Profile of a Private Pilot Check Ride

with Pete Foreman

Part Two

By Bruce Decker

This month we resume discussion of the oral examination.

Do not use seconds on flight times. Pete prefers you to round down for 0-30 seconds and up for 31-59 seconds. He feels that seconds are inconsequential and needlessly complicate the flight plan. He discourages you from writing repeating values such as cruise altitudes on each line (leg) of the flight plan. He prefers you to simply draw a line to indicate that the value repeats. He claims this simplifies the flight planning form, and also is easier to read in flight, since a line simply says "same as before" whereas a repeated value requires you to read the value then compare in order to conclude that the values are "same as before".

On the sectional, Pete dislikes the use of highlighter pens. He says that if you are rich and can afford a new sectional after a few flights, they are OK, but he does just fine with a standard blunt marking pencil that can be erased. For routing, he prefers you to plan the most direct route between departure and arrival point. He does not subscribe to the school of thought that one should avoid MOA or ALERT areas. He contends that there is actually very little traffic in these areas and that they are far less congested than the airspace-surrounding Centennial. You should know how to contact the controlling agencies for any MOA or ALERT area that you traverse on your planned route of flight. I recommend writing these procedures in the 'notes' section of your flight plan.

Pete will be impressed if you plan to use VOR navigation for part of the flight, but do not fly VOR to VOR direct. He would rather see you plan to use vectors from multiple VORs to verify your position on the route.

On the FAA flight plan form, do not use the standard "4.0 hours" of available fuel. He wants you to take the burn rate at cruise altitude (based on performance data in the POH) and multiply by the number of usable gallons (per the POH). In my case, the computed available fuel was 6:45 hours, rather than 4.0.

Other items to note for the oral exam

Make sure that you have the airport ID in box 9 of the flight plan form. Pete contends that writing the city name could be ambiguous (e.g., does DEN mean DIA, Centennial, Front Range?).

Know emergency transponder codes (he will ask in the oral exam and the practical exam).

He will point to airports on the sectional and ask you about the surrounding airspace visibility and ceiling limits/requirements.

He may ask what you would do if you were flying to Centennial at a very busy time (like Sunday mornings) and your radios failed. You can offer the standard light gun procedure, but make sure you follow it with "I personally think if the airport is really busy I might just divert to a less busy airport and phone ahead to my destination let them know that I am coming without radios." This shows that you are thinking rather than just memorizing FARs and this will impress him.

Photocopy the weight/balance form and CG limits chart from POH and plot the CG. He may not ask for this, but it is a requirement of the test and should be on the ready.

For reference, Pete claims to weigh 180lbs.

Part three next month!