What to Expect During your Private Pilot Checkride | A Comprehensive Guide on What to Expect During Your First Checkride

Image this scenario - "It's checkride day! You've paid your Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) $1000 to conduct your checkride, and you've studied hard but have no idea what to expect once your instructor leaves the room. Is it going to be easy? Is Mr. DPE going to tell me I wasn't prepared? Am I going to fail?" For many students, this scenario will become a reality. As with most other students, this was how I felt on checkride day for my Private Pilot Certificate.

When preparing for my first checkride, I spent countless hours scouring the depths of the internet for any information I could find on what to expect when taking a checkride and wasn't able to find much valuable information. On the one hand, many sources made it seem like taking a checkride would be like any training flight with your instructor; you hop in the plane and do some maneuvers, shut the plane down, and boom. You now are the nation's newest Private Pilot. On the other hand, some individuals made checkride day seem to be a long miserable day requiring perfection by the student or else they "failed" (you don't "fail" a checkride, you get a "Notice of Disapproval" and I'll talk more about that later). That is why I am making this guide, I want student pilots preparing for their Private Pilot checkride to feel confident when they wake up on checkride day.

Can I Fail a Checkride?

The first thing I try and tell checkride applicants is that the job of the DPE is not to fail you, rather it is to administer the practical test per the FAA regulations (called the Airmen Certification Standards, or ACS) and confirm that you have been trained to the standard. This corrects one of the biggest misconceptions about checkrides. Many students are under the impression that they have to pass or fail a checkride, like a school test. That couldn't be more untrue.

When you finish checking in with your examiner, they will brief you on the process for the checkride. He/she will say something along the lines of "Today we will be completing a Private/Commercial/etc. checkride as outlined in the Airmen Certification Standards. We will be testing your knowledge in all of the knowledge areas of operation in the ACS then we will assess your flight skills per the ACS. PERFECTION IS NOT THE STANDARD." Read that again. PERFECTION IS NOT THE STANDARD! Both the ACS and your examiner know that you are a human and that you will not be perfect. You will make mistakes, and the examiner will make mistakes. The key is to understand that the mistakes you make are penalized based on how you respond to them. If you acknowledge your mistakes and annunciate the proper corrective action you're all good. For example, when doing steep turns I climbed to 150 feet above my entry altitude (ACS standard is 100 feet), I said "I have climbed a little bit, I am reducing throttle and back pressure to return to my altitude" and all was good. Next, your examiner will go over the three possible outcomes for the checkride which are as follows:

1. Satisfactory Completion of the Checkride resulting in a "Temporary Airman Certificate" (TAC)

2. Letter of Discontinuance (LoD)

3. Notice of Disapproval (NoD) - Not a "Failure"!!!

What do these mean? The first outcome is the most common. You satisfactorily complete every Area of Operation in the ACS. You have passed your checkride! This TAC is a paper certificate that you will get while the FAA airman certification branch works on sending you your "Hard Card", the plastic credit card-like certificate.

Second, the letter of discontinuance. These are fairly common too, the letter of discontinuance means that for whatever reason the examiner and applicant agree that the checkride needs to stop and be completed at another time. Most commonly this is due to weather however, it is fairly common for applicants to complete half the flight and complete the remaining areas of operation on another day (usually due to fatigue after a long oral). It is important to note that there is no penalty for a letter of discontinuance, some examiners may charge a small fee for their time however, there is no FAA penalty. The (LoD) contains the areas of operation in the ACS that have been satisfactorily completed so that another examiner may finish the checkride.

Third, the Notice of Disapproval is the dreaded "failure". No, it's not a failure as when you re-check after a disapproval, you only need to complete the areas of operation that were marked "Unsatisfactory" and anything else that may not have been assessed yet. THESE AREAS MAY BE IN THE ORAL EXAM OR THE FLIGHT PORTION OF THE CHECKRIDE. When an examiner deems that something is "unsat" or out of ACS tolerance, you may continue the remainder of the checkride. Let's say you take my steep turn example from earlier on, if my examiner were to mark me as unsatisfactory on the steep turn I would then have the option to complete the remainder of the flight, and assuming that everything else was satisfactory, I would only need to complete a steep turn with an examiner to pass the checkride. This is why I do not recognize checkride busts as a "fail", more accurately the FAA stepping in and saying that you need a bit more training on an area or two.

How Does a Checkride Work and What Can I Expect on Checkride Day?

1. Check-In Process

Now that we understand the outcomes of a practical test we can get into the checkride itself. As mentioned before, the Private Pilot checkride is conducted using the Private Pilot Airman Certification Standards (ACS). These ACS documents will become your best friend, they tell you exactly what may be covered in a checkride, what needs to be covered in a checkride, and the acceptable standards of completion that the examiner will use when administering your practical test.

The first thing that happens on checkride day is the check-in process. Most likely, your instructor will be in the room to make sure this goes smoothly and that all endorsements are present in the logbook and correct. The examiner will have you log into IACRA to sign the necessary forms, check your Identification (Driver's license, ID, Passport, etc.), validate your medical, check your logbook, etc. Once you have been successfully checked in your instructor will leave and the practical test officially begins.

You will start with the practical test briefing, as I mentioned before it will include the three outcomes of a practical test, the use of the ACS, the examiner will decide on a plan of action for both the oral and flight portions of the test, and the examiner may ask the first tricky question of the checkride: "Who will be Pilot in Command today?" YOU! You will be the pilot in command! Don't let this question trip you up. Technically the examiner can act as PIC but only if they elect to and spoiler alert, most won't want to take the liability.

2. Oral Exam

Now the checkride begins. You've been checked in, your instructor is gone, and you've determined that you will be the PIC during the flight. The examiner now cracks open their ACS and starts quizzing you. This depends on the examiner, some tend to be very Q/A like a written test, and others are very situational where they may not ask you any black-and-white questions. This is when it becomes important to understand what the DPE is asking you. If you are unsure, ask them to clarify. It's always better to clarify the question than to assume what they were asking and give them a completely wrong answer.

In my most recent checkride, instrument flight instructor, my DPE gave me great advice that I'd like to pass on to the student pilots out there. I'm paraphrasing of course but here is what he told me:

"There are three types of questions an examiner will ask. The first category is the basics. You gotta know these or else something going wrong. Second, are the questions you may know, I ask these to judge your depth of knowledge. Third are the questions I know you won't know anything about. I ask these because I want to see if you can use your resources and stay composed when you know you don't know something."

It is important to understand that you will not know everything. I've also been told that the bar for knowledge in an oral is around 65%, some people like to use a cup as an analogy. Each time you get something wrong, an imaginary cup fills up a little bit. As long as you don't overflow the cup or knock it over, you're fine. You WILL get things wrong, the examiner WILL ask you things you don't know.

This brings me to my next tip. KNOW YOUR DOCUMENTS. Any FAA-published document is permitted in a checkride. This goes for the FAR/AIM, PHAK, AFH, Advisory Circulars, POH/AFM, etc. If you don't know something, look it up! Now you can't look up every answer but for those tricky questions, pull out your PHAK and give them the answer they're looking for.

You can expect some random questions, scenarios, etc. but some surefire things to be prepared for are your cross-country nav log, weight and balance and performance calculations, and aircraft airworthiness. Be prepared to explain how you calculated every number of your performance calculations, weight and balance, and be able to describe why you made the nav log the way you chose to. As for airworthiness, have a sheet of paper where you write all the inspections that were done to show that the plane is airworthy and you may even need the maintenance logs for the airplane to prove to the examiner.

Know 14 CFR 91.205 and 213 as well, those are asked on most private checkrides as well, the examiner may ask you about a specific piece of equipment, and if you need it to fly as well as the necessary actions you must take to be able to fly. Your oral will go from a half hour to two hours but most are around an hour long. As long as you haven't said anything egregiously wrong you should be on to the flight portion.

3. Flight Portion

When you have completed the oral portion of the checkride you will progress to the flight portion. This may include devising a plan of action, the go/no-go decision, preflight activities, and then the flight itself. Depending on your examiner they may help you, you guys are flying an airplane and examiners understand that effective crew resource management can improve the probability of a successful flight. Preflight the plane quickly so that when the DPE gets to the plane you're ready to hop in and fly.

The best tip I can give I have already said. Perfection is not the standard, you WILL mess up in your flight, and it's stressful. It is important to brush off your mistake and ensure that it doesn't become an issue. A trait that examiners like to see in applicants is when he/she makes a mistake, they take a breath and continue to fly the airplane in a way that resolves the issue. That is what we do as pilots. No flight ever goes 100% according to the plan and it's our job as a pilot to take the situation we are given and make a safe outcome, that is what your examiner is testing. Not if you can butter your short field or fly a perfect turn around a point, but your ability to adapt to stress and unfortunates in the air.

Other Tips

The biggest tip I can give to somebody stressing about their checkride is to take a step back and take a breath. You are never rushed in a checkride, you can step out of the room, grab a sip of water, and take a second to gather yourself.

Next, read the corresponding ACS. If you've read through the ACS then you know the standards you are being held to, therefore you can study to not only meet those standards but to exceed those standards.

Watch mock checkrides on YouTube, there are a few great mock oral tests you can watch on YouTube that will help you prepare.

Take a mock checkride. I offer mock checkrides as will most other instructors. They may cost a bit but you will hear from an instructor if they think you are ready for your checkride, they may even give you a very similar checkride to the one that you will take. Contact me to set up your mock checkride!