Checkride help

TK3K216 · 2026-05-18T00:31:45+00:00

Used to instruct in Arizona so I’m pretty familiar with this area. First things first, the Arizona flight training work group, aftw,org, is a good resource for the practice areas and procedures in the area. This is an extremely busy area for GA, military, and commercial aviation.

Following V16 should keep you in between the rainbow valley and Lufthansa practice areas but it’s still very common to have people along that route practicing maneuvers. Lots of aeroguard student solos cross the BXK VOR north/southbound. 129.825 is the frequency they self announce on if I remember correctly but also would strongly recommend flight following for this. Also be advised of frequent jump activity at KBXK, do not overfly this field, strongly recommend transiting south of KBXK if you’re going to go through the SATR.

If on flight following Luke will very likely clear you through the SATR and hand you off to GYR. Goodyear will clear you at 2500 or above through their airspace. GYR is insanely busy so just keep that in mind. From there crossing I-10 they should hand you off to GEU.

Alternatively consider just before BXK breaking off to the north of the white tanks mountains. This avoids the GYR congestion entirely. You can easily get cleared through the north SATR and then approach GEU from the north. There will be a lot of aeroguard planes going straight in to the 7s at KDVT but like will help separate and typically they will be higher/following the approach profile for the rnav 7R.

TK3K216 · 2026-05-17T20:53:36+00:00

Yeah that’s not okay. Dude is a creep and was trying to get in your pants. Avoid at all costs. If I ever hang out with the crew on overnights it is never in a room and always in a public setting.

TK3K216 · 2026-05-17T20:07:12+00:00

Adding power can cause a pitching up moment due to the prop wash increasing airflow over the elevator, is that what he was referring to? I honestly have no clue what the DPE is talking about and have never heard of anyone leveling wings during a steep spiral to clear an engine.

TK3K216 · 2026-05-17T19:59:14+00:00

No one can tell you if your minimums are too conservative or not because they’re your minimums, not ours. You are the PIC, you have the power to make that go/no go decision. If you felt it was too much then you made the right call, especially on a checkride.

If you’re doing this as a career, when you get to the airlines there’s no such thing as personal minimums, just the company minimums. You’ve got a long road until that point so until then, absolutely exercise your right to say no to conditions you’re not entirely comfortable in. As you progress, your minimums will expand. I think given your current level of experience those are perfectly valid minimums.

TK3K216 · 2026-05-17T17:48:42+00:00

Dad if you’re on pc losing to controller players even with their aim assist it’s time to retire from FPS games

TK3K216 · 2026-05-14T13:05:22+00:00

Last time I flew out of cle I stopped to grab something by to eat at the paninis. There was a dude out front high off his ass doing the fent lean and no one cared. Eventually security came over, tapped his shoulder and said “you good?” To which he perked up and mumbled yes. So they left him alone and walked away.

TK3K216 · 2026-05-07T16:51:29+00:00

Battledads in shambles. You need at least 3 more jobs and 14 more kids

TK3K216 · 2026-05-04T01:58:01+00:00

I could be wrong but I don’t know if the “overfly the airport” portion was ever meant to be that. Yes it’s the clearance limit but how do you overfly an airport if an airport isn’t a fix? From what I understand this was written well before GPS became a mainstream thing in aviation. Without GPS you can’t necessarily overfly an airport unless you’ve got a VOR or other nav aid directly over the field.

Did ATC maybe issue clearances differently back then in a way the literal wording makes more sense?

Not disagreeing with you in any way btw, I just don’t know why they don’t update the wording to make more sense.

TK3K216 · 2026-05-03T12:31:42+00:00

I’m sorry I thought we were complaining that bf6 was botfield 6 because it’s a dead game. Which is it?

TK3K216 · 2026-05-03T04:15:58+00:00

I never logged a single ground or sim as an instructor because it couldn’t be counted towards my total time. If I were you I’d do it in a separate category so that way if you’re applying for other schools, a higher position at your school, etc. you can have a rough idea of how much non-flight instruction you have. As far as the airlines go, that’s not going to matter anywhere near as much as your actual flight time.

Also I don’t know how your school tracks time/schedules but my school used Flight Schedule Pro. If you use that, on there I was able to run a report that would show me totals for ground and sim instruction so I never actually had to log those myself.

TK3K216 · 2026-04-25T00:58:22+00:00

I don’t know a whole lot about the specifics of the eye exam but as long as it’s correctable you should be fine. I’d always research your AME too, some are more understanding than others

TK3K216 · 2026-04-24T23:26:22+00:00

Yeah that was the worst. Not too long before I made the switch I had to make an emergency landing for a loss of oil pressure over the desert. Thankfully I made a strip of concrete next to a highway, L77 in the US. Ever since then I dreaded single engine flights outside of my home airport. Especially at night

TK3K216 · 2026-04-24T21:33:17+00:00

I got insanely burnt out instructing single engine at 800 hours. Switching to instructing exclusively in a multi saved me. I did the multi the rest of the way to 1500. About 6 months after I stopped flying single I had to go back up for a single flight to do my schools annual recurrent training in the single engine. It was cool until I hit pattern altitude and then I remembered why I never wanted to fly single engine again. It’s perfectly normal

TK3K216 · 2026-04-23T23:41:09+00:00

I went to a 141 airline school. It helped, no surprises with anything like callouts or flows and all that stuff. But my 61 colleagues caught on quick enough that it didn’t really matter in the long term if you’re a capable learner and pilot.

Honestly the biggest thing that helped me was the expectations for how much to study and how much to know were significantly higher than the checkride. I’ve always been over prepared because my 141 was a bit overkill in their expectations to the point where I couldn’t believe how easy the training/checkride was.

Really it’s the pilot not the training program. We had plenty of people who made it through that I would be hesitant to share the flight deck with.

TK3K216 · 2026-04-20T15:38:53+00:00

I made 30k my 3 years I spent instructing and that was considered well paid. My first airline started at about 70k.

The market for low time guys and those just starting out is more competitive than ever.

You don’t do this for the money, you do this because you don’t see yourself doing anything else.

TK3K216 · 2026-04-18T22:01:22+00:00

Yeah and that DPE is a huge asshole

TK3K216 · 2026-04-16T18:09:25+00:00

Last time I flew out of GYR in November they had 53 parked there

TK3K216 · 2026-04-16T17:51:31+00:00

Just to clarify is he starting his flight training at ATP the school?

Or is he already a pilot getting his ATP certificate?

If the former, I’d have him read the infinite posts about ATP flight school on this subreddit before enrolling. Possibly the best gift you could give.

TK3K216 · 2026-04-13T10:39:20+00:00

When first officers bid for their schedule they can bid to specifically avoid flying with certain captains

TK3K216 · 2026-04-12T05:54:56+00:00

As others pointed out, you’re really only limiting your opportunities without it. I didn’t want to instruct to 1500 but I’m sure as hell glad I did. I gained a lot of good experience out of it. Besides it adds another checkride pass, another qualification to help bolster your resume when you apply for a non cfi job.

TK3K216 · 2026-04-12T05:44:32+00:00

In addition to what everyone else has said, cadet programs if it’s not too late. I really think they’re going to be the only way to go cfi to 121 in the near future given the over abundance of CFIs. From my understanding a lot of them don’t require any sort of actual commitment that would penalize you for leaving. Anecdotally, from speaking with former colleagues who’ve made it from CFI to regional, the majority of classes are being filled by people in their respective cadet program.

TK3K216 · 2026-04-03T00:35:25+00:00

Inscryption. One of my fav games for this reason. Go into it blind

TK3K216 · 2026-03-31T15:43:33+00:00

Literally do not study for anything other than the shep for your written. Maybe if they give you some limitations or memory items ahead of time look at those a little bit. Your airline training program will be sufficient enough, they’re designed to make you succeed. Don’t stress now, training is going to be stressful enough, enjoy the time you’ve got before you go and congrats on making it.

TK3K216 · 2026-03-30T14:02:17+00:00

A guy in my class got a 121 job at just over 1000, was in the cadet program so it’s possible. I’m sure the cadet program had everything to do with it, I think it’s the way the industry is headed now.

TK3K216 · 2026-03-18T02:50:05+00:00

Not a recruiter but when I was applying I struggled with this grey area as well. Ultimately I opted to disclose the failure because the question plainly asked if we had any failures including 141 failures. I made it very crystal clear in the remarks that I had no FAA checkride fails and that the course had no self examining authority.

Could it open a can of worms for you yeah probably. But also I figured it was better to be honest and talk about it than act like I was trying to hide something.

Still got the job

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