PPL Skills Test - Any Tips?

[G-F0RC3]

I'm about to do the above and I wanted to ask here to see if I can get any tips? I think I've just about got everything covered. Anyone know of any common pitfalls?

Thanks for any advice. :)

[bingofuel]

Relax, take your time, and when you make a mistake, sort it out, and move on, do not dwell on it. Fly safe.

The examiner is not expecting perfection, he just wants to see a solid safe performance doing what you have been trained to do.

Your instructor would not put you forward for test unless you were ready, and above all else, enjoy it!

[lenhamlad]

Having undertaken my skills test back in June I don't think the examiner is there to catch you out. My advice would be to verbalise everything ie when he asks you to demonstrate a clean stall, talk him through your pre-manouevre checks, then say "throttle closed, stick back, speed reducing etc etc". That way he knows you have a routine to follow. And as bingofuel said, enjoy it. Le tus know how it goes.

[trident3A]

Get a good night's sleep!

[ronniehuang]

I'm not at the stage of a flying skills test yet, but from previous skills tests in other forms of transport(cars, boats, trucks and motorcycles) the important thing to remember is that you've done it dozens of times before and you know how to do it. Think what you have to do and not what not to do and remember the guy next to you is not trying to fail you but simply there to check if you're safe enough to operate the machine.

If it makes you feel any better, I ignored my own advice and the outcome was less than positive. I have two stories, first one was when I did my motorcycle test and second is more recent and related to flying. This was almost 15 years ago, I was going for my first of... well I rather not say how many attempts I had but it was quite a few, attempts at my motorcycle license. I had about 40 hours of riding by then both with instructors and my dad. I was doing everything pretty much perfectly. Brilliant slow smooth figure 8s, strong confident emergency braking and good road sense. I decided to go for my test at that point. I failed miserably. I locked my brakes on the emergency braking test, I dropped my bike doing a figure 8 and I nearly ran a stop sign. I eventually worked out this was due to my preoccupation of what might go wrong rather than thinking what I should do. I fixed my mind set and I had no issue with my other skills tests. Fast forwarding 15 years, I'm now doing my PPL. At some point, I had done 5 very good landings without really any input from the instructor. After the last good landing he turn to me and said, "That last one was all you, do that again I might have you soloing this afternoon" The very next landing ended up a bit of a pancake. I was so preoccupied with what I shouldn't do that I completely shutoff all common sense and did all sorts of weird things like forgetting to put down flap and rounding out too early. I completely forgot my own advice and the result was a very ugly landing.

Anyway hope the weather is favorable for your test and you don't need luck because you know with your skills you make your own luck.

[fwjc]

Best advice I've ever had was from someone just before I took off, and it was "Don't eff up"

I've since found out that an EasyJet friend writes DFU this at the top of a pre-landing brief in respect to the same phrase, and another friend recites it as a mantra in more challenging conditions.

It's worked for me every time. I think it has to do with reducing all of the million things that people get stressed over to simply "messing up", and that's only one thing to worry about...

Don't forget you won't be put forward for the test if your instructor didn't think you were ready, so you can do everything on the test perfectly fine. In order to fail you have to give the examiner good reason to fail you.

Good luck!

[G-F0RC3]

Thanks for all the advice guys, I appreciate it.

I hope the weather will be good enough this coming weekend.

I'm pretty confident and a little nervous. This is by far the most technical thing I've done in my life so far.

I'll let you know how I get on. :ok:

[Whopity]

I take it you have read and digested CAA Standards Document 19 (http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/Standards%20Documents_srg_fcl_19_A%20v6_.pdf) which provides all of the guidance?

[JAJW]

Good luck with it. I did mine last week and passed. I was so concerned with everything being perfect and found myself ultra focussed. Just be friendly with the examiner, he's there to pass you, not fail you.

You'll be fine.

JAJW

[flyinkiwi]

You are not required nor expected to be perfect. In fact, the examiner wants to see you make mistakes so they can see how you deal with them. So if you screw something up, correct it as soon as you notice it, tell the examiner you weren't happy with your performance in that maneuver and ask them if they'd like to see you do it again. I had issues with my power and flap stall and compass turns so I did several until I was happy and the examiner didn't mind at all. Having said that, there may be several critical areas where you may not make mistakes and pass the checkride, so ensure you know what they are and you are confident you can nail them first time every time.

Good Luck!

[localflighteast]

No tips from me but wanted to say good luck!

When my husband did his , I think confidence was the key. Make a decision and be able to justify it.
Sometimes they are looking for the thought processes not necessarily the end answer.

Be safe and best wishes !

[24Carrot]

You may be nervous before the test, but do try and listen to the examiner's pre-flight brief!

My brief included useful info about his attitude to navigation techniques, (fortunately pretty close to mine), but not strictly as I had been taught.

There was also an anecdote about a previous examinee who had failed trying to bust Solent airspace, despite the examiner asking her twice "where are we now, then?".

Needless to say, during my "unplanned diversion", when he said "where are we now, then?", I took it very seriously. Fortunately, I had spotted the Danger Area, and telling him how I would avoid it cleared the air. In retrospect, a running commentary from me would have been better still.

I think they really do want to pass you if they can.

[Sensible Flyer]

As other have said, they are looking for reasons to pass rather than fail. My examiner said afterwards that his criteria was "Would I be happy letting my kids fly with this person?".
I TOTALLY effed up my navigation at one point, became totally flustered and annoyed as nav had never been a problem before (I assumed that a feature I could see was our turning point, even though we were nearly 10 minutes early, and became very confused when the rest of the world didn't fit the chart on my lap). Convinced I had failed, I decided just to enjoy the rest of the flight.
The rest of it went fine, general handling and circuits no problem, but I wouldn't have passed me based on the earlier mistake. So as we were taxying in I was rendered speechless when he said "Yeah, I'm happy to pass you on that".
Apparently the very thorough pre-flight with me talking him through what I was looking for also gave him confidence before we'd even got in the aircraft.

So my advice would be to just enjoy it, no matter what may go wrong. It's probably not as bad as you think, and if you weren't capable, you wouldn't be doing the test in the first place.

[riverrock83]

My examiner said that one of the biggest problems people had was finding the first waypoint to start the nav from - as he normally asked for a route in a different direction than most of the training is in. So his hint was to make sure you had a route planned to that first waypoint...

Relax - fly like you've done every other time and you should be fine. Thats what I'll be telling myself in a month's time hopefully!

[Another_CFI]

As an examiner my advice would be to fly each small segment of the test to the best of your ability and forget what went before. You can't correct what has happened so make sure that the next bit is as good as you can make it.

No examiner expects perfection - If we did there would be no pilots!

Remember - With a ground exam you start with a failure and have to accumulate enough correct answers to justify a pass - With a flight test you start with a pass and have to accumulate enough errors to justify a failure.

Good luck.

[ianwild]

When flying the nav and diversion keep a good eye on where you actually are and update your ETA based on progress at the quarter and half way points, even if the time hasn't changed. Don't just fly the heading for the time and hope. The guy who failed his PPL skills test shortly before I passed mine did just that and although he eventually found his final destination, he was 13 minutes later than his ETA.

Learn from as many other experiences as you can (ie do what you've done and ask here. There's many other threads on the same line, as well as blogs etc).

Finally enjoy it - it's just another flight and by half way through mine it felt as much like a lesson as it did a test.

Ian

[BAe 146-100]

The navigation can be tricky - dependant on which airfield you fly from, however the rest of the flight is a breeze aslong as your flying is up to a good standard (which it should be before a skills test) - my advice is don't worry about it, you'll be thinking after it what all the stress was for. ;)

[500 above]

Remember... Examiners are human too!

[John Farley]

I don’t know why but before I was even sent solo I always talked out loud about what I was thinking about or trying to do. Later I kept the habit up whenever I flew with any sort of examiner until I got too old to fly.

My point is that if one does that but makes a mess of the flying then at least the examiner knows that YOU appreciate what you should do even if you are having trouble actually doing it.

“I’m a bit close and high here but I am not going to go around because we have so much runway available so I can touch well in”

“I’m trying to get back to 60kts but don’t want to risk getting slow in these gusts”

Or whatever.

The test of which I was most proud was some 15 years ago and was to become a TRE on a particular type. I was asked to treat the examiner as if I was actually converting him to the type. So I gave the standard full brief for the type and then said “But before we go and fly there are three good gotchas in this aircraft that you will not find mentioned in the book.” I then went through them and the examiner said “Thank you. There is no need for us to fly”. Just an extreme example perhaps of my point that it is good to make sure the examiner knows what is going on in your head.

[Jude098]

Good luck. As everyone else said enjoy it.......don't dwell on anything you have or think you've done wrong........and watch out for another engine failure on climb out from PFL.
Jude

[G-F0RC3]

Thanks all!

I passed, comfortably it would seem. I was within 30 seconds of my ETAs on the Nav. The general handling was also fine and I was surprised at how relaxed I felt - considering it was an exam.

:)

[G-F0RC3]

The hardest part of all now - to persuade some of my family that I am safe to fly them somewhere nice. :E

[localflighteast]

Congratulations !!!
I think maybe you'll be pleasantly surprised by how many people are willing to fly with you

Rightly so there is the expectation. That if you've got your ppl you must be reasonably safe and competent

Just don't let those same people push you into doing stuff you're not comfortable with !

[thing]

Well done that man, welcome to the world of the terminally poor.

[Pilot.Lyons]

I agree with thing!

Well done.... A great achievement

[Jude098]

Well done and welcome to the best club in the world