Originally Posted by
admuffin
..... In training my instructor would take hold of the control column while I planned the diversion but in the skills test I had no such luxury. .....
You must be kidding me when you say that, up until the Skills Test, your instructor had control of the aircraft every time you did this in Training! Yes, in the early days but, very soon, my Studes were plotting and flying so, when it came to Test Day, it was all routine to them! To try to bring both together for the first time on your Skills Test is barking mad! If I were you I'd be chatting to the School about a substantal amount of free training as you were put forward for a Skills Test essentially with a training gap! Go to the CFI and ask for an explanation and ask what he plans to do about it!
As an aside, the suggestions above seem sensible - particularly those who have suggested switching between the two tasks rapidly and often so you get the plotting done but never let the plane head off on its own. But any self-respecting Instructor must ensure you can do the lot before even thinking of Test! Honestly, "that's a cracker" - and one you should not be paying for!
And just to add, you don't even need to fly the Diversion every time. Quite often, if I knew studes were strugglling a bit with this, en route back from somehere doing something else I'd just say "Blogs/Blogette, the weather ahead is rubbish/I'm not "for exercise" feeling too good, please plan a diversion to XYZ for me". Once plotted I'd check that it looked sensible and we'd continue en route to our initial destination. For formal Diversion training flights you'd fly it to the revised destination to prove it works but you can practice the "difficult" bit a lot more at the end of any flight so you'd just pay for the 0.1 or 0.2 doing the "fun bit" with charts, routes, MSAs etc while keeping the plane in check while heading home.
