Low quality image, high quality day.
Decided to write this up because I can't think of a single checkride I've taken where I didn't spend the entire week beforehand scouring the internet for every single checkride write-up I could find for the particular ride I was preparing for. So if one nervous soon-to-be CFI reads this and finds it helpful I'll consider it a success.
The CFI training was completely different than the flight training I've done for any other certificate/rating thus far. I had dabbled with studying and getting ready for the checkride over the summer, but most of my focus was on my multi-engine addon rating. I didn't start specifically getting ready for it until the beginning of October, after I passed my multi checkride.
I did 5 flights in preparation for the checkride getting used to the right seat, teaching in flight, and stall/spin awareness and recovery training. I did maybe 10 hours of ground instruction mainly going over the Fundamentals of Instruction, classroom teaching ground topics and flight maneuvers, and scenario based "what would you do if a student does this.." topics.
Other than that it was a couple hours a day studying at home. My self study was mostly comprised of doing lesson plans (found them online and updated/tailored them to the new ACS standards), read through the Jeppesen Flight Instructor Manual, the FAA Aviation Instructor Handbook (not cover to cover, just certain topics I felt weaker in), and reading through my ASA Oral Exam Guides from Private and Commercial. Aside from that I just went back and reviewed everything I had forgotten since my private/commercial training. I passed my Commercial checkride in December 2016 and had only flown about 35 hours between then and my CFI checkride almost a year later in November 2017 due to real life (aka my other job) getting in the way and keeping me busy enough where I wasn't able to even think about airplanes for about 4 months in that time period. 20 of those 35 hours were multi-engine training, though it should been closer to 10... but that's a different story for a different beer.
Long story short, there was quite a bit of information had slipped my mind since my PPL training days over 4 years ago and I was a nervous wreck in the days leading up to the ride.
So enough about the back story, here's comes the part I'm sure you're more interested in if you have CFI ride coming up.
November 8th I woke up at 6:00am to get ready, get some final things in order, and one last check of the weather. Left my house at 7:00am and drove 45 minutes to the airport (KIOB) where the Cessna 182RG I would be using was hangered at. I had the maintenance logs in order and tabbed out the day before, so they were ready to go. Got the plane out, did a pre-flight and I was rolling off the ramp at 8:10am. I had planned a 30 minute flight up to Clermont Co. Airport (I69.. aka Sportys) where I was scheduled to meet my examiner at 9:00am. Run-up at the end of the runway, 1800 RPMs, mags check, suction's good, up and around the panel, everything's in the green that should be in the green, oil temp's low but coming up, cycle the prop 3 times, everything did what it was supposed to, idle throttle test annnnnnnnd the engine quits.. Shit. Restart the engine, do the run-up again, everything looks good until the idle test. Engine quits again, but I get it restarted by putting some throttle back in while the prop is still spinning. Taxi back to the ramp and have one of the mechanics look at it. He does a run up and it's fine. We decided it was probably just a cold engine that had been sitting out all night.
Flight to I69 was uneventful. Landed and pulled into the Sportys ramp right at 9:00am.
Met up with the examiner and began filling out the IACRA paperwork as soon as we sat down.
Oral exam began at 9:15am.
The first thing we talked about was the Fundamentals of Instruction. This wasn't really a question/answer kind of thing, but more of a scenario based discussion. What would you do if a student freaks out after doing their first stall? If you have a student hyperventilating what should you do? When a student doesn't perform maneuvers correctly what should you do? I was never asked to list anything from the FOI, but instead was able to draw from different concepts/theories/laws from the FOI and incorporate them into my answer. I was glad this was scenario based, as rote memorizing all the FOI stuff sounds terrible.. and defeats the purpose.
We then went on to endorsements. I had all the endorsements relevant for private pilot and commercial pilot training ready and was able to show him which ones we would need for student pilot solos, checkrides, BFRs, etc.
We then discussed BFRs. How do you conduct a BFR? What do you have to do on one? The big thing he wanted me to understand is that no two BFRs should be the same, because no two pilots are the same. You need to tailor your BFRs to the individual. Someone that has a PPL, Instrument Rated, and flies several times a month on 100+ mile cross countries for business trips? You could probably get away with 1-1.5hr of ground and 1.5hr flight. Someone that got a PPL 20 years ago and flies a couple hours here and there to stay current? You're going to need to spend a lot more time with them both on the ground and in the air. Pretty obvious stuff if you ask me, but evidently you'd be surprised at the number of CFIs that will do the minimum 1 hour of ground and 1 hour in the air with anyone needing a BFR, sign their books and call it a day.
After that discussion we went on to teaching lessons. He had me teach a basic lesson on aerodynamics, specifically how lift is generated. I explained Bernoulli's principle and how it relates to airfoils and he was happy with it. This led to a discussion on center of gravity and what happens when it moves forward or aft. Boldmethod has a great article on it here so I pulled that up on my iPad and used their diagrams for visual aids. He had me pull out the POH and see exactly how far the CoG limits are at different weights. Basically you only have a few inches to work with, so keep that in mind.
I then taught a lesson Lazy 8s. I had a lesson plan prepared for this, looked over that for a minute, decided how I wanted to approach it and spent maybe 5 minutes teaching it. Big thing here I had to remember was to keep it simple, something I definitely struggled with when I began preparing for this checkride.
Finally he asked me a few questions about sectional charts. He found a Class D airport nearby (KLUK) that sits under the Cincinnati Bravo airspace. There was a marina depicted just outside of LUK and he asked me to describe the airspace going up as if I was standing at the marina. Delta up to 3,000 because it's depicted here, Echo up to 3,500 because that's where the Bravo shelf starts and we know that because it's depicted here, Bravo up to 10,000 because the 100 is over the 35, echo above that etc.. He then moved around on the sectional to some different Charlie and Golf airports and asked me to talk about the airspace. What does this shaded magenta area around this Golf airport mean, etc. Nothing crazy.
Following that discussion, he pulled out an outline for the flight portion and we began planning out flight. For some of the maneuvers he gave me the option of which ones I wanted to do (ie. pick 2 of the following 3, etc.) After we decided which maneuvers I would be teaching, he let me decide the order we would do them in. I wrote the order down in my Foreflight scratchpad and off we went.
We began the flight with all of the required pattern work. I chose to demonstrate soft-field takeoffs and landings. After a few laps around the pattern we climbed up to 3,000' to do the performance maneuvers (steep turns, lazy 8s) and stall series (slow flight, power-off, secondary.) Did an emergency descent from there and recovered around 1,000' which was a perfect set up for me to teach turns around a point and 8s on pylons. For most of the maneuvers we did I would demonstrate them first, explaining what I was doing along the way, then he would do them and I would critique his performance. Having the order I chose pulled up on my scratchpad was nice because as we completed each maneuver and went on to the next one, I could mentally check it off and know I was that much closer! We headed back to the airport and did a go-around followed by a normal landing, a handshake and a "congratulations!"
We parked the plane and headed inside to fill out the IACRA paperwork and I had my temporary certificate in hand just under 4 hours after we began the oral exam.
Took off to head back home at 1:30pm and was on the ground by 2:00pm, hit the road and was back in my driveway by 3:00pm, just 8 hours after I had left that morning. Not bad considering that included a 1.5 hour round trip drive to the airport, 1 hour round trip flight, CFI-A checkride, and BSing with some friends I ran into along the way!
Looking back at my CFI training and checkride prep, here are somethings I think I did wrong, and some I think I did right.
What I did wrong:
1 - Stop stressing out over it and listen to all your instructors that tell you it's not going to be as bad as the horror stories you read online.. no one likes bragging about normal checkrides that don't go all day!
2 - Don't overthink the FOI. It's arguably the most important aspect of CFI training, but there's no need to simply memorize every little detail. Rote memorizing the FOI quite literally defeats the purpose of learning the FOI. Learn the concepts and be able to talk about it and apply it; not rattle off the 5 essential phases of the demonstration-performance method of teaching within .2 seconds of being asked. I spent quite a bit of time trying to memorize it (mainly due to horror stories I had read online of applicants being asked to know ever single acronym, mnemonic, etc.) before my instructor told me to chill out. On that note..
3 - Chill out. No matter how many books you read, gouges you read, videos you watch, courses you take, you're never going to know everything. An examiner won't expect you to know everything (my examiner told me this when we began my oral, which really helped calm my nerves), so there's no need to lock yourself in a room for days before your checkride trying to study anything and everything about airplanes. If you don't know something just look it up.. like you would do with a student.
What I did right:
1 - Keep the costs down. Get comfortable flying from the right seat (this became easy when I convinced myself the airplane still flies the same way) and comfortable talking while you're flying. This took me about 5 flight hours before my checkride. I still felt like I wasn't good enough the morning I left for the checkride and wished I had spent a few more hours flying from the right seat, but once I got there and got my nerves settled everything felt fine and was no big deal. Most everything else can be studied at home for free. I spent maybe $100 on books (oral exam guide, Jeppesen CFI guide, Everything Explained for the Professional Pilot, etc.) and supplies, and all my other studying was online materials. There's tons of great YouTube channels with CFI topics/information.
2 - Don't do the bare minimum for stall/spin recovery training. That stuff's important. The FAA says you have to do one spin to the left and one to the right and you're good. My instructor and I did probably 2 hours of ground discussing aerodynamics, what is happening in a stall/spin, why it's happening, why it's happening when it's happening, etc. We used an aerobatic plane for the flight and spent another 2 hours in that doing different things related to stall/spin awareness, such as flying the plane without stalling well below the white arc.
3 - CFI Binder - Have one ready to go for the checkride, and not just with lesson plans you got online and threw in there. I got some online and edited them with the new ACS standards and tailored them to the areas/aircraft I'll be teaching in. No need to reinvent the wheel, but put some work into it. I also created a list of every endorsement relevant to Private and Commercial pilot students that I can literally print out, have them throw in the back of their logbook, and sign as they progress through the training. My examiner loved it. It probably took a good 30 minutes off of my oral exam because I didn't have to go searching through 61-65G for every endorsement he asked me about.
Overall it was a great experience and one of the most painless checkrides I've had. If you're reading this preparing for a CFI ride I hope this was some benefit to you, even if all you got out of it was I'm really long winded and not all CFI rides are 10 hours long. If you're reading this and not preparing for a CFI ride, I guarantee you there's more exciting stuff out there on the internet than this ;)
CFII write-up coming soon!