Below is an interview with a friend of mine who we met on my Flying Across America journey. Mike Daniels our newest certificated pilot has long been active in General Aviation and is even working on a homebuilt. Check out the interview and grab some tips on how Mike passed his checkride. Here’s a hint… He might have used my book too! 
The video portion of this acts up just a bit but the audio is still great for you guys to enjoy
Mike’s Twitter
Mike’s Website
Mike’s Podcast
Text Transcript
Jason:
Hey everybody, Jason Schappert here with a buddy of mine, Mike Daniels who actually just passed his private pilot checkride. And I flagged Mike down, he is a MzeroA fan and also somebody who helped us out with Flying Across America. So, Mike has been a great asset to myself and everything and he is share to share his knowledge with you guys.
So, Mike, how are you doin’ bud?
Mike:
Doin’ pretty good, how about you?
Jason:
Me, I’m absolutely doing wonderful. I want to share a story with you guys real quick. When I first met Mike, Mike is in Vegas and we flew into Vegas. Mike and I were talking on the phone and everything, and I told Mike where I was and where he would meet us. So I was looking around for Mike and his wife, and Mike comes up to me and goes, “Are you one of them?”
And here I am in the middle of Las Vegas going, “Maybe I’m one of them, I don’t know.” I look at Mike and he’s a big scary guy, so I was kind of worried. But sure enough it was Mike and he wasn’t scary as I thought. That was my first impression of Mike Daniels and that was interesting.
Anyways, Mike, what everyone really wants to know is about the checkride. A lot of people have fears and anxieties with the checkride, and all I want is a recap of yours. What did you do, planning-wise, to prep us for it. Kind of run us through your checkride and what you did for it.
Mike:
Basically I did a lot of study. What worried me most was the oral since I wasn’t worried about the flying. I felt that I had the maneuvers pretty good, and the only way I seem to be able to learn anything study-wise to prep for the oral was to write it down. You do all those acronyms that we use, to crack everything we’re supposed to know that we know that the examiner is supposed to ask. I wrote them down and studied as much as I could up to the day of the checkride. I was studying up to the last minute.
As far as the flying goes, I was practicing all the maneuvers at the PTS. I was going up to two hours, three times a week, couple of weeks before the checkride. Three or four days before the checkride, I put up my instructor to fly with me a final time. He basically did a mock checkride as far as the flying goes.
Jason:
Very cool…
Mike:
Because I read your book…
Jason:
Oh wow, we can imagine that but we had to bring up. Hahaha.
Mike:
So I read it, and luckily enough I got across those podcasts. The timing was almost perfect when they were doing episodes on how to pass the checkride.
Jason:
That’s the thing. There’s so much information out there to get their hands on, not just on my website but all across the Web. So let’s talk about this now.
What was the most difficult question you were asked on your oral exam, and what was the part that worried you most on the flight?
Mike:
The most difficult question I was asked on the oral exam was… actually he brought a bunch of problems on the board. Different questions, different problems and he had me go down and answer all those problems. One of them was density altitude. He picked an airport in California. He wrote up some weather information on the board, and I had to calculate it.
Basically, I had a little paper density altitude chart with me and it was a start. I had to project past that and then double check myself with a wizard wheel. 2400 feet was the density altitude for this airport but the weather would beat you. That was a tough one. Hardest one was to calculate the takeoff roll with the weather information he gave me for the Tomahawk we are riding. That’s a 1977 Tomahawk with charts like… really small, really hard to draw lines across.
Jason:
Right, exactly, that was so old. That’s awesome, that’s interesting that you carried your density altitude form with you and part of that is flying out west. We don’t usually do that in Florida. We have what you refer to as a wizard wheel we call it an A6B in Florida. I don’t know what happened to you guys in Vegas.
Mike:
We just call it wizard wheel.
Jason:
I know I was just teasing you. Haha. So what about the flight? What were you most worried about going into the flight?
Mike:
Just nervousness of being judged, being graded. I’m usually an in-charge kind of guy, and it’s really hard to be judged and critiqued so.. I was pretty nervous about it, I made some dumb errors but obviously not bad enough to fail me because I passed. Probably my weakest maneuver is that in soft-field landing. Although I can pull them off, but I’m not the best with those. I can do them with the standard most of the time but when you’re going pretty fast you can get cracked up and nervous.
Jason:
Part of that is that you’re flying in a Tomahawk so you’re lowering your plane with the T-tail. That doesn’t make it easy for soft field landing, that’s two things against you. That’s pretty interesting, so was there anything on the flight you wish you could’ve had back like, “I really mopped up those steep turns” or something like that.
Mike:
That would be it, yes, the steep turns. I want my steep turns. I started my steep turns and I was like… well, maybe I wasn’t prepared for this particular part but I didn’t quite realize it was going to be a figure 8. I thought I was going to do a steep turn to the left and then maybe do a right or something. I didn’t quite understand what he was saying. Basically, he wanted me to do a steep turn to the left and come back on the same heading, and then immediately roll right into one on the right. I didn’t catch that at first, and when I came out flying on my heading, he was like, “You’re supposed to fly…” so I guess I didn’t quite understand.
Jason:
That’s interesting because for a commercial pilot you had to do that consecutively. Turn to the left and instantly one on the right. That’s commercial pilot stuff. Private pilot, you’re allowed to hold your heading a little bit. Maybe he’s holding you on a higher standard and see how you perform.
Mike:
Maybe he’s a little confused because he does a lot of checkrides.
Jason:
Yeah, maybe he was like, “I don’t remember what certificate this guy is going for.” You should’ve been lucky that your certificate in the mail would say, “commercial pilot” and you’d be like, “Yeah!!!”
Well, Mike, I won’t take up anymore of your time. One last question here. Let’s say there’s someone listening here right now, that is in your shoes… or your former shoes I guess. Right now, what words of advice could you give them to help them succeed on their private pilot checkride or any checkride for that matter.
Mike:
Obviously I think the thing that helped me more than anything was feeling confident that I know I could do it. You gotta know you can do it, you gotta be confident. I mean, of course I had a little doubt, but projecting my confidence is what instills the examiner to think that, “Yeah, you’re gonna be okay.”
The first thing I did to prep is a passenger debriefing, and he said I gave him the most thorough debriefing. He said more than once, “Your instructor prepared very well for this.” I guess that helped overcome the little errors I made, the preparedness I had for it. So be confident, study, know everything in the sectional so if he points something in the sectional… oh, he did something that was really neat, I want to mention. I’d never seen this done before, I think this is a great technique. He put us on Henderson Airport here in Vegas. You’re standing on the runway, I want you go to up to 24000 feet, tell me what is your airspace is. If you’re in D, then you’re in E for 500 feet then you’re in for Nellis. We just kind of learned it on the way up. It’s a pretty neat exercise for that particular unique area I happen to fly around.
Jason:
That’s very neat, I did similar things to my students. “Hey, you’re in a rocketship you’re going straight up.” That’s tough like the Class E airspace. Where does E start, where does G end? It gets so confusing for a lot of people. That’s a really great exercise for people to do. So that is very cool, Mike. So you are a private pilot? Have you taken the lifeline yet? Or what have you been up to?
Mike:
Oh yeah, we did. This Saturday, I get a checkride and on Monday, the 20th and the following Tuesday. Anyway, the following Saturday we did a little flight in the Tomahawk to Jean, Nevada. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but it’s a 0L7 if you’re interested. There’s a casino out there in Jean, of course this is Nevada. It’s 40 miles south of town, it’s not a really far flight. But it gets really hot really fast a lot here in Vegas, so I didn’t really want to be up late in the air. So we went out there, had breakfast, flew back and we were done like 9:30 in the morning and it’s already a lot of degrees out there.
We’re finally doing some flying together, my wife and I. We’re really looking forward to doing some of it, but it’s so hot at this time of the year that we’d try to do a lot of long flights to just kind of fly around the valley out here. Maybe by Hoover Dam, get some pictures or something, just cool down a bit.
Jason:
That’s awesome, very cool. Before I let you go, tell everyone what you are building in the garage and in the living room. I’m building a Xena ZH-750. It’s an STOL. It’s a great little airplane. The rudder’s done back here behind me. The stabilizers are done in the garage, we’ll start the elevator next. We’re gonna keep building that it will be a lot of fun.
Jason:
That’s very awesome. Cool, Mike. Thank you so much for your time. If you guys want to follow along Mike, links to his Twitter and his blogspot are right down beneath the video so you can check that out and know more about Mike. Mike, thank you so much for your time and everything. I really appreciate it.
Mike:
Can I plug my podcast?
Jason:
Everything! Oh yes, your podcast, what was I thinking?
Mike:
Milehighflyers.com.
Jason:
You plug it for me, because I’m not gonna do it justice. Go for it.
Mike:
You can listen to us at Milehighflyers.com. That’s where you can find our podcasts or you can go to iTunes, milehighflyers. It’s a pretty good podcast. Basically four or five of us get together and talk. Most of the crews in Denver watch milehighflyers. I’m out here in Vegas, my wife’s on it, because she observes a lot more of my flight experience. She’s on it, every new episode in it.
Jason:
That’s cool. So a link to that guys will also be down beneath this so you can listen to the podcasts, listen to Mike. Mike, I think that’s all have I for you today. Guys, remember a good pilot is always learning. I’ll catch you guys later.
Mike:
Sure, I got my license because of you.
Jason:
Thanks, see you!
