Advanced checkride failures and the regionals

[Tram]

From a training department perspective, I can tell you that 121 initial/upgrade failures are more prevalent than you might think. I have also seen stellar pilots have bad days and weak crew members pass year after year. And that's at the fairly standardized airline level. At the GA level it's a whole different story. A "bad day" could be due to the examiner not grading objectively.


That being said, once you're working for a carrier that has an AQP program, it's a different story.

Regardless, checkride performance should be but one facet of your application.

I understand people bust upgrade rides.. I see guys coming back to the right seat all the time at my airline.. Our training department takes great pride in failing people. I've had the "pleasure" of working at two different airlines, my initial sim partner didn't make it at either place. I understand there are busts.

To say that no one will get through their career without a bust is a total fallacy though, and that's what I was commenting on. I know a handful of retired 121 guys who never busted a ride from the day they entered the military until the day the firetrucks showed up..

I also recognize there is no checkride that anyone has taken that did not have SOMETHING they could have busted on, however, discretion of the examiner allowed them to continue..

 

[Nark]

The only people who say something like that are those who have failed a checkride.

Here is what I know:
Emrites will not call me, because I've never applied.
Air Canada has contacted me, because I applied.

Got it?

 

[C150J]

The only people who say something like that are those who have failed a checkride.

Here is what I know:
Emrites will not call me, because I've never applied.
Air Canada has contacted me, because I applied.

Got it?

And those who have never failed a ride and don't have a sense of fallibility are equally as "tainted." Definitely not pointing my finger at you at all: I just chuckle when I hear new-hires brag about their flawless check ride history yet have the worst CRM/awareness imaginable.

 

[Nark]

I don't get it.
Am I a bad pilot for not having failed?

If a private pilot was to brag about not failing, I'd put them in their place. However I'm neither; a private pilot, nor bragging.

 

[Old Dominion Flyer]

Away as in less stringent or more stringent?

Neither, if that makes sense. This particular CP stated he was more concerned with the circumstances of your failures and what you learned from them. He said failing two or more checkrides was not a career ender. But an applicant will have some additional explaining to do if that is their case.

 

[C150J]

I don't get it.
Am I a bad pilot for not having failed?

Not at all. It's just too bad that our GA testing methodology can't discriminate between good and bad pilots SOMETIMES, yet HR departments do instead of quality screening (at some, not all regionals) Again, my comment was not pointed at you at all. Many pilots have never failed a ride and still have a sense of fallibility. It's the ones that equate their performance in a Seminole with somehow being incapabale of screwing up. And as a former sim instructor, it bugged me the most to teach those guys versus quality applicants that might have had a bad day.

 

[Nark]

HR should never be involved with hiring of pilots.
A regional I once new very well, hired someone 8 months away from age 65. That should tell you how much of a disconnect some HR's have with flying.


Conversely, if someone with an ATP, CFI, II, MEI and type rating walks in with 0 failures, chances are good, they know how to study and prepare for a checkride, as they've had a few in their time. You can judge a book by its cover.

 

[C150J]

Conversely, if someone with an ATP, CFI, II, MEI and type rating walks in with 0 failures, chances are good, they know how to study and prepare for a checkride, as they've had a few in their time. You can judge a book by its cover.

This I agree with, but I'd also argue that time should "heal" failures... It wouldn't bug me to hire the person you described had they busted their private ride decades ago. As you stated, some regional HR folks would pass such a candidate over for a 600-hour pilot with no failures, which results in me explaining rudimentary IFR procedures to him/her when I should be teaching the airplane.