10 things examiners love to see

For every new pilot acting as pilot of an aircraft, there are at least two people who went out on a limb to make it happen. One is the flight instructor who set his or her signature to an application form, recommending to the FAA that pilot privileges be granted. The other person whose professional judgment is required to loose a new pilot on the skies is the designated examiner who, with much less time to evaluate the applicant, made the CFI's judgment official.

Both parties, if conscientious and professional, recognize this process for what it is. Both have seen pilot applicants come and go and have come to recognize signs associated with success and failure. Long before you and your examiner board the aircraft for the flight that will justify and reward your training, he or she will have already developed a hunch about the outcome. What do examiners look for in an applicant for a pilot certificate? Here are 10 tips. Some will help to ensure that your flight exam actually makes it to the flying stage, and the rest will help carry you across the finish line after you and your examiner take to the air.

1. Good paperwork.

FAA Form 8710-1, Airman Certificate and/or Rating Application, is a notorious deal-breaker for people showing up for checkrides, so much so that when flight instructors attend their periodic refresher clinics, considerable time is spent getting the bureaucratic demands right in CFIs' heads. This is one reason why your checkride begins with review of your paperwork. Your logbook, student pilot certificate, and knowledge-test documentation must be in order, and timely, or you may not be eligible for your flight test.

More's the pity that this investment of instructor and examiner time is necessary when you consider that Form 8710 comes with a set of detailed instructions for how to, and whether to, fill in the various data boxes. They include such details as writing down your height in inches, not in feet and inches; and answering "yes" in Block M to the question, "Do you now hold or have you ever held an FAA pilot certificate?" Why answer yes? You hold a student pilot certificate.

Practice filling out this important document using AOPA's Interactive Form 8710 (www.aopa.org/turbomedical). Print it out, get your CFI's signature, and take the form with you to the examiner--or use it as a guide if your examiner asks you to complete the FAA's online Integrated Airman Certificate and/or Rating Application (IACRA).