IR Checkride Next Week

[Brian Scranton]

I am days away from taking my IR check ride. Any advice? DPE wants me to plan a flight from KMTJ to KPHX. 

Thanks for any words of wisdom!

[Bob - S50]

Just relax and do what you always do.  Aviate, navigate, communicate.  Try to enjoy the flight.  Pretend it's just a friend of yours acting as a safety pilot in the other seat.

Best of luck.

[Jerry 5TJ]

Suggestions:

If you have an ADF in the panel have it removed before your check ride.

Go through your written test results and review subject matter topics of any questions you missed.  Oral will cover those topics for sure.

You will learn from the check ride and examiner. 

Pre-plan the route the examiner gave you carefully, including NOTAMS.  Get familiar with likely alternate airports as you'll probably be asked to divert.  

Carry only current charts with you, that's obvious, but also remove any out of date charts or plates from your bag and plane.  

If your CFII has signed you off you're ready, so enjoy the ride.  

 

 

 

[capthaak]

Do you have O2?

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Brian Scranton]

Portable O2...I will no have it in the cabin. ADF is marked INOP. 

Thanks for the advice. 

[Brian Scranton]

Anyone know where the MAP point is on this plate if you're flying to LNAV mins? My guess would be the VDP, but the dotted missed line occurs after VDP and before the RWY. On the Y version of this approach, the MAP is the end of the RWY. 

globalair_00668rz17.pdf

[StevenL757]

13 hours ago, Bob - S50 said:

Just relax and do what you always do.  Aviate, navigate, communicate.  Try to enjoy the flight.  Pretend it's just a friend of yours acting as a safety pilot in the other seat.

Best of luck.

Agree.  Additionally, never leave any doubt as to who is flying the airplane; and that when you're flying, you're confident and in-charge of the situation and airplane.  Use proper transition procedures if needed when/if you hand over control, and prepare for the "intentional distractions" he'll probably throw at you.  I won't say "best of luck", because I'm sure you won't need it.

[mike_elliott]

7 hours ago, Brian Scranton said:

I am days away from taking my IR check ride. Any advice? DPE wants me to plan a flight from KMTJ to KPHX. 

Thanks for any words of wisdom!

Your CFII says your ready and has certified you as such. The DPE will now verify his recommendation to PTS standards. Your flight plan he asked you to prep is the beginning of the scenario based test he will administer. You will talk thru the decision processes, the weather briefing you have obtained and bought with you, You will be asked all kinds of things about the route, symbology on charts, Departure procedures, runway lighting, runway markings, fuel reserves, etc. His job is to ensure you are within the PTS, so a review of the PTS now is in order. There will be no surprises this way.

The flight typically will consist of you beginning your planned route, where he will have you break off and you will do a bit of partial panel airwork, Unusual attitude recovery and possibly demonstrate a departure or accelerated stall under the hood., You will fly a precision approach to minimums, a non precision partial panel and a circle to land. Tips here are to make sure you brief the approach, know your power settings for 500' decent dirty at  90 Kts, and straight and level at 90 kts. Verbalize your minimum callouts so the DPE knows your paying attention to them."500 ' to minimums" etc.
DONT try to fly the approaches too fast., stay on the correct speeds, slow the plane down before the IAF. Don't do anything abruptly, instrument flying is precision flying. If you see a needle drifting off, fix it immediately, but with small corrections when it first happens. Keep the needles all lined up with small corrections as one first starts to wander off. If the DPE sees you are on top of things, all will be well.

Good luck, you will do fine!
 

[Brian Scranton]

Great advice Mike. I am ON IT! 

[kris_adams]

23 hours ago, Brian Scranton said:

Portable O2...I will no have it in the cabin. ADF is marked INOP. 

Thanks for the advice. 

If the ADF is labeled as INOP, make sure there is a corresponding logbook entry for that.  He (examiner) specifically brought that up with me when we spoke on the phone.  I assume you have an IFR GPS.  Make sure you can show the DE where in the logbooks that it is actually signed off for IFR flight.  If you get a chance to go fly at the airport where the DE is, you could always go shoot the approaches there for practice-never hurts especially if there's a DME arc or something else unusual.  I think Mike summed it up really well.  Good luck and keep us posted!

[Brian Scranton]

Great advice--thanks Chris. Didn't know about the logbook notation for INOP equipment. 

[Jeff_S]

On 6/2/2016 at 9:36 AM, Brian Scranton said:

Anyone know where the MAP point is on this plate if you're flying to LNAV mins? My guess would be the VDP, but the dotted missed line occurs after VDP and before the RWY. On the Y version of this approach, the MAP is the end of the RWY. 

globalair_00668rz17.pdf

So Mike Elliott or any other CFI-I can correct me on this if needed, but the VDP marks a point that, if you are at the MDA and have required visibility, you should be able to continue a "normal" descent to land at the desired runway. However, this doesn't make it a MAP by definition. You could continue at the MDA all the way to the runway in theory, although if you get much closer you'd be doing heroics to land. If conditions permit you could circle, as that is the same MDA. If you get to the runway and still don't have required visibility, then you intiate the missed.

[Brian Scranton]

That's the question for sure--the VDP is the final spot where a normal landing can be made, so my thought is: sure, fly to the MAP before executing a missed but know that when you cross the VDP at MDA, and you don't see the runway environment, you're going missed. 

[Txbyker]

Brian,

I can tell you my examiner turned off all situation awareness devices in my plane, no GTN650, no iPad, only steam gauges and needles.  Also, I remember I was under the hood from rotation to touchdown back at the home field.  My instructor always trained me and told me to look up at the runway when I got to MAP but not the examiner.  The hour or so was quite different without ever seeing anything outside.  

Good luck, I am sure you will do well.

Russ

[Brian Scranton]

Thanks Russ! Wow--sounds like a fun ride. My DPE is a Foreflight fanatic so I know he'll be all over that iPad. 

[DrBill]

Here is how mine went... old but still appropriate:

Bill

 

My IFR Checkride.pdf

[RLCarter]

Have fun on your ck ride and be prepared for what ever gets thrown at you (don’t get flustered). My first approach was a LOC, as keyed the mic to declare a missed approach there was a loud squeal over the radio then silence, clearance for the missed was to fly heading 040 and climb to 4000, so that is what I did. After the turn I tried another radio call (nothing) so I had the DPE hand me my handheld and contacted the tower only to be told to standby. After a few minutes I told the DPE I should squawk 7600 and light up their screen but it was obvious they were having issues with a Mexican aircraft coming in and there was a major language barrier. When they finally got back to me we were level at 4000, trouble shooting the radios to no avail, so I canceled IRF and took the DPE back. A week later the second part of the ck ride wasn’t much better, a newbie on ground cleared me 14,000 ft so after my read back I requested 4000 which was approved. I was to intercept and track the 010 radial outbound and approach would call my turn to hold over the VOR (inbound commercial and GA traffic). At 23 DME I gave them a courtesy call and they turned me inbound but they changed the radial I was to hold on twice before I got there. I nailed the hold and the inbound leg on the first circuit but held for another 5 turns before I was released (over 30 minutes of holding). Next came the VOR-A circle to land at a non-towered field 15 miles away, after giving a position report on Unicom I heard the DPS Helicopter (State Police) say he was at 700ft and ½ mile north of the field (i was 7 miles south) directing a pursuit in progress, great right where I’m headed, he then came on a said he was on the ground. The ILS was the last thing I had to do so back to KMFE I went via vectors from hell due to more Mexico traffic, so like I said don’t get rattled if things pop up, fly the plane and have fun. By the way my 3 approaches should have been about an hour but due to the vectoring, holds and all the other stuff it was 2:45 minutes and the DPE had 2 cups of coffee before hand, he came out of the plane when we parked and was on a mission.

[carqwik]

My checkride was so long ago that I don't remember much about it at all...except that I passed!  It was definitely harder than the private.  Of course, once you get out into the real world of IFR flying, you'll realize you don't know squat!  (No worries, it's much easier than you might think since the hardest part is just getting the rating.)  And your first approach in real IMC without the instructor next to you....wait til you see how much of the seat you suck up into your bum!!!

[Ftlausa]

Be prepared for "scenario" based questions in the oral.  The DPE that did my IR asked some awkward scenario questions that were designed to test my knowledge.  There were several times where I did not know what he was trying to get to.  When he finally just came out and asked me the question at the heart of the scenario, I knew the answer, but it was not apparent to me where he was trying to go.  Be prepared for the scenario structure, as that is how they are supposed to do the checkride now.  For instance, he asked several times whether I could make the trip he was proposing, or asking what else we needed.  He was simply trying to get to currency and equipment requirements, but I did not know that's what he was trying to get at.  My DPE was also really big into STARs, which is not something I had ever flown or paid that much attention to.  He also gave me an weird lost comm question that AVEF did not appear to solve because (as best as I can recall at the moment) the approach required vectoring once you reached an IAF. 

The other advise above is good.  The flight portion was much easier in my particular instance.   

[mike_elliott]

If your checkride is going to take place after June 15th, make sure you are well versed on the NEW ACS

http://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/acs/

 

[Robert C.]

On 6/3/2016 at 1:20 PM, Jeff_S said:

..... the VDP marks a point that, if you are at the MDA and have required visibility, you should be able to continue a "normal" descent to land at the desired runway. However, this doesn't make it a MAP by definition. You could continue at the MDA all the way to the runway in theory, although if you get much closer you'd be doing heroics to land. If conditions permit you could circle, as that is the same MDA. If you get to the runway and still don't have required visibility, then you intiate the missed.

 

That is my understanding as well. The MAP is the runway Threshold.

When I fly approaches and get to the VDP I verbalise   ".... 0.5 nm to VDP, prepare to go missed....at VDP...almost certainly going missed....halfway to rwy...we're going missed...."

Even if you psychologically commit to going missed when passing the VDP remember to fly all the way to the MAP before initiating any lateral moves (assuming the missed appr calls for a turn).

[Oldguy]

And please make sure all of the paperwork for your plane is up to date. Log book with a tag showing last annual, last pitot/static check, current GPS data, VOR checks logged and signed within last 30 days, etc. Nothing worse than you being ready and being told the plane isn't.

[Ftlausa]

And whatever you do, don't do this!  Examiners HATE when you do this!

[Brian Scranton]

Thanks guys!!!! Passed!!!! 

[MooneyBob]

Awesome. Congrats. It is pretty big deal.