Checkride

Looking beyond the PTS

Private pilot applicants have something in common with commercial pilot applicants: When it comes to performing ground reference maneuvers for their pilot examiners, a fair percentage of each find their stomachs in knots (pun intended!).

Ground reference maneuvers have been a part of pilot certification for about as long as pilots have been tested. They have changed with technology, changed with society, and will continue to change. Most recently, the major change for private pilot applicants has been a mixed blessing. Private pilot ground reference maneuvers still include the long-lived rectangular course, the orientation-challenging S-turn, and the dizzying turn around a point. The good news is that your examiner need no longer test each of them on a single flight; the Practical Test Standards (PTS) specify simply that the test must include "at least one" of the three.

While there have been a few changes in the PTS regarding ground reference maneuvers, those few changes exemplify the truth of the old saying that the more things change, the more they remain the same. For example, the Private Pilot Practical Test Standards that took effect in August 2002 compare quite closely with the previous edition. Perhaps the most noticeable change is that the Flight Training Handbook's (FTH) replacement, the Airplane Flying Handbook (AFH), lays the groundwork (another pun!) by discussing "Maneuvering by Reference to Ground Objects" on page 6-1. From this section, your pilot examiner reinforces PTS proclamations (or lack of proclamation) by judging how you apply wind drift correction as you follow an assigned track over the ground. Each maneuver is an assigned track. Where the FTH specified altitude parameters for each maneuver that it discussed, the AFH does so only once.

Some pilot examiners have said that for private pilot applicants, the S-turn remains problematic. No PTS changes lead astray the unread or book-shy. Rather, a fairly constant percentage of applicants seem to lack a basic academic understanding of the maneuver's parameters. In fact, the only change in references regarding the S-turn is the AFH's wording that, "The road should be approached from the upwind side at the selected altitude on a downwind heading." Many ground-reference maneuver discussions from the former FTH contain simple revisions like this one, relying on the chapter's opening paragraphs' specification of 600 to 1,000 feet above the ground to carry sufficient authority to apply to the descriptions of ground-reference maneuvers without repetition. And there's the rub!

Some good folks within the aviation training industry have perused the PTS, but not the references listed with each task. For the private pilot PTS, the sole reference is FAA-H-8083-3, or what we now call the Airplane Flying Handbook. Another aspect of the revered S-turn that the 2002 PTS omits is the entry downwind requirement when beginning the maneuver. Although the PTS now says nothing about this, the AFH does.

New pilots often find that this aspect of learning violates their expectations of standardization. There are those applicants (and flight instructors) who are forced to ask their pilot examiners what the listed "reference" means. After examiners answer by naming or showing the FAA publication, the applicants reply that they have never seen that publication before; most then produce single commercial books that attempt to teach the subjects covered in multiple FAA publications. The FAA has long and graciously addressed this by stating in the "Practical Test Standards Description" portion of the PTS: "Publications other than those listed may be used for references if their content conveys substantially the same meaning as the referenced publications." Over the years, this pilot examiner has seen commercial publications significantly deviate from meanings found in FAA publications; most likely your local examiners have as well.

The differences between the AFH and the PTS are often slight, and pilot examiners' ingrained expectations hide them so well that applicants and instructors alike remain unaware that any difference exists. An example might be found in the rectangular course. The AFH contains some grammatical errors that become obvious when compared to the FTH, but examiners see beyond these. Of interest to pilot examiners is the AFH statement: "Although the rectangular course may be entered from any direction, this discussion assumes entry on a downwind." Meanwhile, the PTS continues to specify that you enter on a 45-degree angle to the downwind leg; most pilot examiners expect it. Also, the latest PTS allows left or right entry into the rectangular course as the AFH also states.

Another maneuver that the PTS now allows you to enter using either left or right turns is the venerable turns around a point. While the 2002 PTS no longer mentions the degree of bank, the AFH continues to describe the maneuver as one using "approximately 45 degrees while maintaining a constant altitude." Many examiners note that more applicants demonstrate the expected common error that avoiding 45 degrees of bank would produce: a ground track distance or radius that is sometimes too large - especially when applicants plan to fly around "cheater points" instead of the central reference point.

An aspect of the wording change in the PTS regarding turns around a point involves the number of times you should circle your selected point. Throughout most of the 1990s, the PTS specified two complete turns, but the 2002 edition omits the reference. Again, the AFH still describes the maneuver as "two or more complete circles of uniform radii or distance from a prominent ground reference point." Your pilot examiner will most likely adhere to the Handbook's definition and ask you for the second turn.

The evolving PTS sometimes reintroduces time-forgotten maneuvers. Some examiners prophesy future changes by comparing even minor changes in wording to maneuvers thought long obsolete, yet still discussed in the AFH. For ground reference maneuvers, these include the ancient eights along a road, eights across a road, and eights around pylons - none of which have changed in the AFH's pages 6-9 through 6-11, and none of which appear in the PTS. (In the pre-PTS 1970s, my pilot examiner demanded a demonstration of eights across a road, and I was thankful that curiosity had led me to study all the Handbook's maneuvers.) Because they are in neither the private nor commercial PTS, a pilot examiner would now be outside his authority to ask you to perform one.

If you are preparing for the commercial practical test, your fortune lies in performing only one ground reference maneuver: the eights on pylons (sometimes called pylon eights). The most intriguing change in the 2002 PTS is the absence of a requirement to fly approximately three to five seconds of straight-and-level flight between pylons. Examiner disagreement regarding the statement's meaning has long been an aggravation to flight instructors. In fact, the AFH still notes: "Approximately three to five seconds of straight-and-level flight should be sufficient for checking the area properly before entering the next turn." An addition to the AFH that delights many pilot examiners is the inclusion of a rule of thumb for estimating pivotal altitude in calm wind. Found on page 6-13, this formula calls for you to square your target true airspeed and divide by 11.3 for knots, or 15 for miles per hour if you fly an older airplane.

A related change of wording of in the AFH says: "Distance from the pylon affects the angle of bank" where the FTH stated: "The angle of bank is affected by the distance from the pylon." This slight change has caused some flight students to read the new statement as indicating that distance from a pylon becomes the prime factor, where the PTS and the AFH both call for about 30 degrees to 40 degrees at the steepest point. Other minor changes include phrases that were once italicized, such as "appears to pivot," not being italicized in the AFH. Although it seems minor, not placing words like pylons in quotation marks, as they once were, changes the message of otherwise identical statements: "This training maneuver also involves flying the airplane in circular paths, alternately left and right, in the form of a figure 8 around two selected points or 'pylons' on the ground." Without quotes, some consider the word pylons to indicate raised stanchions of one form or another, and they select objects like telephone poles or cell-phone towers. Pylons of unequal height will harm the maneuver, and safety becomes an issue.

These, then, are the considerations about ground reference maneuvers that your pilot examiner will most likely have. Whoever your examiner might be, remember that sound judgment and good aeronautical decision making join with your knowledge and skill in a given maneuver not only to pass the checkride, but also to fly competently and confidently throughout your career.

Dave Wilkerson is a designated pilot examiner, writer/photographer, and historian. A commercial pilot, he has been a CFI for 22 years and has given about 2,000 hours of dual instruction.