You've come to the right place! RideReady is the best way for you to prepare and be ready for your helicopter
checkride. Whether it's your initial private pilot helicopter or an advanced
rating or certificate, RideReady has thousands of questions written by professional
pilots, instructors, and examiners that will get you up to speed in the necessary
knowledge areas of your checkride.
"NAILED the check ride! I Used your RideReady software and did GREAT. The examiner said I actually performed to commercial standards - Thanks for the great software!"
- JH - Private Pilot Helicopter, RideReady User
RideReady has hundreds
upon hundreds of sample oral exam questions. Our questions are drawn from
actual pilot checkride de-briefings and examiner interviews as well as
from FAA and other source material.
We work to constantly
update the software to keep it up to date as we get post-checkride reports
from pilots like you and as FAA rules change.
Updates are always
free and are simple to get using the built-in update utility. Compare
this to a book which is basically becoming obsolete the moment that it
is printed.
RideReady features
information specific to various helicopters (R22, R44, S300 CB and CBi,
S300C), and allows you to further customize the questions and answers
based on whether your aircraft has a clockwise or counterclockwise main
rotor system.
Typical books ask
only dry, fairly "rote" questions. While you are likely to be
asked some such questions on your checkride, you will also be asked a
number of reasoning and scenario-type questions. RideReady includes all
types of questions that you are likely to be asked on your FAA checkride
oral.
RideReady includes
hundreds of charts and figures to assist your learning.
RideReady is easy
and convenient to use. It features timesaving features such as the ability
search questions and tag questions as easy or difficult to focus and streamline
your study.
Because it is regularly
updated and updates are free, RideReady is useful as a refresher tool
long after your checkride. (In fact, some pilots buy RideReady for certificates
and ratings that they are already certified for just for that reason.)
RideReady is field-tested
and pilots agree that is a great way to gain the knowledge and confidence
required to impress the examiner...
... but don't take
our word for it! You can download the demo of RideReady (PC version) FREE and decide
whether it's right for you before you buy it.
If you do choose to
buy it, the ordering process for RideReady is
easy, secure, and immediate.
You can be
studying for your checkride oral exam prep in just moments from now!
Get RideReady
The best way to get a feel for our RideReady PC software is to download it from below
it and try it out! The PC software demo is free (and if you decide to purchase it, the price is very reasonable.)
RideReady Title
Download
RideReady: Private and Commercial Pilot (Helicopter)
PC Software for MS-Windows™
Having difficulty? Pleasevisit our helpdesk for frequently asked questions and personalized support.
The Frequently Asked Questions below are intended to familiarize you with the basics of the product. For technical support FAQs for this product plus, additional FAQs, please visit our helpdesk
RideReady checkride oral exam prep is intended for all pilots who are contemplating taking an FAA Practical Test (more commonly known as a "checkride" ). A practical test is the certificate test that you take with an examiner pilot at the end of your training for a certificate or rating. The checkride (essentially) consists of a flight portion, wherein you are tasked with performing maneuvers that you will have been trained on and an oral portion, where the examiner will quiz you on any of a large number of aviation matters.
RideReady is basically a collection of hundreds and hundreds of realistic and fully ACS-compatible FAA checkride questions and answers. The questions are maintained by an editorial team of professional instructors and FAA designated pilot examiners.
RideReady is available on several platforms. The learning content is exactly the same no matter what platform you choose to get it on.
RideReady's primary goal is to help you be ready for the oral portion of the checkride. As a secondary benefit, it will also to some degree help you study up on the flight maneuvers that you will need to perform as a double-check that your knowledge of those is up to standards. Because this software contains a large question bank, it is also useful not just for checkride applicants, but also for certified pilots who can use it as a lookup and refresher tool.
The FAA Airman Certification Standards is a system through which the FAA:
classifies information that pilots need to know for their practical tests (and written tests, and flight tests)
standardizes the checkride experience to help ensure that pilot checkride experiences are roughly similar from examiner to examiner and that they are comprehensive.
ACS replaces older systems of standardization and classification such as the FAA Practical Test Standards (PTS). What ACS does NOT do is in and of itself introduce new material. The things that you need to know for a given checkride - weather, airspace, aerodynamics, regulations, and so on, didn't change at all when the FAA switched to ACS. In fact, from the standpoint of a pilot taking a checkride, it's basically a non-issue - a bureaucratic reshuffle.
RideReady is 100% ACS compatible. That is to say, we check our question banks against the ACS codes and make sure that we cover all or essentially all of the ACS subject matter and knowledge areas that may appear on your checkride. As RideReady was already comprehensive in its coverage of knowledge areas before ACS, this required little to no change in our question banks. Individual FAA and Designated Pilot Examiners still have fairly wide latitude in what exact questions they ask you within the required ACS subject areas but now with ACS you're far less likely to encounter the two historical problem areas of the examiner system - "too easy" examiners who would rush through oral exams, perhaps for financial benefit, and "too hard" examiners who would quiz applicants on material too far afield. ACS helps rein in both extremes.
It's important to remember that oral exam questions are not knowledge test questions. With good examiners, you're very much having a discussion rather than ticking boxes. A very good applicant will be able to answer questions correctly and also demonstrate the deeper insights and connections that they have come to understand. As such, it is possible for a given question, answer, or discussion to cross the lines of several ACS codes. In a very real sense, you can let the examiner worry about the bureaucratic nuances of ACS codes. This leaves you free to concentrate on the material itself. RideReady helps you do this in a highly effective way.
What specific aircraft does RideReady: Helicopter provide information for?
RideReady is a useful tool regardless of whether you fly one of the below helicopters or not. Each RideReady Helicopter version contains hundreds of questions that are pertinent for FAA checkrides regardless of what aircraft you fly.
However, one of the places that RideReady shines is in that it also contains questions that are specialized for particular aircraft. This is particularly important since, as you know, systems and performance questions are stressed on every checkride.
RideReady currently contains specific questions for the following helicopters:
Robinson R22
Robinson R44
Schweizer S300C
Schweizer S300 CB/CBi
Additionally, the software has an option where you can specify whether your helicopter has a clockwise or counterclockwise main rotor system. Based on your selection, the software will modify its questions to match your particular situation.
Please note that while helicopter specific questions are featured in the Private/Commercial and CFI versions of RideReady, they do not appear in the IFR version, where the emphasis is more on IFR procedures and information related to IFR flight in all helicopters.
When should I start studying for my checkride oral?
Ideally, you should start studying as early in the training process as you can. Having more knowledge earlier on will help you make the most of your training flights and therefore likely save you training money / time over the course of your training. That said, RideReady is perfectly suitable as a "night before the checkride" cram tool.
Why are Private Pilot and Commercial Pilot Helicopter one unified product?
There are relatively few differences between a Private Pilot Helicopter checkride and a Commercial Pilot Helicopter checkride from an oral exam point of view (of course the checkrides themselves differ in the tolerances expected for the maneuvers, the maneuvers themselves to some degree, the experience requirements to take the checkride, and so forth). Furthermore, for many people (typically already rated in airplanes, for example), a commercial helicopter certificate may be their first in helicopters. In the "Test Options" screen, you can select whether you are studying for the private pilot or commercial pilot checkride and RideReady will make the necessary modifications. (Please note that in the general spirit of RideReady, some 'advanced' questions may appear in the Private Pilot test version, though such questions will typically not be marked as 'crucial.') In short, you get one program for one price that will prep you for either or both checkrides.
How does RideReady compare to those little FAA Oral Exam prep books that I have seen?
This is a question that we are often asked relating to our airplane products. For helicopters, there are few, if any, helicopter specific oral exam preps out there other than maybe some put together for quite local usage by some local flight school. At any rate, there are certainly no preps (either in airplane or helicopter) that we know of that come anywhere near the depth of content and number of questions that RideReady has. This is the work of dozens of authors with decades if not centuries of flying and instructing experience among them. That said, please don't take our words at face value - please download the demo and try it out for yourself and see!
Who wrote the questions and answers of RideReady?
RideReady was written by Dauntless professional pilots and flight instructors. It was helped along by conducting exit interviews of dozens of flight students throughout the country. Additional material and suggestions were supplied by at least four current and former FAA Designated Pilot Examiners (DPEs). Where it is advantageous to do so, many answers contain text directly from the FAA and other government agencies so that you are trained on answers exactly per the FAA's thinking on the matter.
Why does RideReady not grade answers right and wrong like, for example, your GroundSchool FAA Written Test prep software does?
Unlike on FAA written tests where questions have obvious and definite answers, many checkride oral questions are intended to probe your functional literacy and reasoning skills. Answers are often rich and detailed. Therefore, it is impractical to grade your answers strictly. Rather, RideReady leaves it up to you to see how your answer compares to ours. That said, RideReady allows you to flag questions as easy, neutral, or hard so that you can zero in on questions of importance to you. By the way, if you need FAA written test prep, check out our GroundSchool test prep
Do I have to know ALL of the content of RideReady before taking my checkride?
The answer is "definitely no! however..." No examiner expects you to know everything. RideReady is written such that if a person knew everything that is in there, he/she would likely be an amazingly outstanding applicant. A small percentage of the questions included in each test prep (especially the earlier stage ones, such as Private and Recreational Pilot) are beyond what is normally expected of applicants. We nevertheless include a few such questions to allow you to potentially be truly impressive.
So, don't worry if you don't know all of the answers. Your goal is really to be functionally literate in the subject matter. "I don't know, but I know where to look that up" is a perfectly good answer for some checkride oral questions - but just don't use it too often! Your primary goal is to demonstrate to the examiner that you have competence in the material and that you have good, safety-minded judgment. The examiner is not expecting you to know everything, but don't take the oral lightly - people probably fail the oral exam portions of their checkride just about as often as they fail in flight tasks. You want to be over prepared rather than under prepared.
Note that RideReady contains an option that lets you study only those questions which our authors have determined are "most critical." This allows you to focus your study if your time is limited.
If you plan on taking your ATP helicopter checkride, our software can be of tremendous help. Since an ATP checkride oral typically consists of both instrument and VFR questions, more likely than not both the Private/Commercial and IFR versions have hundreds of questions each that can apply to an ATP Helicopter checkride. However, the software has few or no questions specific to Turbine or Part 135 operations, so if you are taking your ATP checkride in a Turbine helicopter or in a Part 135 environment, you will need to supplement your study with a review of turbine operations, your aircraft POH, and the relevant Part 135 FARs. If you are taking your ATP checkride in a regular Part 61 environment using a piston helicopter, then our software should be the bulk of what you need for your review.
What about INSTRUMENT Flight Instructor - Helicopter?
To prepare for your CFI-I Helicopter checkride, you should know the content of RideReady: IFR Helicopter very well and you should also study the "theory of learning" sections of the RideReady: Flight Instructor (CFI) Helicopter. The CFI-I test is a mix of the two, in that sense.
How many questions in RideReady?
Each test bank covered by RideReady includes hundreds upon hundreds of questions. The exact number that you will see depends on the aircraft, specific test, and other configuration options that you have selected.
Each version of RideReady ships with at least approximately 1000 total questions / answers.
Certainly, each RideReady test bank has many more questions than those oral exam prep books do, and more questions still are being added as feedback comes in and FAA rules change.
Private and Recreational Pilot Airplane: 1174
Private Pilot Airplane: 1149
Recreational Pilot Airplane: 1080
Instrument Rating Airplane: 1116
Instrument Rating Airplane: 1107
Flight Instructor Instrument Airplane: 1083
Commercial Pilot Airplane: 1242
Airline Transport Pilot Airplane: 1533
Flight Instructor Airplane: 1372
MultiEngine Airplane: 1017
Hot Air Balloon Pilot: 295
Private Pilot Hot Air Balloon: 219
Commercial Pilot Hot Air Balloon: 248
Private and Commercial Pilot Helicopter: 1067
Private Pilot Helicopter: 1060
Commercial Pilot Helicopter: 1047
Instrument Rating Helicopter: 967
Flight Instructor Helicopter: 1202
Seaplane Pilot: 246
Glider Pilot: 740
Tailwheel Transition: 87
What happens when updates are released?
Updates are always free, so, unlike limited-lifespan books, RideReady will serve you well into the future! There is an update link from the main menu. Click that, select the test you want, and follow the instructions to get the latest and greatest. Getting upgrades is integrated, fast, and free.
Thanks
for checking out RideReady! Good luck in all of your aviation goals!
The checkride.com Team
FAA Checkride Oral Exam Prep - Private through ATP
