7

Commercial operations

The rest of the checkride: the pilot and airplane paperwork, the ramp and the taxi, the airport, takeoffs and landings to standard, navigation for hire, weather products, fitness, and emergencies with passengers aboard.

  1. 1Is the pilot legal, and is the airplaneRecent experience, recordkeeping and proficiency for the pilot; inspections, logbook entries, preventive maintenance and inoperative equipment for the airplane.15 min
  2. 2Flight deck management, starting, and the taxiThe passenger briefing the regulation requires, checklists and cargo, the engine start in cold and heat, and the taxi at night, in low visibility, and when ATC changes the plan.16 min
  3. 3Communications, light signals, and the traffic patternWhat fails when the radio goes quiet and what replaces it, radar assistance and the runway status lights, standard words, and the two invisible hazards in the pattern: windshear and wake.14 min
  4. 4Takeoffs, landings, and the go-around at commercial standardConfiguration, the runway decision, what wind and surface do to the numbers, tailwind and LAHSO, the risks the ACS attaches to short and soft fields, and the go-around decided in time.17 min
  5. 5VFR navigation for hire: the plan, the radar, and being lostTerrain in the plan, the power setting and the check of planned against actual, radar services and the transponder, the electronic flight bag, choosing a diversion airport, and what to do and whom to call when lost.16 min
  6. 6Weather for the commercial pilot: the atmosphere and two graphical productsStability and what it predicts, moisture and the forms of precipitation, the six kinds of fog, and how to read the Graphical Forecasts for Aviation and the Convective Outlook without being misled by either.15 min
  7. 7Fit to fly for hire: the body, the rules, and the biased mindEar and sinus blocks, cold and hypothermia, the nitrogen a scuba dive leaves behind, the alcohol and drug rules and what the substances actually do, and the two biases that make a competent pilot see what they expected.15 min
  8. 8Emergencies with passengers aboardImmediate action items and the airplane's limits, the engine-out glide and the field, fire and smoke, system failures from the vacuum pump to the trim, the door that opens, and the checklist discipline that keeps an abnormal situation from becoming an undesired aircraft state.18 min