Duksrule

With the PPL oral exam I am guessing that it is not an open book sort of thing. If it is please correct me. I am reading through the exam study guid and wondering why you would need to remember things like

-What are the requirments for PPL

It would seem that this is something that if you had a question you would go to the regs and look it up. What is the purpose of needing to remember things like that? I can see having to remember things like emergency stuff that you would have to act fast on.

Anyone?

Cubdriver

DEs job is to ask you things you should know and that material is outlined in the "PTS" Practical Test Standards. Guides like ASA Private Pilot Oral Prep Guide help prepare for the exam.

I have not encountered an examiner who required exhaustive memorization. I hear the inital CFI checkride is an exception to this, but in 4 checkrides none disallowed an occasional referencing of books during the exam. In any case a DE knows you can look something up, so the only question is do you know where to look. As soon as you tell them where the info is found, assuming it is of the order of minutia and not basic material, they do not count it against you.

On the other hand for your basic material which there is quite a bit of, such as day vfr equipment, night vfr equipment, airworthiness requirements etc., you may want to make some acronyms to help retain those lists and be pretty good at remembering what's on them.

If you are going for your private pilot exam and do not know the requirements, definitely study it some more. That is mostly found in the PTS.

iflyprops

Take some of your reference books, especially the FAR/AIM. If you don't know something, be honest and look it up. The examiner will appreciate that. The ASA oral exam guides are good so read through them. Also, review performance charts for the aircraft you will be flying. Its pretty straightforward, just relax and you'll be fine.

Brian Z

If you look on the checklist in the PPL PTS booklet, FAA-S-8081-14A, it has a current AIM as an item you should have. To get to the point of your question. I was told as long as you can look it up it is ok. The only concern is having to look up too much. In my mock oral I had to look up what the solid black lines on the sectional signify. I did not know so I refered to the legend. Well they are the boundry of a TRSA. Now I know.

Pilotpip

If it's an FAA book it's usually fair game. They're likely going to ask a stumper or two to make sure you are at least familiar with the FARs and whatnot.

Finding every answer in your books versus knowing many of the essentials won't help you however.

blastboy

If you aren't taking the PPL with a moody examiner at LGB, you'll be fine. Just read the PTS and oral guide and you will ace it! I swear.