CPL skills test

[TolTol]

Hi guys. I am due to take my CPL skills test shortly and I am just looking for any advice people would be willing to contribute. Or even any past experiences of the test which may be of help.

Thanks in advance.:ok:

[bfato]

Possibly the best thread ever:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?threadid=108385

Even includes posts from the examiner and the instructor.

[TheOddOne]

I failed my first test for a very stupid reason (in retrospect)

I'd completed the flight plan, checked the aircraft, gave the examiner the safety briefing, all those good things as briefed by my instructor. HOWEVER, as we were lining up and I'd just done the mental arithmetic against the question about 'what's our crosswind component?' I suddenly realised that I'd forgotten to sign the tech log. I then spent the takeoff and climbout convinced that he was going to say at any second 'you've failed because the flight's illegal 'cos you haven't signed for the aircraft'. That really ruined my concentration and after the first segment I just gave up, really, and asked for the test to be terminated. Of course the examiner hadn't even noticed I hadn't signed the tech log and I could have carried on with the test.

The lesson is, stick to what you've been taught, your instructor wants you to pass. If you miss something, leave it behind you, wipe it from your mind and get on with the next thing. Pass, partial of fail, you'll get a very valuable de-brief at the end of it all.

My second go couldn't have been more different. Not only did I pass, but I had a thoroughly enjoyable flight that though it was 17 years ago, I still remember well.

Good Luck!

Cheers,
The Odd One

[no sponsor]

I told mine that I had passed the IR. We had a general discussion on the long taxi that the CPL test was unnecessary. (This all caught me by suprise too).

We took off, flew 20 miles, did a diversion, did a stall or two, shut down an engine, restarted it and flew back for some circuits and that was that.

All very relaxing.

Just keep your cool.

(I had in fact passed the IR).

[buster172]

Hi,
I went in marginal conditions, vis and cloud ok but higher winds than I was used to and above ‘my’ agreed test minima.
I had been waiting two months to get to this bloody point and I thought I would go for it. First bit went very well but I messed up the diversion. Not strictly the winds fault, I wasn’t good enough on the day, but it did make it a lot harder. The rest of the test went very well with a great debrief, the subsequent resit was a non event but it did cost!
That’s another point, if you mess something up, despite it feeling like the worst moment of my life I dug deep and thought I’m going to show him I know what I’m doing. Just keep going. He seemed genuinely saddened to have to fail me on that section, so they can be human to! :)
So, don’t feel pressure to go unless you’re quite happy with everything, try and relax and remember, the examiner is there to pass you, I also learnt a lot from the flight and debrief and I would like to think I am a better, if not slightly poorer pilot for it.
Good luck
Buster

[Elixir]

As buster says, if you make a mistake just keep going! It may not be a fail but if you dwell on it the rest of the test will go to pot.

Also I dont know about you but when I'm under stressful situations (CPL, IR etc) my mental arithmetic slows down. I found it really useful to have some pre-calculated times for my diversion based on the day's winds e.g. 10nm will take me x mins etc. So I could provide an ETA quickly and concentrate properly on the diversion.

Oh and dont do it in a 40 degree heat in a plane with no air con.....:\

[november.sierra]

Just a general question, is it a requirement to have undergone a conversion from single to complex aircraft or is the conversion time included in the 25 hours dual instruction time?

[High Wing Drifter]

My examiner (and I guess I speak for all of them) really wanted me to pass. I also think this is really one of those situations where no test related question is a stupid question, just don't ask any aircraft related ones!

If stuff goes wrong in-flight like the crosswind goes out of limits or stuff like the gear fails to extend then remember your are still being tested (both and more happend to me, The examiner got the gear working and it was a good experience). My examiner was happy to let me land out of 'limits' but if I hadn't announced that we were out of limits then I think it would have been a problem.

Inspite of some rather splendid flying and navigation (if I may say so myself) during my rather fraught test experience I partialed on one stupid error - not getting the gear down in time during the EFATO. I suspect the fact that for some reason EFATO was the only procedure that I didn't mentally run through that morning was a contributory factor.

So after four weeks of waiting for weather and examiner to converge I had to do three flights over two weeks: one incomplete test, one flight to complete and then redo the failed section. Frankly I would be suprised if I experience anything as fraught as this in a test environment ever again :O

Lesson learnt.

[no sponsor]

Don't think a UC/ or VP endorsement would make a difference to the CPL training course (I don't think they are a requirement to sit the test either), since you could just build it into the circuit work and GH parts.

But, many courses do the CPL in an Arrow, or other complex single, so it's best to get some complex time, since you don't want to forget to put the gear down on finals - I guess that would be a fail.

[TolTol]

Thanks guys, these are the events I wanted to hear about:uhoh: