Bombed CFI oral

Were those the only questions asked? Any others that got you?
Pretty much. I bombed out pretty early so I'm not sure how the next time will go. I've been reading the far aim and getting more familiar with the index because he said I was weak at knowing where to find the answer.
 
All good advice and I'm glad to hear you are going to go after it. When I did the CFI initial I had to do it at the FSDO in Orlando. They had a massive failure rate during that time (late 90s) due to several accidents. They took away the CFI initial from designated examiners and made everyone hit a FSDO.

Long story short, I failed the oral TWICE. It affected me exactly 0% in my career. Most guys doing interviews know the difficulty of the rating. Good luck!
 
So @Galaitoto

Have you done the retake yet?
Not yet. This is turning into a mess. We tried to schedule a few times and each time the examiner offers a date that I cannot take. My only option so far would have been to accept his date and call in sick from work, which I don't care how bad I need to get this done, I don't call in sick. Another curve ball is, after November he is no longer remaining as an examiner, which would mean that I would have to start all over again with a new examiner. In the meantime, I am trying to study and rebuild both my confidence and motivation. And finally, my CFI found himself in a small battle between two students who accused him of some logbook discrepancies, which long story short, has caused some of our local DPE's to no longer accept checkrides until the dust settles. This became my problem because the local FISDO won't assign me to the local DPE's, all of which whom I am very comfortable using, which creates a huge gap of possible DPE's that I could use. My original checkride date was set, and for no reason it was moved back two days, which I thought nothing of at the time. Upon showing up for my test and being told that I had the pleasure of having two FAA examiners sitting in, the two day postponement seemed a little staged to me. I did not know at the time that I had the option to refuse. I had the idea that I was going to show them a thing or two, which obviously didn't go quite as planned. A chief pilot from another school who I respect greatly thinks that I need more time to study and build up my confidence. He understands exactly what my main problem is. He told me that I have minimal confidence because I was micro managed. I had to be an exact clone of my instructor, otherwise he would say I was incorrect. He is the type that always has to be correct, even when I know he is wrong, I just let it be because I don't feel the need to prove myself to that type of person. In the end I am not blaming him completely because I allowed this to go on. I've been plagued with confidence issues believing in myself my entire life, so obviously it's not anyone's fault but my own. I'm debating on whether listening to the chief pilot, and study more and build up more confidence, or just to knock on the FAA's door for a checkride. I don't understand how using the FAA is free and using a DPE cost me 800 bucks. This pisses me off for some reason. I don't want to pay a DPE another dime, which is why I want to use the FAA. In the end, I'm confused and I don't really know what I'm going to do at this point. I'm in limbo mode, or purgatory. All I know is, someday soon I will get this thing finished.
 
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I'm just repeating what many before me said, but it is so true that it bears repeating.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get right back in there. The iron is hot and there will never be a better moment than now to strike. Go for it.
 
The unfortunate truth of being a pilot is you are regularly in the middle of a whirlwind storm of bs and expected to happily complete complex tests at the same time. No big deal. Half of being a pilot is letting stuff roll off your shoulders. The art of not being worried while at the same time genuinely caring about the task at hand is difficult and must be mastered over time.

There is nothing to be confused about. You have a goal (the cfi ride), to complete that goal you must do task A. Task A isn't attractive so it is making you nervous. You had a brain fart on your cfi ride, and paid the price, so that is adding to the anxiety. Completing any goal is the art of a thousand tiny corrections. Failing a CFI ride and then retaking it is a just another tiny correction. Society in general is engineered to tell you it's a humungous big deal, it's not. If you are still breathing, life is good. End of story. Everything else is an illusion set up by old grumpy dudes so they can justify their existence to the world.

This doesn't mean things aren't important, it just means that you need to realize that everything is a game that is trying to convince you it's not a game. It's a game.

Do what you have to do to complete your CFI. So what if you have to pay a DPE $800 and he is a complete pain to deal with and the entire day is unpleasant? A lifetime of wondering what could have been is worse. Accomplishing things means repeatedly doing things that make you extremely uncomfortable, which is why most people accomplish nothing. If you are comfortable, you aren't progressing. Never accept comfortable. Ever.

At the end of the day, no matter how things went, you still go home, drink that ice cold beer, and watch some TV.
 
The unfortunate truth of being a pilot is you are regularly in the middle of a whirlwind storm of bs and expected to happily complete complex tests at the same time. No big deal. Half of being a pilot is letting stuff roll off your shoulders. The art of not being worried while at the same time genuinely caring about the task at hand is difficult and must be mastered over time.

That is a most excellent way to put it.

At the end of the day, no matter how things went, you still go home, drink that ice cold beer, and watch some TV.

And that goes for whatever sort of flying you end up doing, and all the scares and tumbles you'll take along the way.

Well said, @TWP.

-Fox
 
The unfortunate truth of being a pilot is you are regularly in the middle of a whirlwind storm of bs and expected to happily complete complex tests at the same time. No big deal. Half of being a pilot is letting stuff roll off your shoulders. The art of not being worried while at the same time genuinely caring about the task at hand is difficult and must be mastered over time.

There is nothing to be confused about. You have a goal (the cfi ride), to complete that goal you must do task A. Task A isn't attractive so it is making you nervous. You had a brain fart on your cfi ride, and paid the price, so that is adding to the anxiety. Completing any goal is the art of a thousand tiny corrections. Failing a CFI ride and then retaking it is a just another tiny correction. Society in general is engineered to tell you it's a humungous big deal, it's not. If you are still breathing, life is good. End of story. Everything else is an illusion set up by old grumpy dudes so they can justify their existence to the world.

This doesn't mean things aren't important, it just means that you need to realize that everything is a game that is trying to convince you it's not a game. It's a game.

Do what you have to do to complete your CFI. So what if you have to pay a DPE $800 and he is a complete pain to deal with and the entire day is unpleasant? A lifetime of wondering what could have been is worse. Accomplishing things means repeatedly doing things that make you extremely uncomfortable, which is why most people accomplish nothing. If you are comfortable, you aren't progressing. Never accept comfortable. Ever.

At the end of the day, no matter how things went, you still go home, drink that ice cold beer, and watch some TV.
Thanks for writing all of that, it really helped. I have been reading up on my material and I feel pretty comfortable. I know that my knowledge is good, heck all I do is study my books, I had to put my life on hold in 2011. At the moment I am calling the FISDO trying to get a new date set. So far with my current DPE, the days that he has available, I have to work. I'll get something figured out soon hopefully.
 
At the moment I am calling the FISDO trying to get a new date set. So far with my current DPE, the days that he has available, I have to work. I'll get something figured out soon hopefully.

Might be worth making an exception and asking for a day off...
 
Can you not ask for the day off? Do you have vacation time?
Yes I can request a day off. The problem was with trying to reschedule, the days he had available was not far enough ahead for me to request the day off. I am still trying to get a date scheduled at the moment.
 
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