Tough Checkride Questions

[buckeyeflyer]

Just for fun, what is the toughest question that you have ever been asked on a checkride? (any checkride)

 

[Thedude]

So you know what psi is don't ya....well what is pe-psi. First question on the oral and freaked on it.

 

[Guitar rocker]

Was talking with this one chk at the PWK airport store looking for a written exam there. She was cocky over the phone and asked me who I worked for. She mentioned that she was working on her CFI and wanted me to "ask her a question." Mmmm, I thought to myself and asked her this: What powers that little rotating beacon on your 152 yah got there? She said, (repeat in silly chk accent)...oh, its electrical, isnt it? I said no its not....told her that there is a tiny little bleed air line that runs from the engine up to the tail that powers that beacon. And yah ever notice that at night yah gotta run er up to 14-1600RPM's to keep that light a runnin up there so that everyone can see yah.....all the while your riding your brakes? She bought it......couldnt believe it. For a second, even I sold myself on it.

 

[JediNein]

"What is your name?"

(I was nervous)

 

[LXJ31]

"I'm thinking of a number between one and ten..."

 

[landlover]

will this personal check clear?

 

[Alamanach]

Not the hardest question, but I remember what was, in retrospect, probably the sneakiest ploy the examiner used to try to trip me up. This was for my PPL checkride. One thing my instructor had tried to get me to guard against was distractions: "Wow, look at all those police cars down there, there must be something happening," my instructor would say. He was trying to get me to look out the side window, to divert my attention from Flying The Airplane.

The examiner hit me with the same test, but he was much more subtle. We're heading back to the airport (also PWK, by the way) having pretty much completed what had been (so far) a successful ride. He starts fiddling with one of the instruments. "I wonder how we get this to work?" he asks with genuine curiosity. I look, and feel a slight surge of panic, because here's a LORAN unit in the cockpit that I'd somehow never even noticed before.

We both look at it for a few seconds-- do we push this button? that one?-- and I'm wondering how I could have spent so many hours in a cockpit and never even seen this thing before. And now I've got an examiner asking me questions about it! What do I do? Some reflex kicked in, and I said "Well, I'll have to look at that once we're on the ground." But it wasn't until several seconds later that I realized he'd been deliberately trying to distract me.

It was a good trick on his part, because it really got my general checkride nervousness to work against me. If my innate desire to Always Fly The Airplane hadn't been quite as strong, I would have locked onto this red herring that I thought was important. Darn good DPE. And darn sneaky.

 

[AC560]

If a C-150 leaves this airport at 10:00am and flies the 120 radial for VOR XYZ while a C-210 leaves a neighboring airport at 10:24 and flies the 240 radial for VOR ABC when will the 1:46pm train arrive in Denver.

 

[Lead Sled]

What is the reciprocal of purple?

 

[Metro752]

Anyone ever have an Ernie Strange checkride? Dude......!