Early pilot testing sometimes involved the examiner standing on the ground while the applicant flew a series of predetermined maneuvers overhead. This procedure lasted longer in the military than in the civilian world because qualifying in fighters or other single-place airplanes left no choice. Modern pilot applicants might secretly wish for such a test, silently longing to be spared the anxiety of sharing the cockpit with a stranger.
But those early tests weren't always less stressful than the tests of today. Even into the jet age, when the F-86 had proven its worth, few pilots qualifying in that fighter had access to a two-place TF-86, so their examiners would watch from another F-86. These flight tests would often degenerate into unplanned dogfights between examiner and applicant.
In the civilian world, the growing family of multiple-seat airplanes meant that examiners would go along for the ride. The solo-applicant procedure technically remains an authorized option, even today.
There have been instances of pilots receiving their credentials without a flight test at all. Charles Lindbergh, it is often said, received his pilot certificate from the U.S. Department of Commerce immediately before his New-York-to-Paris flight in 1927. Com- merce, according to this report, worried that an unlicensed pilot successfully flying from New York to Paris would weaken the argument that flying should require certification. As a result, Lindbergh got the license even though he had no practical test.
In the 1930s, Commerce inspectors went to Alaska on a mission to bring aviation in that territory into compliance with aviation regulations, which included licensing airmen. According to Stephen Mills and James Phillips, authors of the 1970 book Sourdough Sky, Inspector James Peyton notified all Anchorage-area seaplane pilots that they would have to be licensed. The first applicant began a normal takeoff but suddenly rolled left on one pontoon as he swung in a tight arc paralleling the shore, then leapt skyward a few pulse-pounding moments later. Terrified, the ashen-faced examiner ordered the applicant to land immediately. Back on the dock, the visibly shaken Peyton demanded of the gathered pilots, "Is that what you pilots think is the proper way to take off in a plane on floats?" He examined each pilot's deadpan face before his applicant explained, "Not all the time, Mr. Peyton, but we have a lot of short lakes to get in and out of, sharp bends in rivers, snags and sand bars to avoid; so we have to make our planes dance for us sometimes to stay out of trouble." Peyton supposedly replied, "Tests are over. You're all rated pontoon pilots, and the drinks are on me." Incidents like this that showed the Department of Commerce that it would have to modify its requirements to fit regional conditions. When the FAA was created to take over aviation regulation, it followed Commerce's lead in setting a policy of regional governance.
Nationally, the Department of Commerce had established the requirement that pilots be licensed by the federal government, rather than by flying clubs or international associations. Still, for many years the specific requirements for attaining pilot certificates remained somewhat nebulous. By 1954, Civil Air Regulation (CAR) 20.26(a)(1)-(6) specified that applicants for private pilot certificates should "satisfactorily accomplish a practical examination" which would include cross-country flight planning, basic straight-and-level flying, turning, stalls at altitude, a 720-degree turn, normal and crosswind takeoffs and landings, and a short- or soft-field takeoff and landing. Beyond that, checkrides remained largely whatever the individual examiner decided they should be.
A combination of high-profile accidents and political considerations led to the creation of the Federal Aviation Agency in 1958, later renamed the Federal Aviation Administration. This new power took steps to bring pilot exams to safety's shore. A 1959 regulation outlined the requirements for private pilot exams in three formal phases. Phase I entailed an oral operational exam; Phase II required an expanded list of maneuvers to demonstrate basic piloting techniques; and Phase III called for cross-country flight planning, flying, and use of radio aids to visual navigation. (Pilots using airplanes without radio navigation equipment did not test on them.)
Clearly, piloting was becoming more complex. As advances made during World War II trickled into general aviation (then still called private flying) even nonflyers recognized the need for pilot training and testing to keep pace with technology. Books like Donald Bain's 1969 The Case Against Private Aviation tied accident trends to pilot experience for an otherwise uninformed public. Concerns outlined in Bain's book and others had led the FAA to consider adding expiration dates to pilot certificates, mandating additional checkrides throughout each pilot's career. Ultimately, the agency settled on an initial practical test for each certificate or rating, followed by a flight review every other year, assuming the pilot added no additional certificates or ratings. Although the program took years to implement, one of the FAA's first successful changes to pilot testing was the "blue seal" pilot certificate. Early regulations did not require instrument training or testing for private pilots, but around 1960 the FAA implemented a program to encourage such training. Pilots whose training and testing included a certain amount of instrument flying received a blue seal on their pilot certificates.
Sometimes authors misinformed their readers regarding flight testing. Books and magazines said things like "thousands of private instructors...validate their own students." Others alluded to pilots needing to accrue only the minimum flight hours to automatically qualify for their desired certificate or rating. Such misinformation tainted the training and testing process even into the 1980s. Misleading information notwithstanding, the FAA's second coup in the 1960s was the publication of Advisory Circular 61-3, which became known as simply the Flight Test Guide.
By the 1970s, most pilot examiners based their testing on the Guide. The FAA had found that producing ancillary publications to provide guidance to students, instructors, and examiners was more efficient than attempting to direct the entire process by regulation. The aviation industry changed too rapidly for its regulatory structure to be all-encompassing. Instructors and examiners had to become familiar with the Guide, and aviation organizations encouraged even experienced pilots to voluntarily take the new exams.
The Flight Test Guide outlined 10 pilot operations, roughly equivalent to the areas of operation in today's practical test standards. The language was highly permissive, so examiners had many options when it came to selecting or conducting maneuvers. Testing had improved, but standardization remained elusive.
In the early 1980s, the FAA refined its testing guidelines with a series of booklets called the Practical Test Standards (PTS). With them came a new way of thinking about testing. In 1984 the FAA issued FAA Order 8710.3A, the Pilot Examiner's Handbook, canceling its six-year-old predecessor, the Pilot Examiner's Manual. The new Handbook oriented examiners to the PTS, whose wording was far less permissive than the Flight Guide. Slowly, flight instructors stopped preparing students only for the idiosyncrasies of a specific local examiner. Pilots-to-be discovered that the substance of pilot testing was becoming predictable, regardless of where they trained.
In the 1990s a reworking of the regulations formalized the role of the PTS. The twenty-first century opens with pilots training to specific skill levels and instructors confident that their students will receive fair evaluation. Accident rates are falling thanks in part to the evolution of pilot testing.
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