New Private & Commercial Practical Test Standards

New FAA practical test standards (PTS) for commercial and private pilots will take effect on June 1, 2012 and an instructor candidate asked how the FAA notifies the pilot/instructor community when changes are made to the PTS. I received emails from the National Associated of Flight Instructors (a great organization for flight instructors) and from FAASafety, though I'm honestly not sure which FAASafety notification preference resulted in that email. These new standards are a mix of good news and bad news, so I'll start with some gripes and constructive criticisms and then provide a summary of the more important changes. If you'd just like to access a PDF comparison document for each PTS, click here for the Private and here for the Commercial.

Formatting Issues

Perhaps this is a case of "you can take the pilot out of technical writing, but you can't take the technical writer out of the pilot," but ... Wouldn't it be nice if the FAA consistently used change bars to indicate new material? In some places they used change bars, in others they didn't. And the summary of changes at the beginning of each PTS is classic FAA:

Added criterion number 9 to Section 1, Area of Operation IV, Task A Objective. Reason: Inadvertently omitted during last revision.

You'll have to flip a bunch of pages to discover that area of operation IV is "Takeoffs and Landings," task A is "Normal and Crosswind Takeoff and Climb," and the criterion number 9 that was added is "Rotates and lifts off at the recommended speed and accelerates to Vy." This sort of indirection is especially maddening if you are using an electronic device like an iPad to read the PTS, where flipping pages is tedious.

Interestingly, the FAA preserved a few blank pages to indicate material that was removed. Some of the pagination choices are poorly chosen, not ensuring the title of a section is kept with the bulk of the material that follows. Did I already mention this is annoying when viewing the document on a computer or iPad? I think I did ...

Introductory Material

The introduction to all of the PTS really need to be rethought (or at least edited) because they are a mishmash of mostly boring, repetitive boilerplate, occasionally peppered with useful and relevant information. For example, mentioning the importance of scanning for traffic and collision avoidance in a multitude of places is not an effective way to emphasize the importance of not running into other aircraft and may very well have the opposite effect.

The requirement that the oral portion of the test be competed before the flight portion, that the examiner develop a written plan of action, that a scenario will be used as part of the examination, that either the examiner or the candidate can terminate the test at any time, and that the test can only continue if the candidate agrees could all be stated much more clearly and with fewer words. Heck, it might even make candidates more likely to actually read the darn thing.

The judgement assessment matrix has been removed from both the private and commercial PTS. Next, the FAA is continuing an unfortunate choice they started with the Instrument Rating PTS: Including conceptual items on things like Risk Management, Aeronautical Decision-Making, and CFIT as part of the introductory narrative instead of listing them as Tasks within Areas of Operation. The intent seems to be that these items will be evaluated throughout the flight test as part of a scenario or "mission" created by the examiner, but why bury it in the introduction?

Significant Private PTS Changes


Private pilots candidates will now need to demonstrate an emergency descent, which could be interesting since some manufacturers of trainer aircraft do not provide specific guidance on how to accomplish this task.

The PTS now specifically says that an approved manufacturer's checklist or equivalent must be used. I have a big problem with this because many of the manufacturer's checklists are ... well ... crap. Ever look at the Cessna 172 AFTER LANDING checklist? It consists of one item - "Flaps UP."

Private pilot candidates will now need to be able to demonstrate specific knowledge of risk management, task management, and automation management. This should be a wake-up call for instructors who refuse to teach their students how to use the GPS or the autopilot installed in the plane because it is "cheating."

I expose my student pilots to a rejected takeoff early in their training so that they are spring-loaded to abort a takeoff rather than to takeoff regardless of what may be happening. This task is still missing from the private single-engine PTS, which I think is an unfortunate oversight.

Here are some other changes:

• Some new items added to the bibliography of references
• A list of abbreviations has been added
• The examiner must develop a scenario incorporating as many tasks as possible
• Some new special emphasis areas, including wire strike avoidance
• For multi-engine airplane, engine failure will not be simulated below 500' AGL
• For multi-engine airplane, the feathering of one propeller must be demonstrated unless the manufacturer prohibits it
• Specific details on issuing a Letter of Discontinuance
• Change Crew Resource Management (CRM) to Single-pilot Resource Management (SRM)
• Added requirements for Aeronautical Decision Making, Risk Management, Task Management, Situational Awareness, CFIT, and Automation Management
• Requirement to use approved manufacturer's checklist or equivalent
• Requirement that stall demonstrations recoveries be accomplished at or above 1500' AGL for single-engine or 3000' AGL for multi-engine unless the manufacturer recommends a higher altitude
•  Inclusion of runway incursion avoidance criterion in several tasks
• Added "If a crosswind condition does not exist, the applicant’s knowledge of crosswind elements shall be evaluated."
• Addition of Emergency Descent task
• Addition of a new Runway Incursion Avoidance task in the Preflight Procedures area of operation

Significant Commercial PTS Changes

Stalls for commercial applicants have an important change:

In accordance with FAA policy, all stalls for the Commercial Certificate/Rating will be taken to the “onset”(buffeting) stall condition.

One assumes that some recent transport and commuter category aircraft accidents were the genesis for this change.

Several years ago, the FAA replaced the Emergency Descent in the commercial single-engine PTS with the Steep Spiral. Most examiners I've talked to think the Steep Spiral task is silly. Now the PTS has restored the Emergency Descent, which has real-world application. And the steep spiral? It's still in there and it's still silly.

Both single- and multi-engine commercial candidates must be prepared to demonstrate accelerated stalls, something that was previously a maneuver just for CFI candidates. Kudos to the FAA for a well-written description of how the accelerated stall is to be demonstrated.

For multi-engine applicants, the feathering of one propeller is now explicitly required:

The feathering of one propeller shall be demonstrated inflight, unless the manufacturer prohibits the intentional feathering of the propellers during flight. The maneuver shall be performed at altitudes above 3,000 feet AGL or the manufacturer’s recommended altitude, whichever is higher, and positions [sic] where safe landings on established airports can be readily accomplished.

Some new items added to the bibliography of references

• Addition of new abbreviations
• The examiner must develop a scenario incorporating as many tasks as possible
• Some new special emphasis areas, including wire strike avoidance
• For multi-engine airplane, engine failure will not be simulated below 500' AGL
• Specific details on issuing a Letter of Discontinuance
• Requirement to use approved manufacturer's checklist or equivalent
• Addition of the Emergency Descent task
• Addition of the Accelerated Stall task

Preparation is Key

This is just a basic summary of the changes. If you are a commercial or private pilot applicant, now is the time to get the new PTS, break out your highlighter, and make sure all you've covered all the bases.

Not in Vain

Try as I might, I couldn't seem to convincingly re-write the lyrics to Carley Simon's You're So Vain, replacing "Lear Jet" with "Grumman Cougar," "total eclipse" with "annular eclipse," and "Nova Scotia" with "Redding, California." Oh well, Sunday's pleasure flight (my first in a long, long while) did involve a Grumman Cougar and a trip a few hundred miles north in pursuit of ideal eclipse viewing conditions.

Eclipse-chasing crew ...

A carbon-based autopilot (Gadberry model) comes in handy when taking photos

Handed off to Oakland Center, 40 miles south of Redding, it was clear others had the same idea. Numerous requests for VFR flight following to Redding were rebuffed by the controller due to workload. Nearing the airport to enter right downwind, we could see the transient parking was packed.

After landing, we found an empty space near some other twins but soon learned that space was reserved. The kind folks at Air Shasta allowed us to park on the ramp in front of their hangars for the hour or so we planned to be there. Nice, friendly folk, great facilities, pretty good fuel prices, too. If you find yourself in Redding, stop by.

We set up camp in the grass, under a nice shade tree which helped dull the 33 degree C heat. Soon we were joined by another group who had flown in.

Todd, setting up his eclipse viewing apparatus just outside Air Shasta

And there were other interested parties, too.

Start of the eclipse.

The viewing equipment had to be adjusted every few minutes to track the sun.

Our neighbors had a pretty good setup, too.

Soon we noticed that even the sunlight through the trees showed the eclipse.

Almost annular with the ASOS reporting a 1 degree C drop in temperature.

Annularity dude!

Amazing, annular shadows through the tree leaves.

After angularity was achieved, we headed for the plane and beat a hasty retreat to Oakland. As fate would have it we were the first to depart sound bound in a line of aircraft doing the same. And again, we acquired flight following from Oakland Center just before they got busy again.

Returning home, near Lake Berryessa.

About to start a VFR descent to the Bay Area

Thanks to Todd and Emma for joining us, bringing the viewing equipment, and supplying some tasty snacks. Given that I fly for a living, I'd forgotten how much fun it can be to fly somewhere. There's a lesson in there for all pilots: Don't forget how to go flying, just for the fun of it.

The Case of the Missing Waypoint

If you never use a KLN94, this post might not be of much interest to you.

Situated south of Sacramento, California are four television broadcast towers, locally known as the Walnut Grove Towers. Over 2000 feet tall, these four masts are among the tallest in the US, let alone the world.

The Sacramento Valley has few natural obstructions that would affect the design of an instrument approach, but these tower have done just that. When it comes to TERPs (the design standards for instrument terminal procedures) I'm no expert, but these towers undoubtedly affected the choice of altitudes at WAGER and WIMUP.

If human-made obstructions weren't enough, avionics designers have created insidiously convoluted interfaces. But that's only part of the complexity equation. In addition to TERPs, you may need to factor in the way instrument approaches are coded in the GPS database. The shortcomings and complexities in these designs have a combinational effect, resulting in a mess that pilots and flight instructors must live with on a daily basis. In some cases, we bet our lives on this stuff.

Flying this approach with an instrument student, imagine our surprise when we noticed that WIMUP was not displayed by the KLN94. After passing WAGER, the current waypoint was GIFME and it required some fast thinking to figure out how to determine when we'd passed WIMUP. Assuming this was an error, I decided to ask the folks at Honeywell and their response was enlightening.

Turns out that some GPS receivers (the KLN94 being one) can't handle intermediate waypoints between the Final Approach Course Fix (FACF), the Final Approach Fix (FAF) and the Missed Approach Point (MAP). For the KLN94, Jeppesen coded the database with WAGER as the FAFC, GIFME as the FAF, and RW25 as the MAP. Since WIMUP is located between the FACF and the FAF, it's not in the database. If you're a dive-and-drive kind of pilot, this bit of information may give you pause. You'd need to descend pretty rapidly and be waay off course to get into trouble, but running into the guy wires that hold up those tall antennae would not be pretty.

Staying up-to-date on these bits of minutia is a challenge and it's unclear how many other approaches out there are affected by this issue. So always cross-reference what your GPS says with the approach chart and remember that when it comes to RNAV, it's a jungle out there.