how I passed my instrument checkride
Jan. 20th, 2025 11:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacefemLast September I passed my private pilot instrument checkride without talking much about it here, but it was about 18 months of training and craziness, incredibly stressful, a lot of work, but I passed! And now I can fly in clouds.
The flying takes a lot of practice - focus on vertical and navigational guidance regardless of what instruments are failed and stay on those damn lines - but I swear for every hour I spent flying I spent 10 (20? 100?) hours memorizing regulations, definitions, and standards. I've told prospective pilots that I now support the idea of ground school/written test before you even start flying, because that part is not much money but tells you if you have hope. In other words: If you can memorize the visibility minimums of class G airspace at night without hating airplanes, a pilot's life is for you!
My internet friend cheesepilot said a brilliant thing that made me feel better about struggling: "Our brains didn't evolve to memorize facts. Our brains evolved to remember experiences... primarily the ones that resulted in food."
So every time I felt hopeless, I got some cheese-its and went off in search of a new study method. Here is the list, once I had my arms around it:
King Schools ground was my starting point, and their question bank for the written test. It went okay I got an 85%, passed.
The FAR/AIM, obviously... but rather than reading it front to back mine was full of tabs where I'd get a practice question wrong, then look it up.
Youtube - especially checkride prep and "mock oral" videos. Watching someone else stumble through answers was good for me,
Reddit - has some great threads of people posting about reasons they failed their checkride, or threads like "my checkride is today try to stump me"
Quizlet - people have already made tons of flashcards for this and quizlet is an app you can open in line for coffee. win!
Spotify has an instrument checkride audiobook, believe it or not. I went looking for podcasts but didn't find a ton.
The Red Book - aka the oral prep guide. It is also so boring, but... tabs. The oral exam is "open book" but knowing where to look is half the battle, so when I read something and thought "I won't remember that" I made a tab for it.
Made myself a notecard - remember teachers who'd say you could bring one card or sheet of notes? Just making the notes helped me so much, I made a few 1-sheets just for fun.
That Pilot Cafe pdf everybody passes around
Plan a weird flight - before my check ride the examiner asked me to plan a flight between two ridiculous mountain airports on a day with temps 20 degrees c over standard. I learned a lot from just planning it! And telling him it wasn't good for us in a little airplane. but I realized that's something I could have done a month ago, just for practice and run into symbols on charts I'd never seen before.
POH/STC supplements - thou shalt know your airplane, even more before a checkride.
I also filled notebooks with NOTES because writing helps me. I made nice pages, I made messy pages. I had a page of my top 6 questions where I would have SNAPPY answers because they came up on every mock oral video...
When is an instrument rating required
What is required for instrument currency
What is our required equipment
When is an alternate airport required
What are standard takeoff minimums
What are required reporting points en route
I made a page for "weird magnetic compass stuff" to remember when we had to Undershoot North Overshoot South (until I fly to Australia) and another one for Top 10 ACS Fun Facts to remember the standards I'd be held to in the checkride (altitude +/- 100 feet!)
And in the end I STILL did not know everything and was still not perfect, but I "Consistently Met The Standards" and was awarded with a temporary certificate, and then weeks later a new plastic pilots license. It is STRIKINGLY similar to the old one, except if you know where to look, and have very good eyes for small print, right next to the words "airplane single engine land" it says "instrument airplane".
The flying takes a lot of practice - focus on vertical and navigational guidance regardless of what instruments are failed and stay on those damn lines - but I swear for every hour I spent flying I spent 10 (20? 100?) hours memorizing regulations, definitions, and standards. I've told prospective pilots that I now support the idea of ground school/written test before you even start flying, because that part is not much money but tells you if you have hope. In other words: If you can memorize the visibility minimums of class G airspace at night without hating airplanes, a pilot's life is for you!
My internet friend cheesepilot said a brilliant thing that made me feel better about struggling: "Our brains didn't evolve to memorize facts. Our brains evolved to remember experiences... primarily the ones that resulted in food."
So every time I felt hopeless, I got some cheese-its and went off in search of a new study method. Here is the list, once I had my arms around it:
King Schools ground was my starting point, and their question bank for the written test. It went okay I got an 85%, passed.
The FAR/AIM, obviously... but rather than reading it front to back mine was full of tabs where I'd get a practice question wrong, then look it up.
Youtube - especially checkride prep and "mock oral" videos. Watching someone else stumble through answers was good for me,
Reddit - has some great threads of people posting about reasons they failed their checkride, or threads like "my checkride is today try to stump me"
Quizlet - people have already made tons of flashcards for this and quizlet is an app you can open in line for coffee. win!
Spotify has an instrument checkride audiobook, believe it or not. I went looking for podcasts but didn't find a ton.
The Red Book - aka the oral prep guide. It is also so boring, but... tabs. The oral exam is "open book" but knowing where to look is half the battle, so when I read something and thought "I won't remember that" I made a tab for it.
Made myself a notecard - remember teachers who'd say you could bring one card or sheet of notes? Just making the notes helped me so much, I made a few 1-sheets just for fun.
That Pilot Cafe pdf everybody passes around
Plan a weird flight - before my check ride the examiner asked me to plan a flight between two ridiculous mountain airports on a day with temps 20 degrees c over standard. I learned a lot from just planning it! And telling him it wasn't good for us in a little airplane. but I realized that's something I could have done a month ago, just for practice and run into symbols on charts I'd never seen before.
POH/STC supplements - thou shalt know your airplane, even more before a checkride.
I also filled notebooks with NOTES because writing helps me. I made nice pages, I made messy pages. I had a page of my top 6 questions where I would have SNAPPY answers because they came up on every mock oral video...
When is an instrument rating required
What is required for instrument currency
What is our required equipment
When is an alternate airport required
What are standard takeoff minimums
What are required reporting points en route
I made a page for "weird magnetic compass stuff" to remember when we had to Undershoot North Overshoot South (until I fly to Australia) and another one for Top 10 ACS Fun Facts to remember the standards I'd be held to in the checkride (altitude +/- 100 feet!)
And in the end I STILL did not know everything and was still not perfect, but I "Consistently Met The Standards" and was awarded with a temporary certificate, and then weeks later a new plastic pilots license. It is STRIKINGLY similar to the old one, except if you know where to look, and have very good eyes for small print, right next to the words "airplane single engine land" it says "instrument airplane".
no subject
Date: 2025-01-20 11:55 pm (UTC)Wow! That's amazing! I know of many people with their pilot's license, but most can only fly in airplanes.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-24 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-21 12:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-21 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-21 10:25 pm (UTC)that's funny... my ppl was 14 years ago! this place really does go way back glad we both made it over to dreamwidth!
no subject
Date: 2025-01-21 08:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-21 03:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-24 03:51 am (UTC)Also. In other words: If you can memorize the visibility minimums of class G airspace at night without hating airplanes, a pilot's life is for you!
lol