✈️ Zero Flights

Commercial Checkride Write-Up

15 min read

Attempt 1: Failed Power-Off 180

Oral

Note: This is reconstructed from my memory, which is … not particularly great lol. I might have missed a few questions here and there.

The Basics

We started by going through the big reason of why we’re here:

  • Commercial Pilot Privileges
    • You can now get compensated or hire
  • What do you need to be current to carry passengers?
    • Preceeding 90 days, 3 takeoffs and landings in the category, class and type (if required) of the aircraft. If tailwheel, night, that's another 3 to full stop.
  • What is common carriage?
    • Straight out of AC 120-12A: A holding out of willingness to transport person or property from place to place for compensation.
  • What is holding out mean?
    • Advertisements, social media posts but even a reputation can be counted as well
  • What’s Part 136, 137?
    • I pulled out FAR/AIM to make sure I get it right: Air Tour and Agriculture. He explained it's important to know this because you can operate in contrary to Part 91 in some scenarios and the authority came from these parts, such as you would go lower than 500' for cropdusting.
  • What’s the minimal medical requirements for Commercial Pilot? (First or second)
    • What’s the validity of those?
    • First class: 12mo, over 40, 6 mo. Second class: 12mo both cases. I said I forgot about the third-class and was going to look it up. He stopped me and said it's fine we're talking about commercial pilot today.
  • Since I’m on BasicMed, what can I do with BasicMed with commercial pilot certificate
    • Basically nothing but if I get CFI/CFII, I can instruct with just BasicMed
  • What is aircraft category / class?
    • Can you name a few other categories and classes?
    • I blanked for a second here and search in FAR/AIM for a second. The phrase "aircraft category" made me think he is asking for the certification category / class. I stopped and realized he is probably just asking for "Airplane, Single Engine Land". Other categories are rotorcraft, glider, etc. Other classes are ASES, AMEL, AMES.
  • What do I need to bring with me to fly?
    • Pilot Certificate, Government-issued Photo ID and valid medical
  • What do I need to have in the aircraft?
    • Where does it needs to be at?
    • ARROW. It needs to be visible to passegners.
  • What’s the ceiling and visibility for IFR condition
    • 1000ft ceiling, 3 statue miles

Airworthiness and Maintenance

  • What inspection is required?
    • How often do we need it?
    • AV1ATE
  • What is an AD?
    • Is it mandatory to comply?
    • Who issues them?
    • Airworhtiness Directive. It is mandatory. I dug a hole for myself here and said manufacturer might issue them. He corrected me but dive into it more here:
      • What is the one issued by manufacturer would be called? A: Service Bulletin. It is not mandatory and FAA might look at it and decides that this is important and issues an AD.
  • If landing light is out, how do we know if it is okay to fly?
    • Do we have MEL? No. The POH is too old for KOEL so we fallback to 91.205. It is only reuqired for hire at night.
    • We need to in-op and placard it.
    • Why? 91.213
    • What do you do now that you’ve determined that it’s okay to fly?
      • Deactivate and/or placard INOP. He said he agrees with me but what would you do FIRST?
      • I said I might try to replace it which invites the question of what is allowed for a pilot to work on? A: Part 43 Appendix A.
      • He is still not liking the answer and asked what if it's a blown tire?
      • I said I'll probably find the mechanic. That's the answer he wants to hear. The point being don't just INOP it, make sure you try to fix it first!
  • You took your boss out and you found out the tachometer is broken when you preflight for your flight back. What now?
    • It is not allowed for Day VFR operation even so we can't fly it home. I'll applyt for a special flight permit but noted I probably cannot carry any passenger.
    • He asked who issues them? A: Local FSDO.
    • He asked how do you apply for one? I said I'll use the online portal.
    • He expaneded that the point he's trying to make is that it's not a an hour or two thingy, it'll probably take a day or two to acquire one.

Cross-country flight

We planned XC flight. I was not used to the terrain around here where you barely have anything big man-made thingy here if I go direct. I chose some lakes and road/lake intersection as the checkpoints.

  • Is it a go or no-go? Why?
    • No-go. The weather is currently low clouds at around 2500 ~ 3000 ft MSL and our icing level is right at 3000ft MSL. Our plane is not FIKI so filing IFR would not help. If we really have to go, potentially we can fly lower but that would be way too low to have any glide distance to any safe place. Therefore, no-go.
  • Show him the checkpoints
    • He asked how how would your checkpoints be different if it's in January or July? I explained that if it's in January where it's snowing, the lake and road would probably not be visible. I might choose the long way to go via the cities so we have more landmarks and airport to glide to. July would be the perfect weather and this should work.
  • Performance charts: Take-off / Landing distances
    • I answered we would take about 1200ft to take-off and shorter for landing. I offered to find out the exact number and he said it's okay.
    • Would you accept a short runway to land on? What is ADM?
      • `By short, he meant 1500ft runway. While possible, the safety margin is way too thin, so only in an emergency, otherwise I want to see 1.5x safety margin from the calculated number.)
  • Weight & Balance
    • If I showed up with more people, can we still make the flight?
      • He specifically moved CG to a forward position but outside of CG envelope position.
        • I said no because it is now outside of the CG envelope. We can try unload fuel to get it back in or we can try throwing some weights in the back to move it aft. We can also just unload person or cargo as well as an option.
      • Do we go now?
        • He did not give me an exact weight number so I said: The bottom line is if the CG is not in the envelope, I'm not going. He is satisfied with the answer.
  • Weather
    • I showed him the ForeFlight briefing. He asked me if it is an approved source? What are other sources?
      • Yes. They're coming from aviationweather.gov just compiled into more accessible format therefore it is an approved source. You can also use the website itself, call a briefer on 1-800-WX-BRIEF or use Leido's website too.
    • What does a close temperature / dewpoint spread mean?
      • Low clouds, fog, percipitation
    • Asked me what section of the briefing should I read?
      • I thought he's fishing for NWKRAFT but he said no, so I started reading off the list I'm looking at in the brief. That's the answer he wants and he specifically want to call out make sure you read the NOTAMs too.
    • What is NOTAM? What does it say?
      • Notice to Airmen or Air Mission, depends on what do you like more. It tells you about everything that pilots needs to know on the airport, airspaces, instrument approaches.
    • What is AIRMET? SIGMET? Convective SIGMET? and PIREP?
      • AIRMET is Meteorological report for pilots and SIGMET is the significant version of those. Convective SIGMET is specifically for convective activities like thunderstorms, hail more than 3/4" strong ground winds >=50kts, etc. PIREP would be the pilot's repoting of the condition as they fly through it.
    • What are types of icing? Which one is more dangerous? Why?
      • Clear, Rime, Hybrid. Clear icing is heavier and harder to see and your deicing system might not be able to get it off.

VFR Sectionals

  • What is this and can you fly through it?
    • MOA: Military Operating Araa. You might see F-16 dogfighting in there but you can fly through it and pretend nothing happened there.
    • Prohibited: No
    • Restricted: Ask the controlling ATC facility for it. If it's cold they might clear you through it.
    • TFR (Temporary Flight Restriction): You can try to ask ATC but most likely no.
  • What’s this blue dashed circle?
    • `Class D airspace
    • What’s the VFR weather minimum?
      • 3-152
  • Point out two points on the map and ask if we’re flying 6500, can we go?
    • It's a bravo so you need clearance from ATC to do so.
    • What if they say no? A: We can climb above it, around it or file IFR (but they might reroute you anyway if you do file).
    • Climb it okay. How high do we need to climb? A: Point out the top is at 10,000ft on the chart.
    • Say for the direction of flight. it's 10500ft and we think the separation is too small so we elect to go to the next level of 12500ft. What considerations we might need to start to think about?

Human Factor

  • Oxygen requirements (See the previous item for the lead-in question for this)
    • 12500ft - 14000ft: 30+ mins than flight crew need to use supplemental oxygen
    • 14000ft - 15000ft: Flight crew must use oxygen
    • 15000ft: All passengers must be provided oxygen
  • What’s hypoxia?
    • Body is not getting enough oxygen
    • What do you do if you suspect hypoxia?
      • Lower the altitude, and open vent / window to get more fresh air in.
      • Now what if we think it's too cold and turned heater on. How does the heater work and why do we feel a headache when we turned it on?
    • What does the cabin heat do?
      • It uses the air passing through a shroud encasing the exhuast pipe to provide heat into cabin.
    • What’s a downfall of using cabin heat?
      • If you have a crack on the exhaust, CO can get in.
    • What do you do?
      • Shut off cabin heat. Open window. LAND ASAP.
  • Explain what’s IMSAFE
    • Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, External Pressure
  • Alcohol Rules?
    • 8hrs bottle-to-throttle, 0.04% BAC and not under influence

Systems

  • Tell me about our engine.
    • Lycoming O-320, 160hp, 4-cylinder, 4-strokes, horizontally opposed, naturally aspirated, direct drive
  • What’s a pressurized aircraft? Big picture, how does it work?
    • It means the aircraft probably has a single sealed unit inside to keep the air pressure up. It works by putting in air faster than we allowed it to leak from the sealed compartment thus pressurizing the compartment.
  • Let’s say the fuel burn rate is 8.5gl/hr. How long can we fly in day VFR?
    • 48 / 8.5 - 0.5 = ~5.1hrs
    • 48gal - PA-28-151 usable fuel at full
    • 0.5hrs - Day VFR requires 30 mins fuel reserve

Flight

Briefing

  • Explained what will be happening: We’ll fly out to a couple XC checkpoint and do maneuvers. We’ll come back for landings. The last one will be the power-off 180.
  • I’ll be PIC. If I failed to act as PIC, that’s a fail. (Flying into danger so that he needs to take over.)
  • Positive flight control exchange

Actual Flight

  • Preflight
  • Loaded my flight plan into GPS
  • Took off
  • I pointed out my first waypoint on the ground and turn enroute to the second one and call out the ETA
    • Cloud is in front of us. I was about to call it out but he said let’s break it off here for maneuvers.
Maneuvers

Something I did not realized until I read the ACS later is, you do not need to perform every single commercial maneuver on the checkride. You only need to:

  1. Choose Steep Turns or Steep Spiral
  2. Choose Chandelle or Lazy Eight
  3. Eight on Pylons is always required

Here’s what happened on my checkride:

  • Started with steep turns
    • I turned to clear the area, made a traffic call on radio and call out my entry configuration.
    • Apparently some DPEs prefer this over steep spiral, reason being you don’t need to climb back up between steep spiral and emergency descent which you are REQUIRED to demonstarte.
  • Slow Flights (two level turns)
  • Power off stall
  • Power on stall
  • Accelerated Stall
  • Chandelle to left which is probably the easiest one
  • Asked me about what would I do if:
    • Lost Alternator: Turn off/on ALT (reset overvoltage relay). Still no ALT, shed load. CHECKLIST!
    • Engine Sputtering: Carb heat, Fuel Pump, Switch Tank, etc. CHECKLIST!!
    • Engine on Fire: Emergency Descent to put out fire, then ABC for forced landing. CHECKLIST!!!
  • Emergency descend for simulated engine fire
  • Demonstrate the ability to land on the specific field
    • Recover at 1000 AGL
  • Eight on Pylons
  • Navigate back to airport
  • Normal Landing
    • “Deer on the runway, go-around”
  • Soft-field landing / Short-field takeoff
  • Short-field landing / Short-field takeoff
    • Our engine, probably with the idle being too low, it literally quit on the rollout lol. I have never seen this before and my DPE was also surprised. Needless to say, we taxied back and do a longer run-up to verify the engine is still fine before taking off again.
  • Power-off 180
    • It was at this moment, I knew I fucked up. I extended downwind too far out and pulled flaps 10. We made the runway but not enough speed (60~70mph) to float to the 1000ft marker. I gave the final pull of flaps a try but it was not enough. Landed short.

Debrief

He thinks my oral is solid, nothing to debrief there. (We actually did it in just an hour so he commented on that being pretty fast.) Flying is good, nothing to pick on my procedures and all within tolerances (except the power-off 180 of course).

He wants me to have more finesse on the control (I pulled the accelerated stall hard) and go slower (taxi too fast) as commercial pilot, especially I’m going for CFI, what I’m doing will be copied by my students.

Retraining

A good thing being in an accelerated program is that you go out to re-train immediately and the retest is scheduled as soon as possible (next day 8AM, it could even be same day but the sun is setting pretty early now.)

I was scheduled with another instructor which I love his method of doing power-off 180. It keeps you much closer to the runway while also position the airplane in a good position to continuously monitor and determine if we can make the landing (thus we can add more drag).

The method (for a Piper Warrior PA-28-151):

  • Flaps 10 on downwind right after engine out
  • Start a 20 deg turn into the runway so we can see the runway better and gauge if we can make it
  • Use discretion:
    • Turn base
    • Flap 20, or even full Flaps
    • Turn Final (You should be ~400ft / 80 ~ 90 mph on final)
    • Use forward slip from base all the way to final if need to
  • Aim for 80mph at the number and stay in ground effect to the 1000ft marker
    • If your airspeed is closer to 90, really push it down during slipping and aim earlier than the runway so we would have space to bleed out the extra airspeed.

The Lesson Learned

Looking back from the failure, the lesson I’ve learned from it was that I was focused too much on the reference points on the ground. When we were practicing it from Runway 18, I internalized that I should turn before “the road”. However, the road after Runway 36 is way too far from the runway, causing me to misjudge the distance and landed shorrt.

I would say to people who are now learning this maneuver: FOCUS ON THE RUNWAY. This is also what the method is helping me to do, it keep the runway consistently in my view, never behind me and makes it easier to judge distance and height while giving me tools to adjust: early forward slip if I establish on downwind too high, aim earlier than the number if I’m too fast / high, to get to the known to work configuration: 80mph over number.

Try to find out what configuration works similarly for your airplane and work backward from there! (For example, if your DPE likes for you to land on the number, my experience is 53kts in a Piper Archer over runway threshold makes it pretty consistent for me to be able to hit the number.)

Attempt 2: Retest, PASSED!

We go back to the sky to re-test the power-off 180 the very next day 8AM. The DPE offered me to do a practice run first but I will need to declare my intention before the flight.

I thought about it and decided not to: the weather is exactly the same as yesterday and it would suck if I did the first one perfectly and fail on the second one, so I told him no, let’s just do it for real.

AND I NAILED IT! Right on the thousand foot marker! In the debrief, he told me he was a bit surprised that I declined the practice lap and I told him my reasoning, but anyway, Commercial Checkride PASSED! I’m now a commercial pilot. 🥳

Thanks for reading! I'm open to chat about flying! Find my contact info on about page.