Checkride Checklist

Every pilot, whether a student seeking his or her first certificate or a seasoned airline captain obliged to pass a twice-annual proficiency check, must contend with a sometimes dreaded checkride. Naturally, all pilots must be prepared to perform the tasks required for a given certificate or rating when it is time to take a practical test.

But there's more to preparing for a checkride than mastering maneuvers and memorizing regulations. Under the strain of an impending checkride some students don't pay attention to the little things, and some instructors forget to warn them about the details of the test. Quite a few private pilot candidates show up for checkrides without a flight computer or plotter or even their logbooks. Sometimes the airplane does not have the required documents on board. Perhaps the applicant has no idea where to find the instructor's endorsements in his or her logbook or when the next annual inspection of the airplane is due. One of the worst offenses occurs when the applicant does not have proper logbook evidence to show that he or she has met the requirements of the certificate or rating being sought. A private pilot candidate who has no logbook entries in the "simulated instrument conditions" column will not get away with telling the examiner, "Well, we went through some clouds a couple of times last December." At this point the checkride is over, and the examiner is less than happy with you and your instructor.

A more subtle gremlin can be found in the numbers, too. Sometimes the columns of the applicant's logbook do not add up. For example, you logged a 2.3 hour cross-country, a 3.7 hour cross-country and a 2.2 hour cross-country, and the bottom of the cross-country column, as well as your application for the certificate or rating, has an entry of 11.6 hours of cross-country flight. The examiner asks about the discrepancy, and you scramble through your logbook with a calculator trying desperately to find out why the numbers don't add up.

These are the kinds of problems that can get a checkride off to a very poor start. Unfortunately, they happen all too often. As a flight instructor who has sent many students to meet the examiner, I have developed a system to prevent these kinds of problems. The student helps me fill out the application form (FAA 8710 form) and watches me fill out each endorsement in his logbook, while I explain what the endorsement is and why it is required. In addition, we both add up the columns of every page of the logbook and check the numbers against Part 61 of the federal aviation regulations (FARs).

Next come the airplane, equipment, and powerplant entries in the maintenance logbooks. Again, we check them against a copy of the FARs (this time Part 91). We mark the entries with sticky notes so we can find them quickly, and on those notes we write the due date of the next inspection. For example, if the last engine/powerplant annual was done 12/06/98, the tachometer reading was 4,765.5, so the next annual due date is 12/31/99, and the next 100-hour inspection is due when the tachometer hits 4,865.5.

With these entries actually stuck in the maintenance book right on top of the pertinent entries, the applicant and examiner know when the inspections were performed, where to find them in the maintenance logs, and when they are due next.

Place the same type of notes on each page with equipment inspection requirements (pitot-static, emergency locator transmitter, transponder Mode C, etc.). Make sure that the applicant duplicates the information on a separate sheet in case the sticky notes are removed from or fall out of the maintenance logs.

Next, the student and I go down a checklist and make sure that everything required is brought along for the checkride. All charts must be current, and pilot certificate, current medical certificate, and all other pilot paraphernalia must be checked off, too. Even such basic items as pens and paper can be worth a king's ransom if forgotten on the day of the checkride.

It's a good idea for the instructor and student to do this chore together. Early in my CFI career, I sent an instrument student for a checkride and while copying his initial en route clearance, his pen dried up. This caused the examiner to roll his eyes, then dig in his bag for a pen. The examiner's only comment was "not very impressive." The pilot had dug himself into a hole before the airplane had even moved. A couple of extra ballpoint pens in his kneeboard would have changed the examiner's comment to "very impressive" because this student was an excellent instrument pilot who, despite his initial blunder, did pass the checkride.

My checkride checklist was developed from the FARs, my experience with students, and the demands of the examiners to whom I send my students. Even though all students, instructors, and examiners are bound by the FARs and the practical test standards, every checkride is a unique event. For example, the examiner I have sent my last few instrument students to believes that a candidate's partial panel skills must be just about perfect. Another examiner might consider partial panel skills to be less important. Some examiners ask scores of questions about the airplane's engine-who makes it, is it horizontally opposed, what is the difference between a normally aspirated and a non-normally aspirated engine? Other examiners don't ask a single question about the airplane's engine.

Of course, no instructor should teach students just to pass the checkride. Each applicant should be prepared to pass no matter who the examiner might be. Still, all examiners are individuals, and knowing their personal styles and aviation philosophies can only serve the checkride applicant well. All instructors must prepare their students with that person's individual strengths and weaknesses in mind, as well. Does this student fly well but have trouble using a flight computer? How is his cross-country planning? Asking these kinds of questions beforehand will help each student to develop the best checklist for himself.

One of my friends requires all of his instrument students to perform a mock checkride in a simulator before he signs them off to take the actual instrument checkride. This is not required by the regulations, and I personally don't have that requirement for my instrument students. It is a very good idea, though. So if this instructor developed a checkride checklist, it might include a line that reads "simulator checkride prep" that must be checked off before the student took the actual checkride. Instructors and students should be creative and thorough when developing their checklists.

Remember, taking a checkride is not unlike having a credit account. Start making mistakes and you incur "debt" with the examiner that you will later have to work yourself out of. On the other hand, do a good job from the start, come prepared and organized, and you will have a "credit" that will serve you well during the course of the checkride.