Episode 436: Check-Ride Essentials: Don’t Walk In Without These

Welcome back to 30 checkrides, 30 lessons. Today we're going to talk about Robert, who did his initial CFI with us. Robert did a great job. He was really, really well prepared. But you can still, because anybody can have a problem on a checkride. And we're going to get to that in just a minute. Robert wanted a checkride real quick. He reached out to us. I jumped on a zoom with him and I checked out his knowledge, and his knowledge was amazing. And he asked me like, well, I kind of want to get this done. How soon can you get me in? And we're in Indiana, he's in New Mexico. I said, get in the car and start driving. And he was like, what? Are you serious? I'm like, yeah, we have like an open week with nothing going on. Go get. Pack your bags, get in your car and get up here. And he did just that. He back. He packed his bags, jumped in the car and drove to Indiana. So we got him here, and his training went really, really well. Super sharp individual flying went good. The problem arised on checkride day, and the problem was he. We had to go meet the examiner for this one. The examiner was not coming to us, so we had to go to another airport to meet the examiner. So Robert's idea was, I'll just go to the hotel and drive to meet the examiner in the morning if you'd bring the helicopter over, because I always go along anyway. And he said, that way, when the check ride's done, I want to just jump in my car and head home. And so I said, okay, fine, no problem. So that morning we fly over, I walk in. Robert had already arrived. I go inside the airport, and there sits the examiner. There sits a pile of books. And no. Robert and I walk up to see the examiner, and he's like, well, your applicants can't find his logbook. And I'm like, really? And he's like, yep, he's out in the car looking for it right now. And of course, I'm thinking, you know, we always go through the acs, and I'll show you this here in a minute. The key, most important page in the acs, we always go through and make sure everybody has everything they need. So I didn't have any doubt. So when I get there, I'm thinking, oh, gosh, no, no logbook. And of course, the examiner says, kind of the one piece that we really have to have. And I can't even start. And I said, he was. Once you go and check on your guy in the parking lot, see how it's going with him looking for the logbook. So I go out there, Robert's freaking out. He's on the phone with the motel that he checked out of. It's not the hotel. He's looking through his car and I'm standing there in the parking lot going, 25 years I've been doing this and we try so hard to have everything 100%. And my heart's sinking too, right? Thinking, if we can't find the log book, there's no check ride today. And you know, where are we going to go from there? So we give up on the parking lot, we go back inside and we sit down and somehow Robert picks up a book that was laying there of all of his things that he had, and somehow the pilot logbook was shoved in another book. So checkride proceeds. Robert does. Well since then, Robert has, since he is a cfi, he has sent us some additional FAC members. Robert came up to do his flight review this year in R44, and it continues to be a friend to this day. So it's a good story on no matter how hard you try, you can still miss that one piece. And what for those of that you don't know, I'm going to use the private acs. But each of the ACS has a page in the back. And this is the first thing we do when somebody arrives, when they get here is we go through this page and it's practical test checklist applicant. So in the private pilot, it's clear in the back page 19 in the supplement all the way in the back. Okay, this shows everything that you have to have. It's not that long. These are your key items that are required for the test. And I'm amazed at how many people actually, when they show up here, coming from wherever, around the country. And then maybe they'll have half or three quarters of what's on this list. Now, we always have them covered because we have enough. You know, I have plenty of materials around here that if somebody forgets something, we can usually put it together and make sure that we have everything day for the everything ready for the day of the test. So if you're not familiar with acs, number one, you should be using it for your preparation, obviously. But 25 years ago, when I started, the examiner I'm still using said, I asked him as a new cfi, what's a, you know, what kind of tips can you give me as a new cfi? And at that time it was of course called the pts and he said, hey, there's a page in the PTS that has a list of everything you need for the checkride day. Please go through that with your applicants, make sure that you guys are ready and you have everything you need. 25 years later, it's the same thing. Paige is back here in the back of the acs. A lot of people have never even seen it, don't even realize it's there. No matter what checkride you're prepping for, make sure you go to the back of the ACS Section 7 Practical Test Checklist, applicant. And it's going to list absolutely everything you need. And I tell people, start about three weeks in advance. You want to be start to make sure that you have all this stuff. So you've got time. If you need something that's on here that you don't have, you've got plenty of time to go online and get one ordered or go to your local flight school, pick up whatever it is you need. But that gives you plenty of time to make sure that you have everything you need. Because if there's any problems with any of that stuff, the checkride doesn't happen. And we've seen checkrides stop that never even got started. I can think of all kinds of things. Here's one. Somebody showed up to see our examiner to take an instrument checkride in a helicopter. Their written test was instrument pilot, fixed wing, took the wrong written test and showed up at the checkride with the wrong written test. Long list of things that cause check rides to not happen. So there's your tip on that one. It's a good story, but it's back to the basics, which is what we preach all the time. It's not magic, okay? This is not magic. You go through the acs, make sure you have everything you need. You go through the far aim, make sure you. All the requirements are done. And we're going to cover that in another video coming up as well. So that is that one for today. Do us a favor and if you subscribe to the channel, click that bell real quick so that you'll be notified of the other 26 videos to follow. We're taking something from every checkride that we've done in the last 30 months. We've done 30 checkrides in 30 months. So we're just going through and bringing up lessons learned that we can share with you that might help you on a future checkride. So if you subscribe and click that bell, you'll be notified if you're interested in any of our online ground school courses. You just go to hogs. I'm sorry, helicopterground.com we'll put a link down below for that. And our clone's getting pretty popular. You can ask questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at ask hogs.com it's now over 7 million words from my content from 14 years is piped into this thing. Blogs, podcasts, free YouTube content, paid content from our sites. It's all piped in there 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and get your questions answered. And we've also added that to all of our online courses. And I just had a gentleman email me who was a member, and he said, kenny, I've been going through the private pilot. And he goes, I love the fact that you have the clone on every single video, because I can watch a video and then ask questions to the clone. And he goes, I've had some remarkable answers. So that's becoming, you know, another tool that's helpful with our online courses is for each video, there's AI there to help answer that question. If you have a question and all that stuff's been read right by the. By the AI, Our clone has all that information already piped in there. So that's@askhogs.com. put a link down below for that as well. Come back tomorrow. See you for the next one. Peace out.