Private Pilot Oral

On Sun, 30 Nov 2003 13:07:53 GMT, "Pete"
wrote:

Hey All,

Just started reading this group, and as soon as I complete my X
countries, I'll be more focused on my oral test prep.

I wanted to hear about others experiences during their Oral portion. So if
you would, share

Cheers
Pete

Hi Pete. The best prepping I got for the Oral exam from my CFI was:
"Just answer the questions, DON'T VOLUNTEER INFORMATION. I only wish
I did exactly that.

I did only answer the questions for the most part, but every once in a
while we'd come to a topic I felt I REALLY knew well and would add
some information not requested, to illustrate a point.

Almost inevitably, that additional information came back to haunt me
when we debriefed.

Also, I was given a trick trip to plan for. I was told to plan a
flight from Lebanon NH to Lake Placid, taking off at 1800 hours. That
means a night flight over really rough country. I went ahead with the
flight planning but then, as was suggested by my CFI, told him I would
really not make the flight as it was too dangerous. What he'd wanted
though, was for me to flight plan along the few valleys, and head up
along Lake Champlain till we got to a position north of Lake Placid,
and then turning south and approaching from that direction, which
generally avoids flying over the really hazardous terrain. I guess it
didn't matter enormously, or he accepted my explanation that I would
not have attempted the flight as planned, because we moved on.

I also found out that it was important to know how to use the E6B wizz
wheel. Or at least the examiner felt it was important. I really
wasn't very good at it. I had a flight computer instead which I found
much easier to use and showed it to him. He took it, examined it and
then popped the battery cover, emptied all the batteries out and told
me they'd failed. I showed him the box of batteries I'd brought with
me and told him I had another box in my other pocket.

He laughed and told me to load them in and we'd try it. I managed to
get exactly the same results with the flight computer as he did with
his E6B. Mine were to several decimals sometimes, which elicited a
remark that he always tries to fly to the nearest decimal point. :-)

But I got through it all and we went to lunch and then took off for
the flight exam which went really well.

Corky Scott