As almost anyone who has ever taken an FAA practical test would agree, no matter how well-prepared you are, no matter how well your checkride starts out, something always occurs during the test that ruins what might have been history's first perfect checkride. While we all want to strive for that perfect checkride, this is a glimpse of the reality that accompanies any practical test. So don't allow this to worry or frustrate you. It's just a fact of life. Hey, when was the last time any of us ever had a completely perfect day where absolutely nothing went wrong? And during checkrides, things are supposed to go wrong. Expect it. That's why we have emergency checklists.
Typically, the first problem occurs during the oral exam, or what the FAA calls the ground portion of the practical test. Even though you just reviewed this material last night, in the heat of the moment, you can't seem to recall that particular detail. You twist in your chair, your stomach turns, the silence becomes deafening, and the temperature in the room seems to have become tropical. For you, the moment of truth has arrived.
Although it's no longer a perfect checkride, you have several options at this point. How you deal with this imperfect moment tells the examiner volumes about you as a pilot. Should you fake it and make an educated guess? Should you state that you wouldn't need to know this detail anyway, since you would never find yourself in such a situation? Should you pack your bag and head for the door? Clearly, none of these solutions would be recommended. But incredibly, every examiner will occasionally observe applicants employ each of these strategies.
Confessing to the examiner that you just don't know is often your best policy. Offering to look up the forgotten material is better than guessing incorrectly, especially if you are able to impress the examiner with how quickly you can locate the reference in the book. Remember, however, there is a limit to how often any examiner will allow a trip to the manual for information you normally would be expected to know. Any examiner would love to see the applicant draw from related knowledge, showing correlation skills, demonstrating an ability to think under pressure, and exhibiting common sense, good judgment, and effective single-pilot resource management skills (SRM).
But let's say you are the one-in-a-million applicant who has just completed an absolutely perfect oral exam as you head out to the aircraft for your flight. The odds still weigh heavily against a perfect checkride. The designated pilot examiner (DPE) will be seeking moments where you are faced with the unexpected just to observe your reactions. As you've probably already discovered, the unexpected happens on every flight, not just during checkride flights. So you will probably not have to wait very long for such an occurrence to present itself. Even when everything is proceeding routinely, the practical test standards (PTS) direct DPEs to create realistic distractions specifically to see how the applicant will react to and deal with them.
Examiners seldom need to go out of their way to create distractions; they usually crop up often enough without any additional encouragement. Consider the distraction created by simply selecting the wrong frequency for a navigation or communication radio or by the actions required to activate a VFR flight plan. This can be just enough to get an applicant off course, disoriented, and lost. Or consider the huge distraction caused by unexpectedly entering a spin during a power-off stall. Would either of these imperfect moments result in a failed checkride? Not necessarily.
If you do become lost, for example, you will feel that very real onset of anxiety. And just as with the oral exam, you will have several options. Should you ignore the gut-wrenching sensations that began when you became lost and hope the examiner won't notice--and that in a few minutes you will know exactly where you are? Should you make your best guess and head for what looks like your next checkpoint, or should you confess to the examiner that you have become lost and then masterfully demonstrate how to use two VOR stations to plot your position and proceed back on course, possibly even contacting a nearby air traffic control facility to request radar assistance?
It is easy to imagine which of the solutions above would be the desirable one. However, all too often, an applicant is unable to switch to the lost procedure he or she described so expertly during the oral exam without being specifically told to do so. Remember, the DPE is your passenger and cannot tell you what to do or how to recover. And what about an unexpected spin entry during your checkride? God forbid this should ever happen to you. But if it does, a really great solution would be to promptly recover using the proper spin recovery procedure and then, in your calmest possible voice, ask if the examiner would like to see one to the right, too.
Bob Schmelzer is a Chicago-area designated pilot examiner and a United Airlines Boeing 777 captain/line check airman. He has been an active flight instructor since 1972.
