Failed Checkride

There are a couple issues that raise a red flag.

I recommend talking with the FSDO. Most likely they are unaware of what their examiner is doing. Call and ask to speak to the General Aviation Operations Supervisor. Just explain your observation. If you want to do something that is within the applicant's authority to do, but rarely done, ask for a retest by an inspector. It won't cost the applicant anything except the airplane rental. If he really is a good student, it will help validate your observations and give greater weight to the need for corrective action on the part of the FSDO.
 
We had a DPE give a 5-6 hour oral for a light sport checkride where I work a couple months ago. The student passed, but I agree that this is ridiculous. My cfi oral was under two and a half hours.
 
Orals only go as fast as the student, if they are slow to answer, or to look up answers than it takes longer. Nothing I can do as an examiner to make them hurry up. However, 5 hours for a private oral does seem long. I think I've gone as long as 3 on PPL, but CPL will often reach 4.

As far as the flight time, that is ridiculous. If he is a new DE you have to give him some slack, as it takes a while to get a good flow and rhythm for conducting the flights. When I first started doing stage checks it took me a lot longer than it does now. A PPL ride can be done in 1.2-1.5, however it again depends on the student. I will sometimes have PPL rides take 2.0 due to the student requiring additional time to get situated and comfortable between maneuvers.
 
germb747 said:
I agree that yelling is not acceptable, but there's no need for the examiner to give you 10 minutes to produce a good steep turn just because the applicant is PIC. You get one shot at it, and if it's outside the PTS, he can bust you right there. When he was giving military checkrides, chances are that he was the PIC since that's the way it usually works in the AF, so maybe he's not used to it being the other way around and still has the mentality that he's in charge. Not an excuse, but perhaps that explains what his mindset might be..
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Yelling or other abusive behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances and I don't care what the DPE's "mindset" is- it's unprofessional at the very least. In other words, I don't care about the why. I don't believe in second chances to be abusive

I failed my first attempt on my commercial, I never really found out why, although it wasn't for the reason I should have failed. The DPE never debriefed me, although he mentioned something about "If you want to do steep turns at 90 knots, stick to puttering around the pattern on weekends" and " If you can get your s*** together you can retest with me or anbdy else you want, I don't really give a f*** which" just before he stormed back to the office to fill out the disapproval, which he handed to me without saying another word and disappearing out the door. Dude had been abusive to one degree or another (from mildly to highly) throughout the short flight. I decided at that time not to ever fly with that • again.

For the re-test, I changed schools and airports and lucked into a great DPE. I busted the re-test- but at least I knew why because the DPE de-briefed me and told me what I was doing wrong and how to correct the problem. On the 2nd re-test, I passed with no problems. And later passed the multi add-on with the same DPE on the first try.

When (if) I finish my CFI, I alreay know which DPE I'll steer my students to and which DPE won't get a dime's worth of business out of me or anyone I can influence
 
Mike H said:
Yelling or other abusive behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances and I don't care what the DPE's "mindset" is- it's unprofessional at the very least. In other words, I don't care about the why. I don't believe in second chances to be abusive

I failed my first attempt on my commercial, I never really found out why, although it wasn't for the reason I should have failed. The DPE never debriefed me, although he mentioned something about "If you want to do steep turns at 90 knots, stick to puttering around the pattern on weekends" and " If you can get your s*** together you can retest with me or anbdy else you want, I don't really give a f*** which" just before he stormed back to the office to fill out the disapproval, which he handed to me without saying another word and disappearing out the door. Dude had been abusive to one degree or another (from mildly to highly) throughout the short flight. I decided at that time not to ever fly with that • again.

For the re-test, I changed schools and airports and lucked into a great DPE. I busted the re-test- but at least I knew why because the DPE de-briefed me and told me what I was doing wrong and how to correct the problem. On the 2nd re-test, I passed with no problems. And later passed the multi add-on with the same DPE on the first try.

When (if) I finish my CFI, I alreay know which DPE I'll steer my students to and which DPE won't get a dime's worth of business out of me or anyone I can influence
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At least in the civilian world, you have the opportunity to vote with your wallet, which I highly encourage the OP to do.
 
Mike H said:
"If you want to do steep turns at 90 knots, stick to puttering around the pattern on weekends" and " If you can get your s*** together you can retest with me or anbdy else you want, I don't really give a f*** which" just before he stormed back to the office to fill out the disapproval, which he handed to me without saying another word and disappearing out the door.
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LOL are you freakin serious? I'm sorry to laugh but that was hilarious.
 
Anything over 2 hours is too long for an oral on a private check ride. At that point the applicant doesn't know enough and should probably fail. I had an 8 hour oral for my CFI but it was really relaxed. The DPE was very "motherly" and she would take breaks and give me snacks or tell me stories about her Air-Force days. We did the flight portion of the ride the next week.

No one should ever be yelling on a check ride or in instruction in the civilian world. I understand that some people in the military like to use this approach, those people should stay in the military and not become civilian examiners. Civilian pilots aren't used to being yelled at and to bring that into an already high stress situation is asking for lack luster performance. My dad was an instructor in A-4s. He can get a little pissy when you fly with him but I don't think he ever yells. He doesn't have anything good to say about check airmen or examiners that do either.

I say make the flight to MT if it's reasonably close. Or even request an inspector from the FSDO.
 
Mike H said:
Yelling or other abusive behavior is not acceptable under any circumstances and I don't care what the DPE's "mindset" is- it's unprofessional at the very least. In other words, I don't care about the why. I don't believe in second chances to be abusive

I failed my first attempt on my commercial, I never really found out why, although it wasn't for the reason I should have failed. The DPE never debriefed me, although he mentioned something about "If you want to do steep turns at 90 knots, stick to puttering around the pattern on weekends" and " If you can get your s*** together you can retest with me or anbdy else you want, I don't really give a f*** which" just before he stormed back to the office to fill out the disapproval, which he handed to me without saying another word and disappearing out the door. Dude had been abusive to one degree or another (from mildly to highly) throughout the short flight. I decided at that time not to ever fly with that • again.
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I certainly understand the reluctance to take complaints to the FSDO, but I sure wish people would do that.
 
The Private rides with our examiners depend on the student mostly... With Orals running from 2-3 hours depending on how squared away the student is.. any more and it is a bust for the obvious reasons... I have yet to see one of our students go over 2 hours in a flight, with most lasting about 1.5... 25 minutes under the hood???? why???? Good God...

You need to file a formal complaint with the FSDO... and you need to stay up on it to find out the outcome.. I guarantee you are not the first, nor will you be the last to have a problem with this examiner.... If that does not work, run it up the chain... I know of an examiner in Az some years back that got canned for being unprofessional... it jsut took enough complaints... Your FSDO will understand that the time line was out of wack.... Good luck on this...
 
pilotbry said:
The problem with telling anyone about this kind of experience is that it's always your word against the DPE. The POI or anyone else could figure that maybe you are an idiot and deserved the treatment you got. I almost quit trying to pursue a career as a pilot because of this guy. If it wasn't for my current & previous CFIs reassuring me that I indeed was a competent pilot, I might have.

Hopefully the student in the original post can get that kind of support and move on to enjoy flying.
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I want to first commend your instructor(s) for the reassurements. It's definately something that is necessary at times. We're here to not only be your teacher, but your cheerleader.

Secondly, to the OP, for a compitent PPL applicant, I don't even believe that a Private oral should exceed 1.5 hours INCLUDING paperwork. My private oral was MAYBE an hour (including paperwork)... My CFI was only about 3.5 hours and then an hour lunch break with my examiner... Breaks are necessary--especially at the private level so the student isn't crazily overwhelmed.

Thirdly, YELLING at a student, at any time, is UNACCEPTABLE! They are a STUDENT for a reason! They dont know everything and yelling at them doesn't produce results... It just stresses them out.
 
2 hrs Oral and 2 hrs ride sound acceptable to me.

After the Oral every examiner should ask the Go/No-Go decision. After 5 hrs, I would say $*!t no! I'm tired and hungry. An 8 hr day with no break may fly in the military but not at an FBO for some old guy that just wants to be able to fly around the patch for fun.
 
I don't understand what secret criteria the FAA uses to select these ass clowns. It is ridiculous that there are so many ornery old depends-wearing MF'ers who make up their own rules and steal money from students out there giving checkrides.

I agree with what most of the others above said. There is a difference between a tough examiner and one who is flat out unfair and/or just padding his bank account. If that was my student and his story was true, my first call would be to the DPE himself asking "WTF?!" Since no explanation he could give is excusable for that kind of conduct on a private checkride, my second phone call would be to the FSDO. It may not do any good, but as the instructor, I would feel obligated to. The DPE should be working with and to some extent even for me. If they're pulling crap like this, someone needs to hear about it. That brings me to my third action, which would be to launch a campaign to let every instructor within a 150 mile radius know what is going on. I believe that DPE's have to give X number of checkrides in a given period of time to maintain their status (don't remember exactly and too lazy to look it up right now). If instructors stop using him, he won't get paid to be an •, the FSDO might take notice and take action, and best case he may not be able to maintain his DPE status.
 
That examiner needs to taken behind the woodshed and have his arse beaten.

5 hours for a private pilot oral?? Come on.

My intial CFI oral was less than two hours and my captain upgrade oral was also less than two hours- and that was with the most anal dude in the whole company.
 
I'm no check pilot, but I do look into their job descriptions every once in a while on the off chance that I may try to become one someday and though I have said it before, let me say it again: don't ever use this guy again.

Yelling/insulting/abusive behavior, tearing the student like he was doing, saying that the student is above average but froze on one subject matter after this kind of torturous experience? This guy is no professional.

I would have grabbed this guy and made him read this thread from beginning to end long before now, then tell him pointedly that I would be contacting FSDO and that the student would be disclosing on the abuse as well.

Whatever you do decide to do, good luck and know that many of us would like to hear of the results.
 
That really is a long checkride.

I thought my private checkride was long because there was a TFR active (lived near Pres Bush's ranch and he was in town that day). My oral lasted about 1.5 hrs, I think he just wanted to here a little bit about my knowledge the TFR. My flight was about 1.5 as well.

My longest checkride was my instrument which had like a 3 hour oral and a 1.6 flight.
 
Even the half hour under the hood seems too long for the PVT checkride. Too bad students can't get their money back after flying with jackasses like this. Or better yet, why not the FAA pay them for their first 6 months at least just to work out the wrinkles if there is any worth working out and the students get a free checkride out of it.
 
If what the OP wrote is true, it's longer than a type rating. I don't see how a private pilot check ride in a normal/utility airplane can take longer than a type ride in a complex transport category airplane. It sounds as if this DE was giving a military style check ride.
 
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