list your toughest checkride questions

[fulcrum]

hello everybody please list your toughest checkride questions

from any checkride


and any trick questions you have been asked in the c-172 and the c-172 rg
thanks in advance
fulcrum

 

[chperplt]

You're a drop of oil in the reservoir.. talk me through your life cycle..

 

[fulcrum]

you have only one sectional chart plot a course from a point on the north side to a point on the south side or vice versa ?

how do you get an stc

you have just landed your first job as a pilot for a doctor flying his baron he just showed up drunk with his buddies for a flight to vegas
what do you do ?

 

[Cardinal]

What determines airworthiness?

 

[jordan]

THE TOUGHEST CHECKRIDE QUESTION!!!

So, when can we schedule another flight?

 

[Acestick]

Tough questions...

Here are some real doozies I've been asked since I started my training...



You apply Carb heat during the runup and the RPM increases...What does this indicate?

You lose hydraulic pressure and the gear pump is inop...What will the gear do? Is there any way to lower it?

You lower flaps and discover that the settings are split...What do you do?

When you cycle the prop during the runup, does the MP increase, decrease, or stay the same? Why?

Can you lean out an engine with a constant speed prop without an EGT or a fuel flow guage at altitude? If so, how?

You encounter icing at cruise...Do you climb or descend to avoid the ice buildup? Why one and not the other?

Describe what happens to the prop when oil pressure is lost...

The static port(s) are iced over and there is no alternate static source in the cockpit...Is there any way to supply static pressure to the altimeter? If so, how is it done?
Is there any other instrument that will give an approxamate indication of altitude?

While climbing out after takeoff, you pitch for Vy and notice the airspeed is continually increasing...What does this indicate?

Why do aft CG loadings increase fuel efficiency in comparison to forward CG loadings? How does this affect overall stability?

What is the difference between a loadmeter, ampmeter, and a voltmeter?

Why does the battery have a lower total voltage than the electrical system?

What are the three types of hydroplaning and when is each likely to occur?

You have an electrical malfunction and shut down the alternator...What effect, if any, will this have upon the magnetic compass?

You are in cruise when you realize you have runaway trim...How do you maintain aircraft control?

The throttle is stuck in the full open position...How do you land at the airport?

You are on final approach and you get rolled to a 80' degree bank from wake turbulence...How do you recover?

What is the difference between a slot and a slat?

What are the differences between leading edge flaps and trailing edge flaps?

What happens when the airframe itself is "failed"?

How many counterweights are there on the aircraft?

Is it possible to do a complete roll and keep the engine running? (No using the boost pump)

You find out your rudder is jammed full left in flight...What effect, if any, will this have on the position of the nose wheel when you finally land?



Right about here is where the examiner looks at you and says
"Are we having fun yet?"

 

[Simon Says]

CFI question........Why does an aircraft become unstable when you move the CG to the Aft position.

 

[avbug]

"How do you think you did?"

I'm seldom satisfied with my own performance, and weigh in easily as my own harshest critic. With few exceptions, examiners or check airmen have asked me how I thought I did. A shortcoming on my part is the inherent need to give an honest answer, and I seldom rate myself highly. How does one answer?

 

[tarp]

A brand new question:

You are flying along and you think you have spotted an alien or extraterestial spacecraft - what do you do?

Answer - believe it or not, there is a new paragraph in the 2002 version of the AIM covering that very subject. Look it up!

And I'm not spoofing you.

 

[tarp]

I didn't have my book handy - UFO reporting is in Section 7-6-4.

 

[Cornelius]

You go out to your Cessna and hop in and notice one of the wheel pants is cracked. Problem is your employer wants you to fly a package 200 miles away. Can you go? If you can, how are you going to prove you can go? Vice versa if you can't go.

 

[Smoking Man]

172 RG Question

The question was, "Why is VX on a short field (63KIAS) different than VX (67KIAS) just in a normal best angle climb"? (please excuse me if the speeds are not the correct number it has been years since I flew the 172 RG, but the speeds for a short field and a normal best angle climb are different). Gear position is the answer, the reason is that Cessna did some tests and in order to clear the 50ft obstacle the gear should be left extended and VX is 63 KIAS, too much drag in gear retraction!

Regards


Smoking Man

 

[Mike Reyna]

CFI question........Why does an aircraft become unstable when you move the CG to the Aft position.

Simon says... I love your avatar. That's pretty funny!


Mikie

 

[A Squared]

With all due respect, the effect of aft CG on aircraft stability and performance shouldn't be considered a difficult question, especially at the CFI level. It's just basic aerodynamics and stability.

regards

 

[Eric]

What is the highest number in the Kollsman window? Lowest? Can you fly if the PA is above or below these #'s?

 

[TurboS7]

That low grunt from a checkairman after the oral.

 

[Simon Says]

With all due respect A Squared I will bite. Why don't you explain why moving the CG Aft makes an aircraft unstable. At your level you should be able to easily explain this fact. Remember CFI's need to explain this in laymans terms so their students can understand.

Avbug or TurboS7 no helping!!!!

 

[Saabslime]

You've been flying along at FL 190 for a couple of hours and you lose your radios. The weather is crap for 300 miles all around you (not all that uncommon in the upper midwest). You're getting low on gas and dont have the range to fly to better conditions. What do you set your altimeter too and how do you re-adjust the minimums for the approach you are going to fly?

 

[stingray]

On my CFI ride 6yrs ago. I had an 8hr oral, left came back the next day for 2hrs more, then got in the plane for a 2.5 check flight.
During the de-brief we talked a little(I still wasn't sure pass or fail)
ok then he broke out the pink slips, and iam saying to my self ok i can deal with this a few things could use some work. he handed the pink slip to me it said ENTIRE RIDE, I put my head down and could not belive it and i was saying every word in the book under my breath. as my head was down he grabbed the ones with the temporary tickets the white ones held it up and said. You whant one of these? I almost called a FED a SOB to his face. He did give my CFI after all that. So i did what most new CFI's would do after the check ride from hell. Whent out and got lit with friends from the airport!!!

 

[WhiskeyTango]

"You've been flying along at FL 190 for a couple of hours and you lose your radios. The weather is crap for 300 miles all around you (not all that uncommon in the upper midwest). You're getting low on gas and dont have the range to fly to better conditions. What do you set your altimeter too and how do you re-adjust the minimums for the approach you are going to fly?"

And your answer was?

 

[TurboS7]

Declare an emergency 7700 get on an ILS and fly it down till the wheels touch. End of story.

 

[TurboS7]

B-727-200, you are dispatched with number 3 generator inop. Should you be concerned? If you are what profile would you use if it just happens to not be your day.

 

[scottm]

Simon says,

I dont know if you are seriously looking for help explaining the effect of an aft CG on an aircraft but I wanted to share a piece of information with you that helps me visualize the concept and understand it better.

Obviously we know that because of the aft CG, the arm of the CG to the control surface is relatively short compared to a centered or forward CG. They tell us that the shorter the arm is, the less control friendly it is, ie we will have less deflection ability. If you imagine a door, normal door in the open position. Now, if you take your hand and attempt to close it by exerting force when your hand is close to the wall or nearest the door hinge, it takes a greater amount of force and is very difficult to close the door. If you place your hand on the outer part of the door, near the handle, it takes little force to swing the door shut. This translates to the handle, outer area representing a longer arm and the hinge side a shorter arm. The benefit of this is you can demonstrate this to your students in the briefing very easily.

I hope this helps.

 

[ILLINI]

You've been flying along at FL 190 for a couple of hours and you lose your radios. The weather is crap for 300 miles all around you (not all that uncommon in the upper midwest). You're getting low on gas and dont have the range to fly to better conditions. What do you set your altimeter too and how do you re-adjust the minimums for the approach you are going to fly?

Declare an emergency 7700 get on an ILS and fly it down till the wheels touch. End of story.

Just out of curiousity... what are the chances that you would lose only the radio communications part of your stack? I would imagine that because the radio and avionics are part of the same radio package, you would lose both communication and navigation capabilities. I know it is possible to only lose one part, but it seems to me that odds favor losing both as opposed to only one.

Thoughts....?



Also, a question that I have heard many different answers to:

What would you do if you lost your entire electrical system in solid, low IMC that is surrounding you for 500 miles? Assuming you are flying a GA aircraft (C-172 or light twin etc...)

 

[TurboS7]

You are really right, if you are going to loose anything more than likely you are going to use everything. I used to carry a hand held com and nav radio when I was doing serious single engine IFR in the midwest. I also carried it when I was flying BE-18's, did I ever need it NO. Was it nice to have along, YES. That is why checkride questions are just there to pick your brain, they have nothing to do with reality. I quess that is the way with most "education". They just try to get you to think. If you answer my 727 question right you know the systems very well, will it ever happen in real life? It never has happened and how many hours have the 727's flown-you get the picture. I always remind myself of all this as I am flying on a dark night across the North Atlantic. Always be ready if, but in reality the chances are .00002 percent, but then when it does happen to you it just became 100%. About the same odds are true for the lotto and people do win, hence all our training.

 

[Saabslime]

This whole losing your radios and altimeter question was one I was asked on my instrument checkride years ago. I don't have an AIM handy but I do believe this is covered to some extent. Something like setting the altimeter to 31.00 and adding 100 feet to the approach?? Its been a long time since I looked this up so I cant remember the specifics. But like turbo said, if I ever was so unfortunate as to be in this situation , I'd fly an ILS all the way till I touched the ground. Better off touching down at 700 - 800 f.p.m on a runway than to run out of gas and come down who knows where.

 

[jaybird]

I just heard a good one

For people who land and takeoff at sea level and that fly a complex aircraft.

If you takeoff in your aircraft and your manifold pressure reads about 30in. at sea level. What will your manifold pressure read in Denver on takeoff? It's not too hard just requires you to think a little.

 

[mpower]

"You've been flying along at FL 190 for a couple of hours and you lose your radios. The weather is crap for 300 miles all around you (not all that uncommon in the upper midwest). You're getting low on gas and dont have the range to fly to better conditions. What do you set your altimeter too and how do you re-adjust the minimums for the approach you are going to fly?"

And your answer was?

well, pretty easy actually. don't we check the weather before we go? hopefully and if you did you got the current which is better than nothing, no they do not forecast alt settings. the idea of doing an ils is excellent, don't forget to check the altitude published on the plate that tells you your msl altitude, on gs over the faf. as you cross the faf twist that little knob and make that instrument read what the plate tells you it should be at. also if the navs are working and you are near a big airport often times the atis is broadcast over the vor, mia is an example.

 

[A Squared]

OK, Simon Says,

If you were asleep that day during your Private Pilot ground school, here's how CG affects stability. Assume a conventional airplane: one wing, horizontal stabilizer or stabilator aft of the wing, standard empennage, T-tail, or Cruciform tail. Stability of delta wings, canards, flying wings and other types are outsde of the scope of this explanation, but unless you're doing your Private Checkride in a Piaggio or an F-102, I doubt you'll be asked to explain gc and stability for one.

First, you have to understand why an airplane like this is longitudinally stable. The cg is ahead of the center of lift of the wing. Because of this, the horizontal stabilizer must provide a downward force to keep the airplane from pitching forward. What happens to your airspeed when you pitch up and start climbing? It decreases right? The downward force of the horizontal stabilizer (like any airfoil) is a function of airspeed. Pitch up, less airspeed, less downward force, aircraft pitches down. The change in airspeed changes the downward force of the horizontal stabilizer, causing it to be stable. The same effect causes the airplane to respond to downward pitching by pitching up. Pitch down, more airspeed, more down force on the horizontal stabilizer, aircraft pitches up

Now, up to this point, we have assumed the cg is where it is supposed to be. The question is: Why does an aft gc cause an airplane to be less stable? Well, let's look at the extreme example of aft cg, where the cg is actually aft of the center of lift of the wing. In this case, the force of gravity acting behind the wing will cause the airplane it pitch up, so the horizontal stabilizer must provide a force UP to keep the plane from pitching up. You make it create a force up by trimming the angle of incidence of the stablizer (if it's trimmable) or by trimming the position of the elevator or stabilator. With the gc this far aft, what happens when the plane pitches up? When the airspeed decreases the UP force on the tail decreases, this allows the plane to pitch up more, more pitch up, less airspeed, less up force, more pitch up, and it just builds on itself. Without any control inputs from you pretty soon you're pointing at the sky, wishing you hadn't loaded those bricks in the tail. In engineering terms, this is what is known as a "positive feedback loop" The opposite happens in response to a pitch down, more airspeed, more up force on the tail, tail goes up, nose goes down, airspeed builds more, and if you don't do something, pretty soon you're pointing at the ground, watching your wings come off.

This is what happens when the cg is well aft of the cg limit. The airplane doesn't go instantly from "stable"to "unstable" as the cg is moved aft of some magic point, rather the stability gradually decreases as the cg is moved aft, until you reach a point where you have a plane that is a handful to keep level. Even within the acceptable cg range, you can sense the difference in stability.

Now, we could go a lot deeper, examining how changing angle of attack on each of the airfoils adds to or decreases stability, How the location of center of pressure on each airfoil moves with aoa, changing each airfoil's contribution to pitching moments, thus affecting stability, etc. I'm sure I could write pages, and not come close to covering it all. However, the increasing/decreasing airspeed explanation is fundamentally correct and substantially complete. It can be found in most good private pilot texts, and as such, seems reasonable fodder for a checkride question at any level.

regards

 

[navigator72]

my hard ????'s

I was finshing up my Commercial checkride and was supposed to be doing a soft field landing. It was all going great until I got caught up in some swirling winds at the end of the runway, I should have done a go-round but being so focused on landing, I managed to slam the poor little C172RG on the runway. His next question was "What the hell was that?"
My only response was:
"That was a soft field landing sir"
I went back 2 days later and made the best **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED** soft field landing the examiner had ever seen...
Live and Learn!