Once I learned to have fun with the FAA Inspector, smiled, and made her have
fun also, it was much easier. Your answer "The pilot makes an airplane
turn" or "I hope it's the pilot!" is actually a good light hearted response.
He/she may simply laugh and move on to the next subject, if not, ask him/her
what type of student is asking the question.

You'll be given scenarios that will begin by the Inspector stating his/her
pretend pilot status. The object is for you to base your response to the
scenario around this "given", however you can also turn the question back at
the inspector and use the "given" to draw knowledge from them, just as you
would a real student. "Ok, well I see by your logbook, that you've taken a
ground school class, and you've also had additional ground instruction in
the following knowledge areas. What did your previous instructors teach you
about xxxx and what can you tell me about xxxx?"

Many times the "trick" questions will be based upon a key phrase or word
that the student at the given stage of learning has not developed enough
knowledge about to fully understand. For example, what makes an airplane
turn shouts out for "the horizontal component of lift" and it comes with a
shovel that you can use to dig your own hole. So does "explain a soft
field takeoff" and out pops "ground effect" and you keep digging.

Turn these questions around and ask your "student" what they know about how
an airplane turns or a soft field takeoff... then use carefully worded
questions to draw them into a conversation that explains the trick phrases
before they are ever mentioned.

My oral ended when I informed the Inspector which knowledge areas we'd be
doing additional ground instruction on before we tackled the maneuvers. She
laughed and said let's go fly.

Jim

"gatt" wrote in message
news:VPudnZqptKdeTGLanZ2dnUVZ_uuonZ2d@integraonlin e...
Dudley Henriques wrote:

The one thing I always cautioned CFI applicants NOT to do is to overwork
an answer. The best answer is ALWAYS the least complicated that answers
the question. It's Occam's Razor in it's classic form.

Okay, that's very useful.

Every examiner has a few "trick" questions they like to "catch"
applicants on during the oral.
"What makes an airplane turn" is a favorite.

That could get me in trouble. "The pilot," Little Johnny replied.

One more detail; SMILE!! . It relieves the tension and projects to the
examiner how you will be interacting with your students.

I'm sure that's useful too. Our chief flight instructor has a joke or
anecdote for everything so at the end of the day, no matter how
stressful the training session was the student has something to smile
about. ...I'll probably sanitize his humor quite a bit. He's a
retired Marine and all.

Thanks for the encouragement, and have a great weekend.

-c