Are they checkride ready?

Most of us would rather just take the practical exam for our students if we could. Unfortunately, there’s no failsafe way to know for sure that your students will be successful on their first attempt. But here are some things you can do to get pretty darn close.

Review the airman certification standards with every one of your students. (I’m not talking about what they call teaching the test. Students who only learn what they think will be on the checkride will not be prepared for real-world flying.) I am advising going through the standards, task by task, and making sure your students understand exactly what is expected on checkride day.

A student may be very skilled and knowledgeable and still be unsuccessful because something fell through the cracks during the training process. For example, I’ve had several applicants balk when I ask them to perform a turning stall. “A turning stall?” they ask. “I’ve never done one of those before.” I’ve also had applicants land thousands of feet long on the normal landing task. Did you know the ACS calls for a landing within 400 feet of the specified point? A simple review of the ACS would have prevented these types of checkride day surprises.

Do multiple mock checkrides with your students. Once you believe your student to be ready, go on two or three separate flights and play the role of examiner. You are not allowed to teach on these flights. It will be difficult, I know, because even as an examiner, I still have a hard time avoiding teaching. Whenever something comes up during the flight that you want to address, write it down and discuss it in the debrief. Obviously, if something is unsafe, then you should speak up. This probably means your student needs more training.

Your notes will consist of things such as, forgot clearing turns, did not do an after-landing checklist, landed off the center line for the short field. Hopefully each time you fly, your list gets shorter and shorter until you eventually know your student is ready for the big day. He or she will not be perfect during these flights just as they will not be perfect on checkride day. But they should absolutely be able to catch their own mistakes and make corrections accordingly.You can certainly help mitigate stress-related performance issues by making sure your student experiences that nervous feeling before checkride day.

Send them with someone else. Once you’ve reviewed the ACS and done the mock checkrides yourself, it’s time to send your student up with another instructor. You can have the strongest applicant in the world who still chokes on checkride day because they just don’t handle pressure well. Anxiety is a powerful foe. As an examiner, I understand that most of the people I meet aren’t flying their absolute best because they’re too nervous to think straight. I once had another examiner explain it this way to me. “You may cut your grass every day. You’re so good at it that you can make those Yankee stadium diagonal lines in your yard and never miss a single blade of grass. But put an examiner next to you on that riding lawnmower, and you’re going to miss a whole foot-tall row of grass.” The FAA knows this and does not demand perfection in the standards. But you can certainly help mitigate stress-related performance issues by making sure your student experiences that nervous feeling before checkride day.

Performing under pressure is absolutely something that people can learn to do if they practice it enough. It’s also a required skill for pilots. Just ask any aviator if they’ve experienced distracting levels of stress when the crosswind picks up in flight, or the engine runs rough, or, or, or…. Sending your students up with another instructor does something else helpful: it gives you a second set of eyes. Maybe that instructor will catch an error you’ve been missing. Or if the flight goes great, then your student will have an extra bit of confidence going into checkride day knowing that not one, but two instructors thought they were ready.

I hope you’re seeing here that checkride day is not something that can be rushed. One good training flight right before the appointment with the examiner does not mean your student is ready. Doing all these things takes time, but it will help ensure the best possible outcome: a student who is both confident and prepared on checkride day. That’s as close as you’re going to get to guaranteeing success.