Written Exam

Tips for your Private Pilot Written Test /  by Aanarav Sareen

When I first started my private pilot training, I was overwhelmed with all the materials that were provided to me by my flight school. However, with my incredible instructor, a lot of help from Google, the /r/flying community and a few other resources - I was able to get an 87 after a few short weeks of prep.

Not having been in school for far more than a decade, it was a bit terrifying to learn how to absorb information that was highly technical in nature — and frankly topics that I dreaded. The tips below helped me feel a lot more comfortable:

  1. Ask your CFI – my CFI was amazing. Anytime I had a question for him, he would try to find different ways of explaining it to me without losing patience. I truly enjoyed learning from him. During COVID-19, we even did a few ground lessons via Skype.

  2. Ask fellow students – if you’re at a flight school - make friends with fellow students and learn from them as well. I ended up being friends with one of the students and we would prep each other for the written and the checkride.

  3. Use Sporty’s – I have no affiliation with them, but get the Learn to Fly Course from Sporty’s. Watch the videos, go through the sample questions and keep taking mock tests until you are getting a 90% or higher consistently. As soon as you’re in that range, schedule your written test ASAP. I found this hard to believe since I was given a mountain of reference books when I first enrolled at school - but just following this course was a lifesaver and gave me a tremendous amount of confidence.

  4. Digital E6B – they’re allowed and they make life a lot easier. Even though I did learn how to use the manual E6B - I never used it once for my written or my checkride. It saved me a tremendous amount of time and also gave me a ton of confidence by simply using the method of elimination on questions I was uncertain about.

Passing the exam felt like I had just won the lottery - and it was worth every minute of effort I put into the process. Just don’t get overwhelmed with all the study tools and stick to Sporty’s - it’ll make your life a lot easier.