Adam congratulations – the FAA are not keen on rote learning so well done on getting an IR in your 601.
Some DPE might drag out the oral over a couple of days, so hopefully yours wasn’t such a marathon! For EASA candidates I expect prepping for the oral is the first hurdle. Lots of scenario discussions (lost comms, icing, low level wind shear, engine failure, other system failures), approach plate discussions, filing procedures/duats/notam, airspace, etc
Some profile rides include steep turns, approach to stall, emergency descent, limited panel approaches all under the hood – some of which are not required by EASA.
The emergencies are also more varied Stateside. If you have an ADF the examiner will be surprised you haven’t sticker’d it INOP, but any radio nav in the aircraft will be tested as an approach, which may make the test longer than EASA.
I sometimes feel EASA is looking for a well choreographed Bolshoi performance of a set piece, while the USA and Canada want to see a proper understanding of the system under different scenarios – and then cover a bunch of other scenarios in the oral.
As for our (UK) fetish for the NDB hold, the FAA PTS only requires 30 seconds established on the QDM, they don’t care the proverbial rats **** if you took up the hold using a half Cuban! well perhaps a bit.
Congrats! Well done.
As a side note, how much work is needed to convert an EASA IR to FAA IR?
Adam, didn’t we all. But again a pass is a pass now.
Bosco, no. Flying is too good here! Yes in two weeks we start back. Has been a great trip.
Oh, I messed up a couple of other things as well, Jason. It wasn’t just the airway.. 
Jason,
are you ever coming back? 
I didn’t get asked to do that on my test and if I did not sure I could do it quickly in the air on a 430 either. Just bad luck but in any event doesn’t matter now you have the ticket!
That’s what stitched me up on the first try, JasonC. Now I know what I should have done – put the two fixes in on either side of the airway and then activated that leg. Live and learn.
European ATC almost never give you an airway to fly. Just waypoints or vectors.
However, reading US forums, it seems to me that ATC there don’t use airway names either….
ATC in the US had me intercept two yesterday. Assume on a 430 you just need to activate the relevant leg of the airway entered as a series of waypoints and intercept but that is much harder than with actual airways loaded. It also requires you to know which leg to activate.
And in Europe in the FL200+ areas you get airways all the time.
Below you will find Peter’s argument about redundancy etc.
Peter, the new GTN series has soft keys on the monitor, so should be a lot friendlier to use. Closer to the nav software we use on the iPad in UI.
I’ve historically not been a Garminista, but the 650 and 750 have some interesting features from a die hard minimalist point of view: The 750 allows you to have a remote audio panel AND a remote transponder. That frees up huge real estate on the panel and de-clutters. The 650 can’t do a remote audio panel, but it does the remote transponder. If you want to minimise real estate, then a 650 with an audio panel is pretty much as small as it gets.
