The checkride isn't a mystery. It's a published list.
The FAA publishes exactly what an examiner can test: the Airman Certification Standards. Zeekin Around turns that list into free study guides, spaced-repetition flashcards, and chair-flying practice, so you walk in knowing the blueprint.
What you get
Guides that mirror the ACS
Open a guide next to the ACS and they match line for line: same Areas, same Tasks, same element codes. You're studying the same document your examiner grades from.
Flashcards that schedule themselves
You don't pick what to review. Miss a card and it's back tomorrow; keep nailing it and the gaps stretch from days to weeks. Ten minutes a day keeps the whole deck warm.
Chair flying, step by step
Every CFI says to chair-fly. This gives you the script: each maneuver as a numbered flow (configuration, airspeeds, callouts) you run from the couch until it feels boring. Boring is the goal.
Wherever you are in training
One guide per certificate, rating, or endorsement. Each is built on its own ACS or FAA source, and each is free to read end to end.
FAA-S-ACS-6C
Studying for your first checkride
The private pilot oral feels enormous until you see the list the examiner is working from. Study the ACS task by task, drill the flashcards, and chair-fly the maneuvers. Do that and the checkride becomes a review, not a surprise.
Start the PPL guideFAA-S-ACS-8C
Adding the instrument rating
The IFR oral runs deep: regulations, weather, approach plates, lost comm. The guide covers every task in the Instrument ACS, and chair flying rehearses holds, approaches, and partial panel before you pay for the sim.
Start the IFR guideFAA-S-ACS-7B
Stepping up to commercial
Same airplane, tighter tolerances, deeper systems knowledge. The commercial guide covers every ACS task, and the maneuver library scripts chandelles, lazy eights, and the power-off 180 so they're wired in before the flight.
Start the CPL guideFAA-S-ACS-25
Preparing to teach
The CFI checkride tests whether you can explain it, not just fly it. Every task comes with teaching scripts (the brief, the demonstration, the student errors to name out loud) plus the fundamentals of instructing.
Start the CFI guideFAA-S-ACS-11A
Prepping the ATP practical
Transport-category depth on every task in the ATP ACS (high-altitude aerodynamics, turbine systems, crew concepts), organized so airline-bound studying fits around an airline-bound schedule.
Start the ATP guideAdd-ons & endorsements
Adding a rating on the side
Shorter section-by-section guides for the checkouts that don't get a full ACS: Vmc and engine-out drills for the multiengine add-on, ground loops and wheel landings for the tailwheel endorsement.
What should we build next?
CFII, seaplane, sport pilot, and endorsement guides are on the radar, same ACS-first structure. Guides are free, forever. Requests decide the order.
How to use it
The method is retrieval practice and spaced repetition, the two study techniques with the strongest evidence behind them, straight out of the FAA's own instructor handbook. Read the full study plan.
- 1
Read the guide, task by task
Start at Area I and work through. Each task page covers its knowledge, risk-management, and skill elements in plain language, with progress tracking so you always know what's left.
- 2
Drill the flashcards
Cards are pulled from what you just read and scheduled with spaced repetition. 15 new-or-due cards a day are free, enough to build the habit. Premium removes the cap.
- 3
Chair-fly the maneuvers
Step through each maneuver's flow on the ground until the callouts come without thinking. The first maneuver is free; Premium unlocks the full library.
- 4
Walk in knowing the blueprint
By checkride day you've seen every task the examiner can pick, answered the questions out loud, and flown the maneuvers in your head a dozen times. That's the whole strategy.
Guides are free. Premium is the practice.
Every study guide is free to read, forever: no signup, no paywall, no “first chapter only.” Premium adds unlimited flashcards, the full chair-flying library, and cloud sync across devices, for $9 a month or $36 a year, cancel anytime.
See what's in PremiumWhy this exists
Zeekin Around is made by pilots who wished this existed during training, people who sat down to study for a checkride and found the material scattered across handbooks, forums, and fifty-dollar flashcard decks, none of it organized the way the examiner would actually ask it.
The Airman Certification Standards are public. The blueprint for your checkride shouldn't cost money, so the guides never will. The practice tools that go beyond reading are what fund the site.
Start free. No account needed.
Pick your guide and start reading. Progress saves on this device automatically. Create a free account when you want it synced everywhere.