The FAA Checkride, Explained By People Who Send Students To One Every Week

The practical test required by FAR 61.43 to be issued a pilot certificate or rating. It is conducted in one day by an FAA inspector or a designated pilot examiner and has two parts: an oral examination of roughly 90 minutes to two and a half hours, then a flight of about an hour and a half. You are graded against the published Airman Certification Standards for that certificate.

Three and a half to five hours in total, including paperwork. Expect 15 to 30 minutes on eligibility and aircraft documents, 90 minutes to two and a half hours of oral examination, a short break, then 1.5 to 2 hours of flying followed by a debrief. Some examiners split the oral and the flight across two days if weather or daylight demands it.

Almost always a designated pilot examiner — an experienced pilot the FAA has authorized to conduct practical tests and issue certificates on its behalf. FAA aviation safety inspectors also conduct checkrides, but far fewer of them. Either way the test is run against the same published Airman Certification Standards, and all 11 Areas of Operation must be tested.

The examiner issues a Notice of Disapproval, FAA Form 8060-5, which lists the specific Tasks that were unsatisfactory and the ones you completed satisfactorily. You then get additional training on the failed area and a fresh endorsement from an authorized instructor under FAR 61.49 before retesting. There is no mandatory waiting period, and the retest normally covers only the items you missed.

A Letter of Discontinuance is issued when a test cannot be completed for reasons that are not a failure — weather, an aircraft mechanical issue, running out of daylight, or the examiner falling ill. Your satisfactorily completed items are recorded and you return to finish only what remains, generally within 60 calendar days. It is not recorded as a failure and does not appear on your record as one.

Photo identification, your student pilot certificate, your medical certificate, the knowledge test report, your logbook with all required endorsements, the completed IACRA application, your cross-country flight plan and navigation log, and the aircraft's registration and airworthiness certificate with current maintenance records. Missing paperwork stops the day before it starts, and it happens more often than you would think.

Anything in the Airman Certification Standards, but it usually starts from the cross-country you were asked to plan and follows it into weather, airspace, performance, aircraft systems, regulations and human factors. Examiners are also required to cover the subject areas you missed on the knowledge test, which are printed by ACS code on your test report.

When you can explain every Task in the ACS out loud in two sentences and fly every maneuver inside its published tolerances on a day you feel average. Your instructor's endorsement is the formal answer, and they will not sign it lightly, because their own certificate is attached to that signature. Use the 3 hours of pre-test training required by FAR 61.109(a)(4) as a hard mock checkride rather than a comfortable flight.

We publish three private pilot programs: $10,900 for 40 logged hours, $15,900 for 60 logged hours, and $22,500 flown in the Cirrus SR22 Turbo. Each includes the aircraft, dual instruction, Redbird simulator time, ground school and books, including the 3 hours of pre-test training FAR 61.109(a)(4) requires. Enrolled students fly on package pricing at $179 an hour, wet, single-engine.