FAA Detroit sectional, 29 OCT 2026 edition. For briefing, not for navigation: fly from the current chart. Tap the chart to open it full size.
Today's flight
A week after your checkride you are taking a friend on the trip you planned at home. Today the instructor plays the examiner and says: show me the plan, then tell me why every part of it is legal, safe and wise. Each answer gets another "why", and sometimes a change: the forecast is worse, the airplane has a problem, your friend brought a heavier bag.
This is the ground portion of the checkride, rehearsed. On the real one you must pass it before the flight begins, and the questions keep coming in the air.
Every flight
Before every flight
P
Pilot.Am I fit to fly today? IMSAFE:
Illness
Medication
Stress
Alcohol
Fatigue
Emotion, and eating
A
Aircraft.Is this airplane ready, and right for today? Documents, inspections and open squawks; fuel and oil on board; weight, balance and performance for today's load.
V
Environment.What will today's flight meet? NWKRAFT, what 14 CFR 91.103 asks you to know before every flight, then the airspace and the route:
NOTAMs and TFRs
Weather, against your minimums
Known ATC delays
Runway lengths
Alternates
Fuel required, with reserve
Takeoff and landing distances
Airspace: the Class B limits from the current chart
The trip: heading, time, landmarks, wind and runway
E
External pressures.What is pushing me to go today: a passenger, a schedule, a plan I don't want to cancel? Would I go without it?
If it goes wrong.The takeoff emergency brief, out loud: an engine problem on the runway, after liftoff with runway left, and after liftoff without.
Who flies.Who does what today, and how we hand the controls back and forth.
Who runs it today:You, for the planned trip, as if leaving tomorrow morning: you brief the instructor on the whole routine, the way you would brief an examiner.
Deeper today:Pilot and Aircraft, at checkride depth. Pilot becomes human factors (ACS I.H): IMSAFE, hazardous attitudes and personal minimums you can back with your logbook. Aircraft becomes airworthiness (I.B), systems (I.G) and emergency equipment (IX.D), proved from the airplane's actual documents and records, not from memory.
Recall
From earlier lessons
Which documents must be in the airplane, and where do its operating limitations come from?
Reveal answer
The airworthiness certificate and the registration certificate (14 CFR 91.203). The operating limitations are in the approved handbook, the markings and the placards (91.9).
What is the difference between your personal minimums and the legal minimums?
Reveal answer
The legal ones are the floor for every pilot. Yours come from what you have actually flown, and they grow as your logbook does (lesson 17).
To carry a passenger at night, what recent experience do you need?
Reveal answer
Within the preceding 90 days, three takeoffs and three landings to a full stop, as sole manipulator, in the same category and class, between 1 hour after sunset and 1 hour before sunrise (14 CFR 61.57(b)).
Name the five hazardous attitudes and their antidotes.
Reveal answer
Anti-authority (follow the rules), impulsivity (not so fast, think first), invulnerability (it could happen to me), macho (taking chances is foolish), resignation (I'm not helpless). Get-there-itis is a pitfall, not one of the five (lesson 17).
WhyKnowing the format turns the oral from a quiz into a conversation you lead.
How the oral works
Ground first: you must pass it before the flight begins.
Scenarios over rote: the examiner asks you to apply what you know to a situation.
Every task gets at least one knowledge and one risk question, plus what you missed on the knowledge test.
Knowing where to look is part of the answer: bring the references and know your way around them.
WhyThe first thing to defend as pilot in command is that you may legally make this flight with this passenger.
Can I fly this trip? (I.A)
Certificate, medical (or BasicMed) and photo ID with you, and what each one allows.
Recent experience to carry a passenger, day and night, and when your flight review is due.
Your friend may share the costs, but you may not pay less than your share.
Legal is not ready: proficiency versus currency, and an unfamiliar airplane or panel.
WhyYou decide the airplane is airworthy every time you take off, and the oral asks you to prove it from its papers.
Is the airplane airworthy? (I.B and I.G)
Aboard: airworthiness and registration certificates, and the handbook with its limitations.
Records: the inspections it needs and when they were done, airworthiness directives, and the ELT.
Something inoperative: walk the decision through the rules, then placard and record it.
Systems: explain three from the handbook, and what you would see in the cockpit when each fails.
WhyMost accidents start on the ground, with a decision.
Am I fit, and is this wise? (I.H)
IMSAFE, plus the ACS list: hypoxia, carbon monoxide, fatigue and more. Link symptom, cause and fix for three.
Alcohol, drugs and over-the-counter medications.
The five hazardous attitudes, and get-there-itis: "they took the day off" and "we're almost there".
Personal minimums: written down, from your logbook, applied to this trip's forecast.
WhyThe plan includes what you would need if the flight ended somewhere you didn't choose.
If it goes wrong out there (IX.D)
ELT: how it activates, how to check you haven't set it off, and when it's inspected.
Fire extinguisher and first aid kit, if carried: where they are and how to use them.
Survival kit for the season and the route: water, warmth, a light, a whistle or mirror, and a charged phone.
Brief your passenger on all of it.
WhyIf something does go wrong, the pilot's duties to the NTSB start right away.
After an accident or incident
An accident: someone is killed or seriously hurt, or the airplane is substantially damaged.
Tell the NTSB at once: an accident, an overdue airplane, or a listed serious incident like a fire in flight.
The written report follows within 10 days of an accident.
Leave the wreckage alone, except to help people or prevent more harm.
WhyA missing paper ends the checkride before it starts.
What to bring
You: photo ID, student pilot certificate, medical, the knowledge test report, and your IACRA application.
Logbook: the 61.109 experience and the endorsements your instructor signs.
Airplane: its certificates, the handbook, and the maintenance records.
The full list: the applicant's checklist in the ACS Companion Guide, section 7.
A real accident
In June 2013 a 19-year-old private pilot took off from Oakland County International in Waterford, Michigan, in a Cessna 172M with three passengers. He had passed his checkride seven weeks earlier with 52 hours, flying a Cirrus SR20 almost exclusively; reports that he had flown a 172 for a few hours could not be confirmed. The airplane lifted off, reached about 100 ft and would not climb; he told the tower he was "a little overweight" and needed to land, and moments later it hit the ground, killing all four. The flaps were found fully extended: SR20 takeoffs are normally made with partial flaps, 172M takeoffs normally with flaps up, and the NTSB found the probable cause was his failure to retract the flaps before takeoff, due to his lack of familiarity with the make and model. Weight and balance calculations put the airplane slightly under its maximum gross weight. The chain started on the ground, with a full airplane in a model he barely knew: exactly the risk ACS task I.A names (flying an unfamiliar airplane), and the kind of decision this oral asks you to defend. NTSB report CEN13FA364
Your calls
Decision points
Go or no-go for the trip, on the forecast the instructor hands you, with your reasons.
An airworthiness problem the instructor plants: an inoperative item, an inspection that is due, or a missing document. Fly, fix or cancel?
The passenger: their weight and bags put you near a limit, or they need to be back by a set time. What changes?
Your own fitness: a cold, a short night, a new medication.
The whole flight
Also on this flight
Part of the flight
Who
Trip planning and weather, before the lesson
You, alone at home
Every-flight routine for the planned trip
You, briefing the instructor as examiner
Airworthiness from the airplane's documents and records
You, with the real papers
Mock oral, scenario by scenario: at least two "whys" deep on every task
Instructor asks as the examiner; you answer
Planted changes to the scenario: at least two
Instructor sets them; you decide
Survival kit and emergency equipment, shown in the airplane
You
Checkride paperwork: test report, IACRA, logbook totals
You; instructor reviews
Review of each weak answer
Both, you first
Debrief
Both, you first
The standard
Ready to move on when
You answer by applying the rule to the scenario and saying where it comes from, not by reciting.
You can follow each answer through a second and third "why" in all five tasks.
You can find any number the examiner asks for in the handbook, the checklist or the regulations without help.
You make at least one no-go or change-the-plan call during the oral and defend it.
You can say what makes an accident, when the NTSB must be told at once, and when the report is due.
Your paperwork is ready: knowledge test report in date, IACRA application started, logbook totals checked against 61.109(a).
Read "Possible Outcomes of the Test" in ACS Appendix 1 and all of Appendix 2, Safety of Flight, in the ACS.
Update the trip you defended today for the day of lesson 24, with that day's weather.
Chair fly the whole flight: the passenger briefing, the departure, the first checkpoint, a diversion, and the maneuvers in the order an examiner might call them.
Pack the bag from the practical test checklist and bring it to lesson 24.
After the flight
Debrief
You go first, then the instructor. Three points at most, and you write down one thing to work on next time.
Your first mock oral: which answer today could you not have given at lesson 2?
Where did you recite instead of apply, and what would the applied answer have been?
Which of the planted changes would have changed your real plan, and how?
Notes for teaching this lesson
Before
Give the student the scenario a few days ahead, or use their own trip from lesson 2. Prepare two or three planted changes (see Curveballs).
Look at their knowledge test report and plan questions on every ACS code listed. Those must be covered before the 61.39(a)(6)(iii) endorsement.
Ask the club well ahead how a student gets the airplane's maintenance records for a checkride, so it isn't a surprise on the day.
Sources behind the slides. The oral's format (ground first, scenarios, sampling at least one knowledge and one risk management element per task, plus the knowledge test codes): ACS Appendix 1. Recency, 14 CFR 61.57, and the flight review, 61.56. Cost sharing, 14 CFR 61.113: not less than the pro rata share of fuel, oil, airport fees or rental.
Airworthiness: inspections, 14 CFR 91.409; airworthiness directives, part 39; the ELT, 14 CFR 91.207; inoperative equipment, 14 CFR 91.213 and the required equipment in 91.205. Alcohol and drugs, 14 CFR 91.17. Briefing the passenger on emergency equipment is ACS IX.D.S2.
Hazardous attitudes and the operational pitfalls (get-there-itis among them): PHAK chapter 2.
NTSB Part 830, read on eCFR: an accident is death or serious injury, or substantial damage, between boarding with intent to fly and everyone getting off (49 CFR 830.2). Serious injury and substantial damage are defined there too; a dented skin, a damaged prop on the ground or a broken tire is not substantial damage. Immediate notification covers an accident, an overdue aircraft believed in an accident, and listed serious incidents such as a flight control failure, a crew member unable to fly through injury or illness, an in-flight fire, an in-flight collision, and property damage over $25,000 (830.5). The report (NTSB Form 6120.1) is due within 10 days of an accident, or after 7 days if an overdue aircraft is still missing; an incident report only when the NTSB asks (830.15). Wreckage may be moved only to help people, protect the wreckage or protect the public (830.10).
The checkride paperwork: the knowledge test report, passed within the 24 calendar months before the month of the test (61.39(a)(1)); the application in IACRA; the 61.39(a)(6) endorsement (training within 2 calendar months, ready for the test, knowledge test deficiencies reviewed) and the practical test endorsement under 61.103(f), 61.107(b) and 61.109, worded as in AC 61-65K, appendix A. Equipment: the view-limiting device, current charts, plotter and computer, navigation log, Chart Supplement and AIM. The full list is in section 7 of the ACS Companion Guide for Pilots.
During
Be the examiner: no teaching in the middle of an answer. Write down weak answers and come back to them after.
Ask "how do you know?" and "where does that come from?" until the answer reaches a document.
Common errors: reciting regulations without applying them; "I'd ask my instructor" as a final answer; airworthiness answers that stop at "it had an annual"; personal minimums that are not written down; treating legal as safe; calling get-there-itis one of the five hazardous attitudes.
Make the student find things in the handbook and the records in front of you. Speed of finding is part of being ready.
Walk out to the airplane for IX.D: have the student show you the ELT switch, the extinguisher if carried, and what they would add as a survival kit for today's season.
Curveballs
Ground lesson: each is handed over mid-oral, and the student decides out loud.
A worse forecast for the trip home.
An inoperative item on the squawk list, or an inspection that comes due before the trip.
The passenger's real weight and bags push the airplane near a limit.
"You've had a cold for two days and took something for it this morning."
"On the way home you taxi into a fence and dent the wingtip. Who do you tell, and is it an accident?"
After
Mark the first: the first full mock oral.
Teach the weak answers, then ask them again in a new scenario before you call them done.
Check the logbook against 61.109(a) item by item and note anything missing. Start the IACRA application with the student if it isn't started.
Ask the other instructor to schedule the Pre-Check Ride Phase Check (lesson 24) inside the 2 calendar months before the planned test month.