Checkride

A Candid Look At One FAA Correspondence To Examiners

In October 2000, the FAA sent letters to pilot examiners, the contents of which created some muttering in the ranks. It also stirred fixed-base operators and flight instructors into telephoning their flight standards district offices (FSDOs). Since that letter has aged more than a year, and other events have stolen our attention, you would be well-served by a reminder of its contents. Simply stated, that letter's ideals will affect you on each of your checkrides as your career unfolds. From that letter, here are some quotes in sequence followed by my comments.

"Our experience with recent accidents, incidents, and pilot deviations reveals that we must renew our efforts to provide pilot applicants with the most comprehensive and valid practical tests possible. In particular, our pilot evaluations need to emphasize aerodynamics, airworthiness knowledge, fundamental navigation, runway safety, and flight planning. Achieving this goal will ensure competent and safe pilots and reduce the accident rate. Both FAA inspectors and examiners have a common goal in this regard."

This concise opening paragraph discusses five areas of knowledge that most pilot examiners, should they speak candidly, would admit are subjects that would be easy to test applicants to the point of failure. It wouldn't take much. Perhaps part of the reason the FAA needed to address this stems from the Practical Test Standards' wording, which does not specify "aerodynamics" as a standalone task. Yet the PTS clearly addresses airworthiness knowledge, navigation fundamentals, runway safety, and flight planning. Perhaps it is that designated pilot examiners work in fear of their local community blacklisting them individually as "too tough," thus precipitating revenue loss. Whatever the cause, the FAA's careful attention to pilot performance demonstrated the effects: unacceptably high numbers of accidents, incidents, and pilot deviations traceable directly to pilot knowledge gaps. The letter became a performance-changing wake-up alarm to concerned pilot examiners. As you prepare for your checkride, you would be wise to pay particular attention to these areas. Even if your local DPEs report having never received such a letter, having the extra knowledge is clearly to your advantage.

"Examiners and inspectors should not commence with a practical test if it is not reasonable to expect that both the aeronautical knowledge (oral) and skill (flight) demonstrations can be completed on the same day. An adequate amount of time will be allowed to ensure the required tasks from the Practical Test Standards are demonstrated."

To full-time pilot examiners, this paragraph's first instruction seemed a death knell to their business. Some examiners decried it as contrary to the Pilot Examiner's Handbook and to public policy. For decades the ability of examiners and applicants to meet at the scheduled time regardless of weather or other flight-canceling factors to at least complete the oral knowledge portions of testing seemed not only logical, but also inviolate. Examiners routinely issued letters of discontinuance (and still do) when outside factors prevent flight. This statement, though, goes well beyond the occasional no-go decision that is part and parcel of every level of aviation. As of this writing, no written document rescinds the instruction, so it will tempt examiners to violate it from time to time.

This short paragraph's second part seems so innocent and logical, yet the fact that the FAA found it necessary whispers of a deadly aeronautical sin. Most pilot gatherings will disclose a wide range of experiences if one asks how much total time a given practical test took for each pilot present. I frequently hear student expectations of two hours total, from the introductory handshake to the departing one. Rarely do flight instructors expect this, unless they conducted their practical tests with rogue examiners accommodating this expectation.

If your private pilot checkride is near, you can expect an itinerary similar to this:

• Greeting and small talk: 10 minutes.
• Examining all required documents: 20 minutes.
• Discussing the test procedures and options, and answering your questions: 5 minutes.
• Knowledge testing of PTS Areas of Operations/Tasks requiring knowledge demonstration: 50 to 90 minutes (much depends on an applicant's knowledge and answering style).
• Reviewing the aircraft maintenance records: 10 to 20 minutes (again, hinging on the applicant's knowledge and answering style).
• Preflight activity at the airplane: 15 minutes.
• Flight test: 1.3 to 1.5 hours (this varies greatly in either direction depending on factors ranging from type of airport to an applicant's style in setting up for each maneuver).
• Postflight testing: 10 minutes.
• Post-test documentation: 10 minutes.
• Post-test critique: 10 minutes.

Naturally, countless factors can shorten or lengthen these, and in any combination. Still, this very rough outline should reveal why the FAA needed to ensure that examiners allow adequate time to complete PTS-required tasks. It may explain why some pilots recall their oral test as taking less than an hour, but their examiners reported two hours or more of oral testing to the FAA. You should allow about four hours for your private pilot test.

"Examiners and inspectors will not accept FAA Form 8710-1 unless all permanent aircraft maintenance records are available before the test begins. All airworthiness documents will be inspected during the evaluation of the Preflight Preparation Area of Operation. Improper or incomplete documentation may render the aircraft unairworthy."

This clarification of a PTS requirement shocked many FBOs and others not operating established flight schools. The list of permanent aircraft maintenance records included the current and approved Airplane Flight Manual; equipment lists with current updates; all Supplemental Type Certificates and FAA Form 337s; as well as powerplant, propeller or rotor, and airframe maintenance logs. FBOs that traditionally never allowed pilots to see the maintenance logs had to rework their procedures, or find examiners willing to ignore the FAA's letter. To answer that issue before it became one, the letter stated clearly and in no uncertain terms that practical tests would not be conducted in unairworthy aircraft.

That such a letter ever needed writing should give all of aviation pause - regardless of whether it was unique to one FSDO, or if it was national. Whatever its scope, it meant that those of us charged with operating within the system were in fact not. The stakes are simply too high to permit such divergence from what is right.