Wanda Charity Collins DPE Checkride Gouges

Oral Emphasis

Wanda's oral is heavily anchored to your actual flight plan. She'll pull it up and use it as a jumping-off point for a wide range of IFR topics:

• Flight planning details: Fuel calculations, chosen altitude and rationale, nav log entries (heading vs. course), and alternate selection — including regulatory requirements and weather minimums for filing an alternate.
• Weather decision-making: Scenario-based questions about what you'd do if a convective SIGMET or icing AIRMET appeared just before departure, and when (if ever) you're allowed to fly into known icing conditions.
• Instrument currency and privileges: What's required to act as PIC in IMC (she expects the RAMP checklist plus instrument rating), currency requirements, and what options exist in the 6–12 month and beyond-12-month windows (simulator use, flying the six hits in actual with a CFII).
• IFR charts: She'll have you identify features on an IFR Low Enroute Chart — distinguishing High vs. Low VORs, compulsory reporting points, OROCAs, and MEAs. She also asked why VORs still exist in the GPS era.
• Reporting requirements: Mandatory reporting points and the associated acronym, plus follow-up questions like what you report when entering a hold and whether ATC can assign different reporting points.
• Approach briefings: She had the pilot brief all three planned approaches and asked detailed questions about each — LPV terminology, circling approach naming conventions (letter designation vs. runway number), absence of a TDZE on circling approaches, NOTAMs affecting landing eligibility, and whether circling would be required based on winds.

Common Questions

• Why did you choose this altitude? Why this alternate?
• What would you do if adverse weather (convective SIGMET, icing AIRMET) appeared right before departure?
• When can you legally fly into known icing?
• What do you need to fly in IMC? Walk through currency requirements at various intervals.
• Identify chart features: Is this VOR High or Low? Point out a compulsory reporting point, an OROCA, and an MEA.
• What are your mandatory reporting points? (She accepted the acronym first, then drilled into specifics.)
• Brief this approach — what does LPV stand for? Why is this approach labeled with a letter instead of a runway number? Why is there no TDZE?

Practical Focus

The flight portion included a solid mix of IFR tasks with no wasted time:

• DME arc to a VOR approach at KUTS, followed by a missed approach into a timed hold.
• RNAV LPV approach into KUTS, then another missed approach into a hold.
• Unusual attitude recovery: She took the controls during a transition segment and gave one unusual attitude to recover from.
• RNAV approach into 51R to finish — with discussion beforehand about whether a circle-to-land would be needed depending on winds.
• Foggles went on shortly after takeoff and stayed on through vectored segments.

Examiner Style

Wanda is conversational and methodical. Her oral flows naturally from one topic to the next — she connects threads (e.g., a discussion about icing leads into what you need to fly IMC, which leads into currency). She doesn't rapid-fire disconnected questions; instead, each answer sets up the next topic. She's comfortable letting you write down an acronym and then expanding on it verbally. On the flight, she's hands-off until she needs to set up a specific task like an unusual attitude. Overall, pilots describe the experience as structured but not stressful.

What Surprised Pilots

• She pulled up the pilot's own flight plan immediately and used it as the backbone of the entire oral — be ready to explain and defend every choice on your nav log.
• The way topics chain together caught at least one pilot off guard: a weather scenario question pivoted directly into legal requirements for IMC flight, then into currency — so knowing isolated facts isn't enough; you need to understand how concepts connect.
• She asked a "big picture" question about why VORs still exist, which goes beyond rote chart identification.
• A NOTAM had closed the runway for one of the planned approaches, and she used that as a teaching and testing moment about whether landing was authorized — so check NOTAMs thoroughly before you show up.