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VFR Sectional Chart Tips and Example Examiner Questions. Pretty much any check ride I've ever seen, here's what they do. They come in and go, "Okay, you are about right here, 700 feet, AGL, and you want to get in this little airport. Where are you at right there at 700?" Or whatever the case may be but they're going to give you scenarios, they're going to go out and they're going to say, "Right about here. You're at 1,100. What airspace are you in?" That's one exercise that I'm telling you you're going to want to sit down and do and just practice by yourself and just close your eyes and boom, like this, and think, okay, I'm going to look for a spot at 800 feet. I go down and look and figure out. It's going to be mainly inside or outside a class G is a big one. Every examiner is going to always ask you about class G inside the magenta surface to 700, outside the magenta surface to 1,200. They're going to ask that every single time. Next we'll go to the iPad and we'll pull the screen up and look at some stuff. Okay. First one of my tricks for breaking down the airspaces, and I've used this for years and I really like it, I've even had 135 check rides when I flying EMS. Even on a 135 check ride, you're an experienced pilot, they still pull out the VFR chart, check [inaudible 00:05:33] pull it out, and they'll start asking you about airspace. You're learning as the new pilot, every rating you're going to need it, your 135 check rides out in the real world you're going to need it, airspace is tough to learn. We got to just keep going over it and over it and over it. I showed to this a check airman one time and it was a really, really tough one, and he really liked this. He gave me, he's, "Yeah, I've never seen that before but I really like that." To break down the controlled airspaces, not A, because A is not on a chart, A is 18,000 and above, this is for B, C, D, and then we'll find an E in a little bit, but for the towered airports. When you think of Chicago, this makes sense. You've got B, bravo, big is O'Hare, you've got C, Charlie, Midway, and then you have a smaller class D down here, Gary. Most people are familiar with Chicago, so I like using this one again because it's a quick way to break down the towered airports. Let's zoom in just a little bit. I'm amazed that even at add-on pilots, people show up and do a rating, and this is the first thing I do when they're an add-on pilot and they tell me they're ready to go and they're good, I pull out a VFR chart and start asking them airspace questions. You'll be amazed at how many people over time just aren't very good with charts anymore, especially if you're an instrument pilot, get a lot of fixed wing instrument guys or girls that they've been flying instruments for a long time, they come to do an add-on helicopter, so you go start asking them airspace stuff, they haven't flown VFR in a long time. They're always on an instrument flight plan, looking at instrument charts, their VFR skills go out the window. This is one that they mess up is the class airspaces, especially around a congested airspace.
Again, O'Hare, we know it's one of the largest airports in the world, big, blue, busy. Right here is Midway, most people have heard of Midway, as well, not quite as big as O'Hare, still a pretty good size airport, it's a class Charlie. Then down here to class delta at Gary, still has a lot of jet traffic, it's in the Chicago area, still kind of a busy airport and kind of a big airport, but it's just not near as big as Midway, so then that's an example of a class delta. There you go. B, C, D. O'Hare, Midway, and Gary. Let's slide in here to O'Hare and let's check out the information about O'Hare. No SVFR, that means no fixed wing can get a special VFR. Can you still ask for a special VFR as a helicopter? Yes, you can. Will they give it to you? Depends on the airspace. O'Hare, I don't know, that's pretty congested airspace and they have routes set up and whether you're going to get it with O'Hare, that really depends. Here's your [inaudible 00:09:04] for the airport, Chicago O'Hare, ORD, control tower information, ATIS, elevation. Sea ll these crazy runways here, it's marked in blue, these towered, blue, big, busy. Notice these red flags? Those are reporting points, so when you're going to go into that area, you're going to want to be familiar with those because if you're talking to approach or talking to a tower, they may very well reference one of these red flags. Since we're here, I see a class echo airport. Let's check that out. There's an example of a class echo. Has a dotted magenta line around the outside. That is a class echo airport. Examiner question on this one, they love asking about class E. Okay? VFR Sectional Chart Tips and Example Examiner Questions. Special VFR