Busted!

Shiftace

Shiftace

s***posting with decency. trolling with integrity.
Had my Instrument checkride today. Beautiful day; with winds pretty calm and pretty smooth at altitude.

Examiner showed up about 45 minutes early!! Oral and ground portion of the exam went fast and well. Said I did about 85% on that. Mix of scenario and regulation questions. How to look up weather, what to watch for etc etc.

Told me what he expected on the ground as far as flying goes, and off we went. He wanted to do unusual attitudes, and I requested we do that at the very end. Since I was nervous and my stomach was feeling a little queasy!

Start off with VOR with missed to the published. Some debate on what is construed as "being in the hold". More on that later. After hold, it was vectors for the ILS. Was going well... till he said I needed to be at or above the glideslope. I was about 1 dot below the slope and pretty well centered on the localizer. Under stress, I for some reason, pulled power! And off went the slope... I caught it and was trying to fix and lost the localizer. DPE said nothing. Said go to GPS, come back and circle and land. Asked him about the unusual attitudes. He said, we'll be flying again... soon to redo the ILS. We'll do it then. ;)

That was that. Busted.
 
Dont worry man very common to do things out of character on checkrides, I have experienced it myself as well. You should be good to go after retrain/re-sign/re-test. Chin up!
 
Cptnchia said:
It happens. I busted my first type/ATP ride because of a boneheaded move. Passed on the redo. Yesterday, 18 years later, I added my 5th type rating. You'll be fine on the redo. At least you know what to expect now!
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Yep. I failed my initial CFI under, looking back at it unfair circumstances. Regardless I moved on never failed another check ride and I have 6K accident and incident free hours 3 type ratings, blah blah blah.

To the OP. If you are feeling nervous before a ride do the unusual attitudes and maneuvers first. This is what happens pretty much every time in the simulator when you move on to turbine aircraft. In the training environment it is always steep turns then unusual attitudes. In addition to giving you back that confidence that one needs to pass a check ride it also gives you a feel for the sim which may or may not seem like the actual aircraft. If you dont feel comfortable with unusual attitude recovery go and fly with your instructor beforehand and also visualize yourself completing the maneuvers on the ground.

I've won many a DH mountain bike race by visualizing the entire course before the run. Steep turns and U.A. should be easy.
 
I teach all of my students that if something like that happens where you end up full scale on something, go missed immediately, and perhaps request box vectors, but either way, terminate the approach and try it again. Not going to lie and say that would have gotten you a pass, but I would bet that if you had done that and come back around and gave the ILS another shot and nailed it that many DPEs would pass you due to the fact that you exhibited good judgement by terminating the approach when it was clearly not safe to continue. Those needles are the only thing keeping you from hitting the ground that may be very close even with everything centered, so if you're full scale, you better be full power and climbing at Vy as far as I'm concerned.

As far as busted checkrides, I would bet that most people have at least one.
 
Shiftace said:
Start off with VOR with missed to the published. Some debate on what is construed as "being in the hold". More on that later. After hold, it was vectors for the ILS. Was going well... till he said I needed to be at or above the glideslope. I was about 1 dot below the slope and pretty well centered on the localizer. Under stress, I for some reason, pulled power! And off went the slope... I caught it and was trying to fix and lost the localizer. DPE said nothing. Said go to GPS, come back and circle and land. Asked him about the unusual attitudes. He said, we'll be flying again... soon to redo the ILS. We'll do it then. ;)

.
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Were you in the process of capturing glide slope from below? Or was it a case where you had already gotten the GS and went below it? I'm guessing the latter?
 
Thanks everyone. I look forward to the retest; and it is just the ILS bit.

killbilly said:
Were you in the process of capturing glide slope from below? Or was it a case where you had already gotten the GS and went below it? I'm guessing the latter?
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Had already gotten the GS and localizer. Went just a little bit below it and DPE said you need to be at or above. And then I panicked.
 
I'm pretty sure the dpe has to tell you immediately when the checkride is over and then ask if you want to continue or not. Between this thread and the other one it seems like this guy is a real moron.
 
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