Originally Posted by StudentFlyer

My flight portion of the checkride, which I passed no problem, was 3 hours long.(What the heck could you even do for 3 hours, everything in the PTS twice? mine was at most an hour and a half, might have been less) Two DEs that I know of said that they have never even heard of a CFI initial ride being that long...and I was better than PTS standards and was doing everything good, even the FAA fed that gave it to me said that it was a good checkride. Maybe strung it out hoping he'd bust me on something,(I might agree with this statement, so then the question is.. why does he want to bust you?) I don't know, but I am still talked about around the school.(Maybe that's true, but seems like an arrogant statement to make)



I had that problem early on, and will once in a while I occasionally reach my limit...which is always under IFR, trying to copy an ATC clearance, intercept a course (worse, ILS), trying to "teach" what is going on, checklist, etc. As for mentally doing these sorties before going in the airplane, I do as best as I can, though like on my CFII, I was made aware of the approaches we'd be doing about 15 minutes prior to departure, so I did as best as I could at mentally flying them. ( Forgive me if I'm wrong, but most places you go will be fairly close. You know that you'll do an ILS and 2 non precisions. The non precisions might be hard to guess but most areas won't have more than a dozen ILS's probably less.)



Thanks for the advice, maybe I can bring this up on my recheck.



My flying is good, other than a very occasional PTS deviation,(Now here's my arrogant statement, I don't think I've been outside the PTS on a checkride, I'm more certain about altitude than airspeed or heading. 100ft is relatively a lot.) which I detect and correct immediately (like heading 15 degrees off, or altitude will stray beyond 100ft). When these things do happen, its almost always due to some distraction, which I have successfully reduced. (but not sucessfully enough to maintain PTS standards... be careful about how hard you pat yourself on the back for reducing destraction)

As far as showing a DE and FAA fed up...I don't do that, or even try to (I just hope I don't come across that way, either). I just simply tell what I know,(Which in this context sounds like you may believe is greater than the DE.. a dicey postion to assume) though I do have a slight controvery over this; do I say something that is correct but can dig a hole, or do I just say the common answer and see what happens? (My stance on this is go with the common answer, you don't get any points for being a show off and the less you say the better off you are... I follow that mantra and let me tell you, I LOVE to talk.) Example, I was asked on my CFII how many NOTAMs there are. I have always been told/taught from multiple CFIs that there are two, FDC notams, and distant notams (NOTAM L too, but those are gone now). Actually, I know from studying the AIM, that there are four. The DE that did my CFII is extremely smart, and gives amazing advice, afterall, he's been a CFI for 30+ years. When I told him 4 (again, trying to explain what I know), he looked that the AIM, and was like, "wow, you got me." But understood, I wouldn't want to talk back to someone with authority, definately not wise.



Thanks for the advice. I always learn something on checkrides, and definelty like that aspect of them. As far as I know, I fly within the PTS standards, even better at times,(I think it's generally accepted that you should be better than the standards at ALL times, the PTS being the bare minimum) other than as I explained above, the rare instance where I deviate, but always correct it.