oral exam he literally asked are you familiar with the ACS and I said yes and I had this highlighted tab doubt memorized my tolerances on everything it's all on here so um really really really familiarize yourself with ACS yeah watching other people's experience has really helped me that's why I'm making this video on Jason Shepherd and then fly it Mike alpha really helped bold method is a website that has a lot of quizzes and that really helped me to also um a channel that I stumbled upon that isn't really like as heavily advertised as like fly at Mike alpha and like Jason shepherd is Embry riddles videos are really really helpful like um it's not even like clearly marked but I stumbled upon them and they're like ER like a you special VFR or they're called something like that I'll link it below but they're really helpful like they have some awesome videos on the pitot-static system on how the altimeter works and they they have really good visuals and so on this random and embry-riddle account that kind of just doesn't really you know blatantly advertise is really really helpful there's also that old-school like I think it's from like the 70s check ride video or like the oral exam video and it's it's really old and a lot of that stuff I actually got asked so I watched the whole thing and I would recommend that you do too because I found it very helpful so that's all I got for today let me know if there's anything mister you want me to go over if you have any more questions in the comments below thank you for watching and good luck on all your check rides so if I could help calm your check red nerves I'm going to by telling you what happened to me right before my oral exam so I'm going out and I have to refuel the plane because I didn't have time to do it the day before so I gave myself plenty of time to get to the airport and fuel up the plane prior to the check ride and so I'm out there it's a piper so it's a lowing and the the nozzle at the self-serve fuel like it really gets going if you squeeze it all the way like that thing really um that thing really flies and so I squeeze it too hard was just just so nervous missed missed the fuel hole bounced off the wing and guess what 100 low lead right in my face like in my mouth in my eyes like in my nose all over my face and so I panicked and dropped the nozzle and I ran to the nearest open hangar and I'm just like help me like I think I got gas in my eyes and so this guy is just like pouring water down my face my makeups running I did my makeup all like nice and presentable and I had wore a nice outfit and you know my shirt is drenched and I am soaking wet coming into my coming into my oral exam so that's how that went so if you think you're nervous you're not

Channel: Hannah Neill

Views: 62,507

Rating: 4.9742212 out of 5

Keywords: flying, ppl, checkride, oral exam

Id: nCJqa0oVauU

Length: 18min 57sec (1137 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2019