Caribbean Scene - The FAA Oral Examination - I Have Been Asked These Questions

The FAA Oral Examination; a requirement with becoming a pilot will, what follows are two of those recollections. Those I intentionally forget), some times somber (I have had first hand experience with crashes; and yes. . . Sometimes insane, sometimes humorous, as a muse about days past I recall certain times that were sometimes bazaar, i am in the sunset of my aviation career.

Such as: when I was tested for my private pilots license the examiner was at liberty to ask just about anything and everything, in days gone by the standardization was not as it is today, The Oral Examination and the Flight Test, this ritual (Right of Passage if you will) is composed of two parts, the "Practical Examination", in the United States there has evolved a standardized procedure involving the FAA and an aspirant aviator.

Q: What is the function of the landing gear?

A: It saves wear and tear on the bottom of the plane.

What follows is a question I was asked during the oral for my CFI (Certified Flight Instructor). As my aviation career progressed I underwent numerous exams.

Which way do you hold the ailerons? The wind is right down the runway, turn onto the runway, you need to make a 90° you are about take off, not J-3), q: You are flying a J-2 Cub (note J-2.

I didn't know the correct answer. At the time (during the test) I thought that the check airman was totally full of el poop-po de Toro (male bovine fecal matter).

Hold the ailerons full right, if you are turning left onto the runway. Correct Answer: Opposite the direction of turn i.e.

The J-3 does, and the J-2 doesn't have brakes, it's a skid, the J-2 doesn't have a tail wheel. Those differences make the answer to the forgoing question much more relevant, there are some significant differences between the J-3 and the J-2. The guy was right, guess what, my opinion of the examined changed when I flew a J-3 Cub for the first time!

Don't use one without the other", stick and rudder, "Stick and rudder. The pilots think that the rudder peddles are something to rest your feet on, disappearing because in today's airplanes, there is a little jingle that is vanishing under the sands of time.

"Adverse Yaw". Why?

It really does make a difference which way you hold the ailerons while you are taxing for take off. If you ever fly a J-3 remember this. . . It's the drag. Consequently the aircraft will yaw opposite the direction of turn, anytime you make lift you also make drag; the adverse yaw is caused by the down deflecting aileron. And the plane rolls into a bank and turns, the other goes down, one aileron goes up. You take the stick or yoke and move it in the direction of the desired turn, to make the plane turn.

And also a question that until relatively recently had no provable answer: a question that at the time I thought was even more male bovine fecal matter than the above, next is a question for which I tutored,

After I passed everything required for the CFI I continued with the CFII, since Uncle Sam was providing 90% of the funding. I was stationed at Camp Pendleton in southern California and took advantage of this at a GI Bill approved flight school at the Palomar airport (now KCRQ). This included aviation, a member of the military could use the GI Bill to fund higher education, at the time. Next step after the CFI is the CFII (Certified Instrument Flight Instructor). . . Well. Above I have related the story concerning a question I was asked during the oral exam for my CFI (Certified Flight Instructor).

This is as serious as a heart attack. . . But. The question I am about to relate I am sure that you will think I am absolutely out of my mind. The preparation for the oral exam. i.e, there is a segment of the academic training that (at the time) didn't have ridged standardization.

My instructor asked me a question that was on the list of cacamainy (spelling correct for my usage) questions that I might be asked, so. " and busted him. The examiner replied with "I care, "! The applicant answered with "Who cares, this particular examiner asked a similar question to an applicant, oh? Is it a pre-flight item? Who cares? . . I mean. Such as: Which way does the gyro in the turn needle rotate? Questions that had no purpose other than to show off some superior knowledge of an unimportant detail of something that nobody cared about anyway. Etc. Etc, inapplicable, irrelevant, a slight digression: There was an examiner at the San Diego GATO who was notorious for asking absurd.

I suppose that the purpose of the question was an exercise in visualization. There was a high probability that I would be asked this question, my instructor assured me that if this particular examiner was assigned to me. ? What? How would you track the localizer needle if you flew the approach inverted, question: On an ILS approach?

Get in a plane and fly an ILS upside-down, what are you going to do, i mean? Each of us accused the other of being so full of dog stool that he shouldn't be allowed to live. My instructor and me get into a royal urinating contest.

Flipping the plane right side up and landing, the hard part is when you get to DH. After you practice enough it's really not that difficult, actually. . . " Answer: Yes (sort of). "Can I fly an ILS inverted, next question? " Answer: Yes. So I asked myself: "Will the planes on this simulator fly upside-down? I build my simulator and I remembered this question, then. Time goes by and a proof positive answer was never found.

The only thing that is reversed are the pitch corrections. Demonstrated by computer simulation is: track the localizer normally, ". "How do you track the localizer needle if you fly an ILS inverted; the correct answer to the question?

Their simulators don't fly inverted very well, if you have occasion to take training at SimCom or Flight Safety. Throttle quadrant and rudder peddles), the planes fly upside-down just fine (I use the CH Products yoke, end note: The simulator that I built for myself is based on the Microsoft 2004 Century of Flight program.