Hardest Checkride?

[flyguy]

This may be kind of a vague question, but what would you say is the hardest checkride?

[Josh]

Instrument. Or CFI. It's a toss up.

[RiddlePilot]

Hardest? Probably multiengine instrument. I've yet to take the CFI ride, so my answer may change.

[Alchemy]

The hardest oral was my initial commercial.

The most challenging flight portion was the initial instrument.

The inital CFI wasn't all that tough once you cut through all the politics of the FSDO and get the paperwork done.

[gomntwins]

I'm gonna say CFI

[JDE]

In my opinion, checkrides aren't really "hard", I think it all depends on how much effort you put forth when studying and actually trying to learn the material. On my MEI checkride, I didn't know the performance charts well enough, so it didn't go like I wanted it too. When I went back, knowing the charts like I needed to, it was a piece of cake. Also, I've been lucky with the examiners I've had. I've had the same guy for every checkride except for my flight instructor certificates. I've heard a lot of horror stories about examiners at different FSDO's. I think who you have for an examiner also somewhat determines whether or not the checkride is "hard" or not.

Now for the question asked: CFI - only because there is so much knowledge that the applicant needs to know.

[cime_sp]

The one that you don't prepare yourself well enough for!!!

[E_Dawg]

Instrument was hardest so far; I knew the stuff pretty well it was just a difficult ride!

[viper548]

CFI was by far the hardest

[mtsu_av8er]

Instrument was the toughest, I think.

[Buzo]

My toughest was the Instrument. Here is my order from Easiest to Hardest.

Commercial ASEL
ATP
CFII
MEI
CFI
B1900
CRJ
Commercial AMEL
Private
Instrument

[MrCole]

I passed my Instrument last Friday with 2.5 hours on the Hobbs. It was certainly an exhausting ride.

Dave

[mtsu_av8er]

[ QUOTE ]
I passed my Instrument last Friday with 2.5 hours on the Hobbs. It was certainly an exhausting ride.

Dave

[/ QUOTE ]

Jesus, was (s)he trying to kill you??

[Josh]

I'd clarify, that for me, instrument was only hard, if you want to use that term, because there are lots of steps in the procedures you use to fly. Not hard, but the most to do. The ride is really all about the next 2 things you are going to do. If you are comfortable being in the system, and thinking ahead, the ride isn't all that hard. I only listed it as hard, compared to my Private and Commercial rides, which seemed more natural, since they are general knowledge tests, with the basic flying skill you have thrown in.
CFI takes everything you know, makes it possible to be in the test, then asks you to teach that topic, at whatever level the examiner asks for. And do that while you are flying. Can be done, just a little more patting your head, rubbing your tummy, chewing gum, and walking down the street at the same time compare to IFR flying for me. And to top it off, you get to see how it feels to drive on the other side of the pond, over in the UK, as you get to fly from the wrong side of the plane.

[USMCmech]

CFI, the only one I had to redo.

I could fly the manuvers just fine. I could teach the manuvers just fine. Doing both at once was really tough. In hindsite the things that I got busted for were BS, but I wasn't up to speed like I shoud have been.

Ask a DPE to talk you through what they look for and what rules they have to follow. This really takes the mystery out of the check ride.

Did you know that if the examiner decides to fail you, he has to tell you imeadiatly. You can chose to continue, or try again later, but he can't wait until you get back to tell you if you passed.

If you're walking back to the hanger and he hasn't said anything, then you passed.

[roundout]

i'm gonna have to go with the CFIA checkride. easily the hardest ride i've ever taken. in fact, it's the only checkride i've ever busted (happened this afternoon). had to happen sooner or later, i guess. we'll see if my tune changes if/when i actually pass the thing

[stuckingfk]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm gonna have to go with the CFIA checkride. easily the hardest ride i've ever taken. in fact, it's the only checkride i've ever busted (happened this afternoon). had to happen sooner or later, i guess. we'll see if my tune changes if/when i actually pass the thing

[/ QUOTE ]

Who did you take it with? Sorry to hear about busting it, but I heard a lot of people do at UND.

[USMCmech]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm gonna have to go with the CFIA checkride. easily the hardest ride i've ever taken. in fact, it's the only checkride i've ever busted (happened this afternoon). had to happen sooner or later, i guess. we'll see if my tune changes if/when i actually pass the thing

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't get too bummed about it. I busted mine too. The standard for CFI is much higher than any of the others. It's not a "liscense to learn" anymore. Just go over what you have to repeat and you'll be fine.

I'm told that several yaers ago the FSDO people were the only guys who could give CFI check rides. Durring this time almost everybody had to retake it at least once.

[roundout]

[ QUOTE ]

Who did you take it with? Sorry to hear about busting it, but I heard a lot of people do at UND.

[/ QUOTE ]

heh, chris mcmillan. his rep is for being pretty easy on the 37. i dunno what happened. kyle tucker gave me his theory but i don't want to get into that mess and piss off anyone who might be lurking on these boards until i pass the thing. i got re-assigned to rob clausen because he can do the stage before mcmillan can again. clausen is cool, i took my 104 with him. fair, no tricks, intelligent, and just a nice guy. so we'll see what happens this time.

btw, i think 90% of people bust the CFIA the first time they take it. it might be even higher. it's some number around 90% (so much for me being above average )

[MrCole]

MTSU,

Actually, I think he was. He's known to be a tough, but fair examiner. And because I was so anxious the morning of the checkride I didn't have much of an appetite, but I was starving about half way through. It took all the mental energy I could muster to stay on top of everything.

Dave

[mtsu_av8er]

I don't know if I could stand a 2.5 hour flight test!!!!

[MrCole]

I'll paste the summary below:

Well, after one year, two instructors, 9 hours actual, and nearly 70 hours of training I passed the instrument checkride. It was originally scheduled for Tuesday, but if you read my other post you know that it was IMC followed by t'storms, so we did the oral. I didn't realize how well it went until yesterday when I decided to fly one last practice session before the big day. My instructor and a few other people that worked at the school told me that the DE, who is also the manager of the flight school and FBO, said something along the lines that I was one of the best prepared applicants he had ever seen. That was great to hear and I hoped it would have a halo effect today.

I made it to the airport around 12:15 and the DE arrived at 1:00, which was the scheduled time. After preflight we got underway after he gave me my clearance and I picked up the ATIS. As it was mid-day, it was fairly bumpy as I tracked to the Sparta VOR. But I was diligent with my heading and altitudes. We departed Sparta on the 022 radial and I contacted New York Departure to request two ILS 27 approaches at Stewart International (SWF). We received vectors and I briefed the approach. Other than receiving a bad vector the approach went fine, and at Decision Height I flew the missed as published to the Kingston VOR.

The entry was a parallel entry and I quickly established myself on the outbound course, flew out for a minute, then intercepted the inbound course. My instructor was up with another student in the same area and since I could hear him I knew he was following what I was doing. Back on the ground he admitted he was a little concerned when he heard us request the second ILS. After one trip in the hold the DE covered the AI and DG for a partial panel LOC approach. I placed the LOC frequency in the #2 radio as not to be distracted by the glideslope, and placed Kingston VOR in the #1 to ID the final approach fix, POPOW. Well, we received another bad vector and I also forgot that the LOC was in #2 so I flew through it, but soon realized the error of my ways and corrected. But between the bad vector to intercept the localizer and diverting attention somewhere else, I missed the final approach fix. So, four miles from the threshold I'm still at 2500 feet MSL. Although I'm not proud of it I had to make a dive and drive. Fortunately Stewart has a 10,000' runway, but my landing was as crappy as they come. I knew I was going to be busted, but I was prepared to go missed if necessary if I couldn't make the field.

After the touch and go and not hearing I had failed, we climbed out and did a few timed turns, followed by steep turns. I had done steep turns the previous day and was able to nail them with nearly zero altitude fluctuation. In fact they were my best steep turns to date, including private. Then we did unusual attitudes. I heard this DE was aggressive on unusual attitudes but his nose-up unusual attitudes ended with the plane veeeery close to stall. I'm usually pretty good with unusual attitudes, but on the first one I ended up pushing over too much, pulled a few negative G's and put us into a dive, from which I quickly recovered. He had me perform another nose high unusual attitude partial panel, and my recovery was far smoother the second time. We followed this by two nose low unusual attitudes, then flew direct to Sparta to fly the VOR 6 approach at Greenwood Lake. At Sparta I entered the hold/procedure turn and flew the approach with no problem. We descended to MDA and because Rwy 6 was in use and he wanted to see a circling approach, he had me overfly the field for a circling approach back to Rwy 6.

Once established on the downwind and descended to pattern altitude, he gave me a heading and an altitude to fly back to Caldwell. We flew back to Caldwell partial panel with the DE giving me vectors and descent instructions to simulate a no-gyro approach. He had me take the hood off on final and 130' AGL and again I made another crappy landing. I think this one was due to the relief of not hearing that I had failed up to that point. Overall, 2.4 hours on the Hobbs. I am totally beat, but it was certainly a fair checkride. As he prepared my temporary certificate he told me that based on Tuesday's and today's performance he had no doubt that I should receive an instrument rating, and that I had performed well on all the required tasks.

Thanks to all that have read this far and those on this board that provided encouragement. And best of luck to others working on your ratings, instrument or otherwise.

Dave

[Tim]

I think mine so far as been the private. Being nervous along with trying to nail everything made it hard to me. Especially when asked to do a turning stall and I couldnt get the plane to stall like he wanted. The DE said let me try and he couldnt either so he said ok works for me next manuever. Trying to remember the DE is there to make sure you can handle the plane in a safe operation is tough..The are human like us but they dont seem like it at times.

My instrument was easy to me. My DE was an old crusty guy who was really cool and even offered a few tips along the way. Hint use them during his checkride and he likes that.

Some of you FSA guy may have flown with Bill Corcorean.

[MikeD]

4-ship flight leader check in the Hog. Ton of crap going on both inside and outside my plane that I had to attend to, not to mention running attack geometry with 4 planes and correcting not only my own errors, but the errors, both intentional and unintentional, of 3 other guys.

[rhs]

Instrument.

Today.

Temperature: 91 degrees.

Humidity: 55%

I'm exhausted.