As the saying goes "far better to keep your mouth shut and let them think you are a fool rather than open it and let them know for sure". I think the worse thing is hearing pilots trying to explain away errors when all they do is to dig a deeper hole for themselves!
Yes, I agree.
A related danger in "commenting on things like ground features I have noticed while reading from chart" is that it could be misinterpreted as uncertainty, or an implied request for confirmation from the examiner ... a rather weak impression to convey.
When I was doing pilotage in the navy, the drill was to constantly pass information to the captain. We were told that we should regard the latter as a radio: as long as we kept up the information flow, he would remain on 'receive', but if we fell silent he might switch to 'transmit' and start bombarding one with distracting and potentially difficult questions. But that was a different scenario, in that a navigation officer does not bear ultimate responsibility for the safety of the vessel. It would be a mistake to treat the examiner as the effective captain of the aircraft: the examinee is nominally the PIC, and is expected to act like one.
Like Saab. I too mucked up my PFL on the first go, but nailed it 2nd time.
Me too; and I was a reasonably experienced glider pilot at the time.
PFLs are the most common item failed on PPL and CPL flight tests, but that wasn't much comfort at the time.
