Can You Use Notes During the Checkride Oral Exam?

Quick Answer

Yes. The practical test is open-resource: you may use your POH/AFM, FAR/AIM, charts, the Chart Supplement, and your EFB during the oral, and DPEs brief this explicitly before the test. What you may not do is guess or invent. Core items — airworthiness documents, weather minimums, your own V-speeds — must still come without a book.

What the Rules Actually Say

The practical test is conducted to FAA-S-ACS-6C, and the ACS expects a pilot to use references the way a real pilot in command does. During the required pre-test briefing, most examiners state outright that available resources are fair game. There is even a professional move worth making when the DPE asks "any questions before we start?": confirm it. "Just so we're aligned — resources are fair game, and if I don't know something you'd rather I look it up than guess?" You have just pre-negotiated permission to use the technique that saves marginal answers.

The Magic Sentence, and Its Budget

When a question lands outside your memory, say exactly this: "I don't know that off the top of my head, but I know where to find it — may I look it up?" Then go to the right source fast: regulations to the FAR/AIM index, aircraft numbers to the POH, procedures to the AIM or Chart Supplement. Examiners fail inventors, not looker-uppers.

But the move has a budget: roughly 3–5 uses per oral, and only for peripheral topics. A private pilot is not expected to have Part 91 memorized; a private pilot is expected to produce these without hesitation:

• The required documents — personal (61.3) and aircraft AROW (91.203)
• Required inspections: annual, transponder, ELT, ADs (91.409, 91.413, 91.207)
• Basic VFR weather minimums for the airspace on your route (91.155)
• Fuel reserves: 30 minutes day, 45 night (91.151)
• Your airplane's V-speeds and limitations

Reaching for a book on any of those tells the examiner the foundation is missing.

Notes, Kneeboards, and Cheat Sheets

Bringing organized materials actually helps you. A tabbed logbook, a one-page weather-minimums table you built yourself, and a completed nav log all signal preparation — DPEs report the pass/fail impression forms in the first 20 minutes largely from how organized you are. What hurts is reading answers off a crib sheet verbatim: the examiner is grading understanding, and FAA-S-ACS-6C requires them to probe until they see it. A memorized or transcribed answer with nothing behind it invites the follow-up "okay — why?"

The Skill That Beats Any Note

The highest-leverage habit for the oral is answer–cite–stop: answer directly in the first sentence, cite the source, and stop talking. Notes cannot do that for you; drilling can. The PPL Oral Exam Guide ($24) gives you 298 real DPE questions with one-breath cited answers — including exactly which items must be automatic and which are legitimate look-ups — in 160 pages aligned to FAA-S-ACS-6C.