CPL Exam in VFR
 

Hello, this one for the examiners. Does the CPL Exam have to be carried out in VFR if not IMC or IFR rated and what are the procedures to follow if during an exam the conditions deteriorate below VFR (say outside controlled airspace and VIS is less than 5km below FL100). Does the student retake the exam or is it at the examiners discretion. Also, can you use the VOR in the exam to work out where you are or where you are going, heard that you could and all it means is that if you use it that you can be tested on it.

I am not an examiner but I am sure that the CPL is a VFR licence only (apart from the night privileges) and that the Skills Test MUST be taken in VFR conditions. It is up to the examinee to assess the weather as part of the flight planning process and make a pre-flight go/no go decision which, if completely bonkers, i.e. less than VFR conditions, could result in a fail! This would also apply to any decision to continue a flight into less than VFR conditions, the only exemption being a SVFR clearance through a CTR, if your examiner routed you via a CTR on the Nav section, provided that the SVFR minima were also rigidly applied.

I held an IMCR before the CPL Skills Test and was told in no uncertain terms that I was NOT permitted to exercise IMCR privileges during the test.

The first phase of the Nav section is Mark 1 eyeball nav only. You can set up the Radio Nav kit for the diversion during the Nav section but you can't use it before then.

You will be tested on Radio Nav aid tracking and position fixing. Keep it as simple as possible.

Not an examiner, but a CPL instructor, so I hope my answers help. However, I should point out that the best person to speak to about these questions will be your CPL instructor, and if your CPL instructor says anything which contradicts what I write here, then take his word, not mine (or at least ask for further clarification from him).Yes, the exam is to be carried out VFR (or very unusually SVFR) whatever qualifications you hold.Forget the subject of exams for a minute. What would you do for any VFR flight at any point in your flying career?

First of all, you should make a sensible weather decision based on all the information available on the day. Hopefully, that will prevent you from encountering weather which is not VMC. However, we all know that forecasters get it wrong from time to time, and if you encounter deteriorating weather, you should take whatever action is appropriate before it becomes IMC, e.g. by making a diversion, or returning to your home airfield.

What the examiner is looking for on the test is that you make exactly the same decisions as you would for any other flight. He wants to know that you will operate the aircraft safely when he is not sitting there, so you should not do anything different to what you would do on any other VFR flight. Make a weather decision based on the forecasts and actuals available. If you encounter deteriorating weather, turn back or divert before it becomes IMC.I'm assuming that you're talking about what happens if you choose to return to the field due to deteriorating weather (not what happens if you don't return and you subsequently encounter IMC)? In which case, unless the examiner has already seen enough to be able to assess you on each of the required elements of the test, your test will be "incomplete", and you will have to fly again (no further test fee) to demonstrate those items which could not be assessed on the first flight.

(On the other hand, if you don't turn back, and you do encounter IMC, you have probably failed the en-route section of the test.)For the planned navigation leg, you can not use navaids. For the unplanned navigation, you can, and should, use whatever aids are available (with certain exceptions which would make life too easy, e.g. you can not track directly to or from a navaid, nor can you use the moving map of a GPS), and will be tested on how you use them. You must, during the test, demonstrate a position fix using navaids, and also tracking to or from a navaid which will be nominated by the examiner (either a VOR or an NDB).

FFF
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http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/SRG_FCL_03_A.PDF

The CPL Skill Test is a simulated public transport flight. You will be expected to operate in accordance with the procedures laid down in your company Operations Manual.

Your FTO will teach you how to do this.

Good Advice
 

Sage advice from flyingforfun.

I did my CPL recently (having amassed quite a few hours before taking the test) and you should plan the flight etc as you would NORMALLY do it. The examiner (who also instructed me in the CPL) explained that he was to act as a passenger and was to be treated as such. Therefore I checked the weather, area forecast etc and it was to be marginal at our destination. I advised him before the flight that we may have to divert or return to the field if weather conditions deteriorated. He agreed and off we went. I was quite prepared to come back or divert (as you always should be) in the event of weather. I can tell you that (as we talked after the flight test), had I continued into imc or near IMC to complete the flight, I would have failed. The main goal of the test is the safe and satisfactory conduct of the flight, the examiner wants to know that, should a real passenger come to you and ask to be taken point X, this will happen safely, and this includes avoiding IMC and diverting.
I treated my examiner like a passenger so much, I even handed him a map and asked that he help with the navigation. He simply stared back at me stoney faced, but did smile a little. ;-)

Dont try to pass, make saftey your priority and the rest will take care of itself.
:)

Flying for fun, I am curious. Where did you get the part about not tracking directly to a navaid from?
1) what if the Navaid is at your destination?
2) If you are position fixing, tracking along one radial whilst you check the cross cut is the most efficient way of doing so as that line is then fixed.

PB:ok:

PB, that's just what I'm teaching my students.

If possible, select and track one radial, not into CAS, D/R/P areas or towards high ground; use the second VOR/NDB for a cross cut, just ahead of your present position to give you time to settle down and 'mark' the map

Pilotbear,

Whopity has posted the link to the Notes To Candidates document. Paragraph 3.6.7 states:I agree with your points in "real life", but in real life it's quite possible (and likely, in fact) that there will be no navaid at the destination, thus denying the "most efficient way" of doing things. On test the examiners want to simulate the more difficult scenario, so if there happens to be a navaid at the destination, or almost directly en route, the examiner will deny you the use of it.

FFF
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Use of Naviads
 

During my test, after we had completed 10/15 mins of IF under the hood, (climbing decending turns etc), I was well and truly lost. I tuned the nav rad to a VOR well used in the area and was able to work out my position using DME and track. I was then given my diversion destination, to which of course there was no navaids. I certainly used a navaid to verify my position, this seemed quite acceptable. But there were no aids even close to my destinations in the test.