Passed my first check-ride yesterday at KLGB. What an amazing feeling. A small accomplishment in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like a big deal to me, and I thought I’d just share a few tips that I think allowed me to have a successful first check-ride, for any new or prospective ATP students. Also, if anybody ahead of me has any tips they would like to share for the instrument and subsequent check-rides, it would of course be appreciated.
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I’m very lucky to have been assigned a great instructor who I think I communicate well with. But I can imagine that certain instructor / student pairings may not be ideal for whatever reason. Hang around your ATP location and talk to other instructors as much as possible. Pretty much all of the instructors here seem more than willing to answer any questions you might have - and in talking to different instructors you also learn at least a little about their communication styles, how they fly, etc - and if there is an instructor you seem to vibe with, you could request switching instructors if you find it necessary. I am lucky to not need to do this, but have heard several instructors on ELEVATE Zoom sessions mention that they changed instructors even multiple times while at ATP.
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Speaking of ELEVATE - go to all of them if you can. They are technically “optional” but I tried to think of them as mandatory and attend, even if I really didn’t feel like it, or even if it was a subject I felt well-versed on already. I also asked tons of questions in these sessions, and was not shy to volunteer my answers to the questions posed to the students in attendance. You are going to have to explain all these concepts to your DPE in at least a semi-intelligent way so this is a good opportunity to practice that. To avoid being that annoying guy who hogs all the questions I would sometimes keep my mic muted and just reply to the questions out-loud but to myself, to allow others the opportunity to give their answers as well. But also - if nobody is jumping to answer… answer! You are paying a ton of money to be here, so don’t be shy.
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Chair fly ALL THE TIME. Like, basically any weekday and some weekends where I was not actually flying, I would chair fly instead. At KLGB we can actually sit in the airplanes on the tarmac and chair fly in the cockpit, not sure if this is allowed at all locations. Obviously do not turn on the master or any switches while doing this - but you can touch everything and really engrain all of the movements in muscle memory this way. While chair flying, I was visualizing every maneuver, speaking all radio calls out-loud at the moments where they would appear in the flight, did every single checklist, every single emergency flow, etc. Generally would do this for 45-60 minutes at a time. Perhaps I should have visualized my steep turns more because they were a little wonky during my checkride… but apparently still within ACS standards
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This may seem obvious but write down notes after every single flight! I keep a spare kneeboard-sized notepad alongside my daily scratch paper notepad and pull it out as often as possible to write down notes, so that you are sure you aren’t forgetting anything from the day’s flight. And then would review that day’s flight usually the next morning to remind myself of the specific things I needed to improve on the next flight.
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I assembled a document full of aviation acronyms gradually over the past few months… basically anytime I learned a new acronym or mnemonic, I would put it into that document, which generally sits open on my computer desktop all the time in the background. IMSAFE, ATOMATOFLAMES, GRABCARDD, LHAND, MCPRAWN, MDFGPS, etc and so forth. Its kinda funny to me how much aviation seems to be all about acronyms.
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I wasn’t one of these super students who come in with every single written exam done. But I did start with the PAR done - and think at the bare minimum everyone should at least do that. Additionally I had read the Rod Machado Private and Instrument Pilot books cover to cover, several times, before my first day at ATP. This took several months because I am a slow reader but the reality at ATP is - nobody is going to hold your hand and spoon feed you this information. I would really recommend to any prospective students - pick a couple airplane books and really dive into them in the months leading up to your start date. I liked Rod Machado but the PHAK, AFH, and I’m sure many other options out there are just as good.
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Stop wasting time on social media
I deactivated my socials from the moment my checkride got scheduled. This may not be an issue for some but it is for me, and so I deactivated it for the past 3 weeks and I think that really helped me keep my head in the game.
Anyway. Sorry this was long-winded but I hope maybe some of this might be helpful to someone. So far I am really enjoying being at ATP KLGB but of course there are 6 more checkrides to go so if anyone has any additional tips for how they got through all this, feel free to share.
