Instrument Rating Checkride: What Pilots Should Expect
The day of your instrument rating checkride can feel like one of the most important milestones in your IFR training. It is where your knowledge, aircraft control, judgment, communication, and ability to manage changing conditions all come together. Knowing what the examiner is looking for can help you arrive more prepared, more focused, and much less likely to be surprised by the process.
At Leopard Aviation, we help students build toward checkride readiness through structured Part 61 training, modern aircraft, and experienced instruction. Your final preparation should feel like the natural result of everything you have practiced, not а last-minute scramble. Keep reading to see how the checkride is structured, what you may be asked to demonstrate, and how to prepare for each stage with confidence.
The Instrument Rating Checkride at a Glance
Your Instrument Rating checkride is the final practical evaluation for the rating after you have met the applicable Instrument Rating requirements. It begins with a ground-based evaluation and, if that portion is satisfactory, continues into flight. Throughout the test, the examiner evaluates your knowledge, risk management, aircraft control, IFR procedures, communication, and decision-making under the current Instrument Rating–Airplane ACS, FAA-S-ACS-8C.
Who Conducts the Checkride
Your practical test may be conducted by an FAA Aviation Safety Inspector, a pilot examiner, or another evaluator authorized under an applicable FAA program. If you are a typical Part 61 applicant, you will most often schedule with a Designated Pilot Examiner, or DPE. The DPE is authorized by the FAA to evaluate whether your performance meets the certification standard.
Do not assume the examiner will act as pilot in command. A DPE generally evaluates your performance rather than serving as PIC unless a different arrangement has been agreed to beforehand. Before departure, you and the examiner should be clear about PIC responsibility, transfer of flight controls, safety duties, and how each person will handle their role during the flight.
The Ground Portion Comes Before the Flight
You must pass the ground portion before you can proceed to the flight portion. This is where much of the detailed oral evaluation takes place, with the examiner asking you to apply IFR knowledge to practical situations rather than simply recite memorized definitions.
Do not expect the questions to stop when you walk to the airplane. The FAA specifically allows oral questioning to continue throughout the entire prаctical test. You may be asked to explain a decision, system, procedure, or risk while preparing the aircraft or during the flight itself.
There Is No Universal Checkride Script
Your examiner builds a Plan of Action, or POA, that covers the required Areas of Operation and Tasks in the ACS. Rather than testing everything as a disconnected series of maneuvers, the examiner can combine several requirements within realistic IFR scenarios.
That means you should not prepare for one supposedly guaranteed route or memorize a fixed order of events. Weather, traffic, aircraft conditions, and your own decisions may change how the day unfolds, and the examiner can adjust the scenario accordingly. Keep the day open, arrive rested, and be ready to manage what is actually happening instead of waiting for the next item on an imaginary script.
The Flight May Use Simulated or Actual Instrument Conditions
Parts of your practical test may be conducted in simulated or actual instrument conditions when appropriate for the weather, aircraft, examiner’s plan, and operational safety. The goal is to evaluate whether you can perform the required IFR tasks while managing the airplane and the surrounding environment effectively.
When you must fly solely by reference to instruments in an aircraft, you need an acceptable view-limiting device that prevents you from using outside visual references while still allowing the examiner to maintain an outside lookout. Bring the device with you. Before flight, you and the examiner should also brief when it will be put on and removed so nobody is improvising with a hood while simultaneously attempting to operate an airplane.
What Must Be Complete Before the Checkride Begins
Checkride readiness has two sides. You must satisfy the FAA’s eligibility, experience, testing, and documentation requirements, but you also need to perform consistently at the Instrument Rating ACS standard. Your CFII decides when you are ready to be recommended, and the examiner verifies your eligibility before beginning the practical test.
Certificate and Aeronautical Experience Requirements
For an Instrument-Airplane rating, you generally need a current Private Pilot Certificate with the appropriate airplane rating, unless you аre using the permitted concurrent Private Pilot and Instrument Rating application route. Your applicable § 61.65 experience must also be properly logged.
Before the checkride, confirm that your records show the required:
- 50 hours of cross-country flight time as PIC, including at least 10 in airplanes
- 40 hours of actual or simulated instrument time
- At least 15 hours of instrument training with an appropriately rated instructor
- Three hours of recent instrument training within the required period
- Qualifying IFR cross-country flight
- Applicable ground and flight training
You should also confirm any medical eligibility that applies to the flight you will conduct. The goal here is not merely having enough total hours, but making sure the right kinds of hours are documented correctly.
Knowledge Test Completion
You must pass the applicable Instrument Rating knowledge test before beginning the practical test. Bring or have access to your Airman Knowledge Test Report, because the examiner uses it to identify knowledge areas where you were deficient.
Those ACS codes matter even if your overall score was strong. Your instructor should review the missed areas during preparation, and the examiner is expected to evaluate applicable deficient knowledge during the checkride. If you wаnt a refresher on the FAA written exam, do it well before test day rather than discovering a forgotten weak area during the oral.
CFII Endorsements
Completing the FAA minimum experience does not automatically earn you a checkride recommendation. Your CFII must verify that you received the required training, corrected deficient knowledge areas, and can perform at the required standard.
That endorsement reflects professional judgment, not simply arithmetic. Your instructor is confirming that you can bring knowledge, risk management, IFR procedures, and aircraft control together consistently enough to take the practical test.
IACRA and the Rating Application
You will generally complete your rating application through IACRA before the test. Review it carefully with your recommending instructor, including your certificate information, knowledge-test results, flight-time totals, rating sought, and instructor recommendation.
Resolve discrepancies before checkride day. IACRA guidance specifically encourages applicants and recommending instructors to review applications carefully before signing. A disagreement between your application, logbook, knowledge-test record, or identification can delay the test before the engine has even had the courtesy to start.
Current Proficiency in the Checkride Aircraft
Finally, be comfortable with the exact airplane and equipment you will use. You should know its avionics, autopilot, navigation database, checklists, electronic flight bag setup, and normal cockpit workflow without needing to rediscover them under examiner pressure.
Changing aircraft or аvionics shortly before the test may still leave you technically eligible, but eligibility and proficiency are different things. If the platform is unfamiliar, give yourself enough transition training to manage it confidently while also handling the much larger IFR workload the examiner is evaluating.
How Leopard Aviation Prepares Pilots for the Instrument Checkride
At Leopard Aviation, we bring the different parts of checkride readiness into one organized Part 61 training process. Your FAA eligibility, ACS proficiency, aircraft knowledge, and IFR judgment all matter. We help you identify what is already strong, what still needs work, and what must be complete before your examiner arrives.
Begin With an Eligibility and Progress Review
Before final checkride preparation becomes the focus, we can review your logbook, cross-country PIC experience, actual and simulated instrument time, required CFII instruction, qualifying IFR cross-country, knowledge-test report, endorsements, and IACRA information.
Doing this early helps us catch administrative gaps before they interfere with training. More importantly, it lets your remaining lessons concentrate on genuine proficiency instead of spending valuable final preparation time figuring out whether an hour total or endorsement is missing.
Use ACS-Based Ground and Flight Preparation
Our CFIIs can organize mock oral discussions, complete IFR scenarios, targeted weak-area lessons, and flight evaluations around the current Instrument Rating–Airplane ACS.
You should know which Tasks you can already perform consistently and which still need refinement before your instructor recommends you. Checkride preparation should therefore feel specific to your performance rather than like another generic tour through everything you have studied since beginning the rating.
Train in Cessna 172S Skyhawks
You will prepare in our Cessna 172S Skyhawks equipped with Garmin G1000 avionics, GFC700 autopilot, and ADS-B technology. That gives you a consistent glass-cockpit environment for developing flight-plan management, approach setup, automation awareness, system monitoring, traffic awareness, and transitions to backup information.
Familiarity matters on checkride day. When you know the aircraft and its systems well, you can devote more attention to the scenario, ATC, aircraft control, and decisions rather than fighting with cockpit setup.
Prepare for Both Automation and Manual Flight
We want you comfortable with using automation appropriately without becoming dependent on it. Your preparation includes managing GFC700 modes while maintaining strong manual instrument-reference skills when the autopilot is not available or appropriate.
The current ACS requires at least one nonprecision approach from an initial approach fix without autopilot or radar-vector аssistance. It also requires an approach using backup or partial-panel instrumentation or navigation display, depending on the aircraft configuration. Your preparation should make those situations feel like normal extensions of your IFR skills rather than unpleasant surprises invented by the examiner.
Support Pilots Transferring From Another School
If you are switching flight schools, bring your logbook, endorsements, knowledge-test report, available syllabus records, and previous training notes. We can review what you have completed and conduct an evaluation flight to see where your proficiency stands today.
From there, we can identify remaining requirements, provide aircraft and avionics transition training, and build a focused route toward the checkride without assuming you need to repeat everything from the beginning.
Continue Beyond the Rating
The checkride is a major milestone, but it can also be one step in a longer aviation path. We support Private Pilot training, Instrument Rating training, Instrument Proficiency Checks, Commercial Pilot training, and CFI training through our flexible Part 61 environment.
Whether you plan to use your rating for personal flying or continue toward professional aviation, we want you to leave the checkride with skills you can keep developing long after the temporary certificate is in your hand.
How to Prepare for the Instrument Rating Checkride
Effective checkride preparation should feel like managing complete IFR operations, not repeatedly practicing the same few procedures. You need to bring planning, weather, systems knowledge, aircraft control, communication, and judgment together while the situation changes. Your preparation should therefore reproduce the decisions and workload you are likely to face throughout the practical test.
Prepare From the Current ACS
Start with the current Instrument Rating–Airplane ACS and review every applicable Area of Operation and Task with your CFII. You should know how the knowledge, risk-management, and skill elements have been addressed during your instrument flight training, including important notes and operational limitations. If you cannot identify where a requirement fits into your training, give it more attention before test day.
Practice Complete Checkride Scenarios
Your mock evaluations should begin before the engine starts. Work through pilot and aircraft eligibility, weather, cross-country planning, aircraft systems, and the proposed flight before moving into clearances, departures, navigation, holds, approaches, missed approaches, emergencies, and landing. This helps you practice transitions between tasks instead of relying on your instructor to announce exactly what skill comes next.
Know the Checkride Aircraft in Detail
Be comfortable with the exact aircraft you will use, including its normal and emergency systems, IFR equipment, inspections, limitations, performance, avionics, autopilot, navigation database, backup displays, and electronic flight bag. You should be able to use those systems normally, recognize failures, explain important limitations, and continue safely when equipment behaves differently from what you expected.
Review Every Knowledge-Test Deficiency
Use the ACS codes on your knowledge-test report to revisit every deficient area. Your CFII should make sure you can now explаin the underlying concept and apply it within an IFR scenario. These areas matter because applicable knowledge-test deficiencies must be addressed during the practical test. Fix the understanding behind the missed answer rather than simply memorizing a different response.
Prepare for Changes Rather Than One Memorized Route
Practice revised clearances, worsening weather, destination changes, missed approaches, equipment failures, lost communications, and changing fuel or alternate decisions. Your examiner can modify the scenario as the test develops. If you understand the underlying procedures and priorities, you can adapt. If your preparation depends on one route unfolding exactly as rehearsed, even a small change can create unnecessary workload.
Rehearse the Administrative Start of the Test
A mock checkride should also include your document review, IACRA application, logbook audit, aircraft maintenance records, and presentation of the planned flight. You want these tasks to feel familiar before the real test begins. Being excellent at approaches is considerably less useful when everyone is still on the ramp trying to locate an inspection record.
Manage Rest, Food, Hydration, and Schedule Pressure
Protect your sleep before the checkride, arrive early, eat beforehand, and bring water where practical. Avoid placing a hard commitment immediately after the time you expect the test to finish. You will need sustained attention through paperwork, oral discussion, planning, preflight preparation, flight, and post-test administration. Good technical preparation works much better when fatigue and unnecessary time pressure are not competing with it.
Passing, Failing, and Discontinuing the Checkride
Your practical test has three formal outcomes: satisfactory completion, unsatisfactory performance, or discontinuance for a reason unrelated to your performance. Knowing the difference matters. Weather, illness, or an aircraft problem can stop a checkride without meaning you failed, while an unsatisfactory Task follows a separate retest process.
Satisfactory Completion
If you satisfactorily complete the practical test, the examiner issues a temporary airman certificate showing your new Instrument Rating. You do not have to wait for the permanent certificate to arrive before the rating exists.
You can begin exercising its privileges immediately, provided you also meet the applicable aircraft, medical, currency, and operating requirements. Pаssing the checkride confirms that you met the certification standard. It does not remove the responsibility to judge whether you are personally ready for the conditions of a particular IFR flight.
Notice of Disapproval
If your performance does not meet the standard for a required Task, the examiner issues a Notice of Disapproval of Application. That notice records what happened and helps define what you need to complete next.
It identifies:
- Areas of Operation or Tasks performed unsatisfactorily
- Areas or Tasks that were not tested
- Previously completed Areas of Operation for which you may receive credit
- The practical-test failure record associated with the attempt
You or the examiner may end the test after an unsatisfactory Task. The examiner can continue only with your consent. Continuing may let you earn credit for additional satisfactory areas, but consider fatigue, confidence, aircraft time, and whether continuing will actually be productive. Under current FAA guidance, previously satisfactory areas can receive credit when the remaining test is completed within the applicable 60-calendar-day period.
Letter of Discontinuance
A checkride can also stop because of weather, aircraft failure, illness, or another issue unrelated to unsatisfactory performance. In that situation, the examiner issues a Letter of Discontinuance rather than a failure.
The letter records the Areas of Operation you already completed and the time remaining to finish while retaining that credit. Keep it safe and bring it when the practical test resumes. If you complete the remainder within the applicable FAA time limits, you generally do not repeat satisfactory portions simply because the weather or airplane interrupted the first attempt.
Retesting After an Unsatisfactory Result
If you fail part of the practical test, you need additional training from an authorized instructor before reapplying. Your instructor must determine that you are prepared to pass and provide the required new endorsement.
The retest normally concentrates on failed and untested areas for which credit was not retained. However, the examiner retains discretion to reevaluate previously satisfactory Tasks when appropriate. Use the additional training to correct the underlying weakness rather than simply rehearse the exact scenario that caused the problem.
The Rating Begins a New Proficiency Stage
Passing gives you the Instrument Rating, but your IFR development continues immediately afterward. Regular practice, instrument currency, sensible personal minimums, and periodic instructor support help you turn checkride-level performance into dependable real-world proficiency.
If your instrument currency later lapses beyond what normal recent-experience requirements allow, an Instrument Proficiency Check may become part of getting current again. The checkride establishes your starting standard as an instrument-rated pilot. What you build on top of it comes from continued practice, judgment, and experience.
Put Your Instrument Skills to the Test
Your instrument rating checkride brings together everything you have developed during IFR training: knowledge, aircraft control, communication, procedures, risk management, and sound decision-making. Good preparation means more than rehearsing approaches. You need to know your aircraft, paperwork, ACS standards, and how to respond when the scenario changes.
At Leopard Aviation, we help you prepare through organized Part 61 training, modern Cessna 172S Skyhawks, experienced instructors, and reаlistic IFR scenarios that build genuine readiness. The goal is to arrive prepared for both the examiner and the flying that comes afterward. Schedule your instrument training with us and start building toward checkride day with a clear, confident plan.
For additional background, see AOPA’s checkride preparation guidance.
FAQs
What happens during an instrument rating checkride?
Your checkride normally begins with a ground-based evaluation before moving into the flight portion. The examiner evaluates your aeronautical knowledge, risk management, IFR planning, aircraft systems, procedures, communication, and decision-making. In flight, you will demonstrate instrument procedures and aircraft control while responding to realistic scenarios. The exact order can vary, so prepare to understand and manage the whole IFR operation rather than memorize one sequence.
How long does an Instrument Rating checkride usually take?
There is no universal duration because the examiner’s plan, aircraft, weather, airport conditions, and your own decisions can affect the day. You should expect enough time for document review, the oral evaluation, preflight preparation, the flight itself, and final paperwork. Avoid scheduling something important immediately afterward. Giving yourself a clear day removes unnecessary time pressure and lets you focus completely on the evaluation.
How does Leopard Aviation decide when I am ready for the checkride?
At Leopard Aviation, we look beyond whether your logbook simply contains the required hours. We review your eligibility, endorsements, knowledge-test results, aircraft familiarity, and how consistently you perform to the Instrument Rating ACS standard. We want to see that you can manage IFR scenarios, make sound decisions, and recover when circumstances change before we recommend you. Readiness should feel repeatable, not dependent on having one unusually good flight.
How does Leopard Aviation prepare students for the oral portion?
At Leopard Aviation, we connect oral preparation to realistic IFR scenarios rather than treating it as a trivia session. We can review weather, regulations, flight planning, aircraft systems, alternates, fuel, approaches, risk management, and any deficient knowledge areas shown on your written-test report. Our goal is to help you explain why you would make a decision and apply your knowledge confidently, not simply memorize a collection of examiner-style answers.
Can Leopard Aviation prepare me if I completed most of my Instrument Rating somewhere else?
Yes. At Leopard Aviation, we can review your logbook, endorsements, knowledge-test report, previous training records, and current proficiency before deciding what you still need. We may also conduct an evaluation flight and provide transition training for our aircraft and avionics. We do not automatically assume you need to repeat everything. We focus on identifying genuine gaps and building the most useful route from your current stage to checkride readiness.