Jim Burns wrote:

The intricacy's of weight and balance similar to the knowledge test
questions. Load, fly, unload, fly, refuel, load, fly unload, refuel....
what's your weight, where's your CG, what about if you have to hold, when
will you reach bingo fuel and where will your CG be then? Talk to a Bonanza
owner about CG changes with fuel burn.

Additionally, your CG probably changes when you retract your gear.
That's one of my commercial DE's pet points.


Use
blatant examples, don't get lead down a path into questionable areas, when
in doubt answer with "if I had any question or reservation what so ever, I'd
defer to someone like you (DE) or the FSDO and if I couldn't I'd refuse the
job".

Answering with that also tells the DE that you know that you don't know
everything and that the FAA is here to help. (-:


Along those lines... don't use any terms that you can not fully explain.
This is a great way to dig yourself into a deep hole. Keep your answers
straight and to the point.

It's like going to court: they can cross examine you on any point you
bring up.


What's the first thing that you do if your landing gear fails to extend?
Fly the airplane. What's the 2nd? Fly the airplane. The 3rd? Relax. The
4th.... get the checklist out. Do NOT on a commercial check ride try to do
anything from memory. The checklist is your ticket. Without it, you WILL
fail.

That is true, however, my DE pointed out (and continues to point out,
since I'm flying with her for my CFI ticket) that checklists are there
to make sure you don't forget anything, they aren't "TO DO" lists. The
point is that you don't need to use the checklist to perform every task,
but make sure you at least pull it out and go through the list out loud
to verify that you have completed all items. Use common sense he go
by the checklist for your preflight, starting, and run up. Pre-read it
for takeoff. Use it to confirm you did everything for emergency procedures.


Talk, talk, talk. Your DE will want to see your knowledge of each maneuver.
Tell him what you and the airplane are doing. Tell him why things aren't
going like they should, tell him what you should be doing and how to do it
and how the airplane will respond. If you do these things, your maneuver
can look like hell, but you've proven your knowledge of the maneuver, which
is what he wants to see.

I second that. If you screw up a maneuver and don't say anything,
you're more likely to fail than if you explain it as you are doing it
and then explain your mistake(s). It's not a get out of jail free card,
but being silent on a mistake is much more likely to result in a failure
than owning up to and explaining the hows and whys.

The one thing that I would recommend to know inside and out and upside
down is the privileges and limitations of the commercial certificate.
There are too many people who think that a commercial certificate give
you the right to charge for your flying. With a few specific
exceptions, it really only gives you the right to be hired by a
commercial operation. (This isn't intended to get into a long
discussion on the privileges and limitations of the commercial
certificate, only pointing out that it's a good idea to know 61.133 and
119.1.) This may not be the most important thing, but my DE felt that
it was an FAA emphasis point when I took my commercial checkride a few
months ago, so I would expect other DE's to feel the same.


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## CP-ASEL, AGI
## insert tail number here
## KHAO, KISZ
"Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore,
users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file
space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all
UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up
their files."
-- System V.2 administrator's guide