Based on my experience from my checkride, the examiner is looking to see
if you understand what's going on and can deal with it safely. I
completely blew my partial panel approach royally. I can't remember the
details of what happened, I just remember being confused and turned
around in my head, be it nerves or what (and I'm sure there would be
nerves if I ever really had to fly a partial panel VOR approach).
Anyway, the examiner later told me that he had very nearly started to
fill out a pink slip when I said (he was playing ATC) "Memphis Center,
669RA would like to fly direct Hot Springs VOR and restart the
approach." "Cessna 9RA, c/m 3k, fly direct HOT cleared VOR ZAPLE
approach." Everything from there on went great. Just pay attention,
and show that you can safely handle the plane.

Paul Folbrecht wrote:
Hello all,

I've made the appointment for my IR checkride, although it's still a
ways out, and had a couple things on my mind.

1) Concerning the heading standards (+- 10 degrees, of course), I find
that I still, at this point, _occasionally_ exceed them, _especially_ in
prepping for an approach (though I have a yoke-mounted clip for my
plates I still find my scan degrading a bit when I'm prepping & setting
up). So, that's occasionally, not _consistently_, getting off-heading
by more than 10d (probably 20d at the most). How picky are most
examiners about this type of thing? I know that the PTS states that
"consistent" exceeding of the standards is grounds for failure, so I
rather hope that me getting off-course by, say 20d, then correcting
immediatly, isn't going to have a huge impact. But who knows. Perhaps
my skills are still not quite up to snuff. BTW I have about 33h total
instrument time now, about 8 of which is in a FTD.

2) I also seem to have a devil of a time passing DIRECTLY OVER a VOR
(when I say "VOR" of course I mean "VOR or "VORTAC", etc.), for instance
when flying a full approach and the navaid is the IAF I'm using. My
instructor tells me that I ought to fly so directly over that thing that
the CDI is perfectly centered and then immediately flips from "to" to
"from" on passage, with only an instant of the flag. What I tend to do
is be off by just a bit, getting full-deflection on the CDI (for a
second or two) before the flip. He correctly points out that the
standards call out 3/4 deflection as max deflection, and there seems to
be nothing to account for this type of thing. So, is this (passing
directly, I mean directly, over the navaid) a skill that I really should
have down by the time of the checkride? Just looking for a 2nd (and
possibly 3rd-150th) opinion here.

Thanks,
~Paul

P.S. I scored a 98% on my written and am a bit worried that this may
indicate I know nothing at all of real-world IFR flying! It also may
indicate that I think like the FAA, which scares me even more. Perhaps
I should retake and hope for a lower score?