Failed checkrides

True that. It doesn’t even apply to me I just remember hearing something similar back in the day. Curious if current hiring environment has changed things like that.
 
AA34 said:
True that. It doesn’t even apply to me I just remember hearing something similar back in the day. Curious if current hiring environment has changed things like that.
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After the Coglan crash, HR people freaked out and put in some hard limits. Those have gone away at most places. Most regionals aren't nearly as picky these days. Just be able to explain what happened, what you learned, ect.

Now the Majors have a lot more opportunity to be selective. Three check ride failures during primary is a yellow flag, but not a deal breaker. Multiple 121 training failures is a red flag.
 
If I were interviewing a candidate who had three busts, I would want to hear what they have learned from their failures, and I would also like to see a spotless record with some gap between the time that he/she busted and when they interviewed. It would not be a deal-breaker if the candidate had an otherwise exemplary record and had done things that hinted that the candidate had gone above and beyond their peers. That said, it all comes down to supply and demand. The majors have so many applicants that have never failed a checkride that they can afford to be as picky as they want. It just means that the OP will have to become involved in professional venues in which his "bust"-less friends did not partake. For example, if the OP became a simulator instructor, line check airman, had safety department expertise, and perhaps other credentials that his/her acquaintances who had not failures did not do to diversity themselves, I would forgive the three busts.
 
AA34 said:
I had heard places like AA, Delta, FedEx won’t look at a person with more than 2. Does this unwritten rule still exist?
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Eh, I have no failures at all, international 1300+ PIC, and still can't get a call from the apps I have out. Who freaking knows.
 
Derg said:
It depends.

Some airlines aren’t going to care much depending on their staffing challenges, others will absolutely care.

Some carriers will accept a few with consideration for the period of time and how you handle it during an interview. They’re going to want you to absolutely own the failure and then walk them through what happened and how you recovered (learned) from it and how it made you into a better pilot today. Think of the earlier failures as somewhat forgiven, but each advancing failure is a bigger and bigger deal, except for CFI-initial and that “Year of Terror” when novice regional instructors handed out transitional first officer type rating failures like bourbon chicken samples at a mall food court because they didn’t know any better.

Other carriers may be happy you just showed up and can fog a mirror.

My honest, tough-love perspective is take them seriously, think about what went wrong and what you learned from each event and be ready to discuss it during an interview and knock every other checkride absolutely dead by over-preparing.
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Can you elaborate more on this “Year of terror”? I never knew about that.
 
What if a guy has 5 checkride failures, but explains all of them in an interview beautifully and fully understandably? At some point you have to draw a line that goes "bro, no."

Colgan 3407 changed the mentality.

The unfortunate reality is if that person ends up in an NTSB report, they really aren't going to care about the "how it was handled in an interview" and instead will straight up write up the history of failures. The media will tarnish you as well. I can understand 1 or 2 failures. But starting at 3, you really need to evaluate how you are approaching checkrides, preparation, and the checkride itself. I'll agree with everyone else that failing 121 training and checkrides is an absolute red flag. Gone are the days of DC9 steam gauge stuff requiring physical and mental work. All RJs and mainline aircraft today are glass and easy to fly.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
What if a guy has 5 checkride failures, but explains all of them in an interview beautifully and fully understandably? At some point you have to draw a line that goes "bro, no."

Colgan 3407 changed the mentality.

The unfortunate reality is if that person ends up in an NTSB report, they really aren't going to care about the "how it was handled in an interview" and instead will straight up write up the history of failures. The media will tarnish you as well. I can understand 1 or 2 failures. But starting at 3, you really need to evaluate how you are approaching checkrides, preparation, and the checkride itself. I'll agree with everyone else that failing 121 training and checkrides is an absolute red flag. Gone are the days of DC9 steam gauge stuff requiring physical and mental work. All RJs and mainline aircraft today are glass and easy to fly.
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I will agree and disagree. There are still challenging 121 aircraft that can eat your lunch if you arent prepared. And there definitely limits, but I believe they can't fit everybody. I personally have a higher than normal amount of checkride failures. Are they all deserved? Probably not. There are problems with the financial incentives for examiners to fail people. All it takes is an examiner to have a bad day and boom, you have a failure.

But those failures have seriously made me a better pilot. Its taught me how to handle stress, which is crucial.
 
Cherokee_Cruiser said:
What if a guy has 5 checkride failures, but explains all of them in an interview beautifully and fully understandably? At some point you have to draw a line that goes "bro, no."

Colgan 3407 changed the mentality.

The unfortunate reality is if that person ends up in an NTSB report, they really aren't going to care about the "how it was handled in an interview" and instead will straight up write up the history of failures. The media will tarnish you as well. I can understand 1 or 2 failures. But starting at 3, you really need to evaluate how you are approaching checkrides, preparation, and the checkride itself. I'll agree with everyone else that failing 121 training and checkrides is an absolute red flag. Gone are the days of DC9 steam gauge stuff requiring physical and mental work. All RJs and mainline aircraft today are glass and easy to fly.
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Easier to fly, yes. Not necessarily easier to manage, which is what’s required to be successful for 121 training events in my experience.
 
$$$ run the HR department.

A surplus of applicants: 0 checkride failures.
A deficit of applicants: arbitrarily number is okay.
Look at any number of regional’s as of late. It hasn’t hit the majors yet, but it will.

HR often doesn’t know their head from their caboose. A friend was told he needed more leadership experience,.... a Naval officer, like as in commanding officer. But the dude who walked diabetic blind dogs on the weekends has exemplary leadership qualities. Yeah, OK.
 
Nark said:
$$$ run the HR department.

A surplus of applicants: 0 checkride failures.
A deficit of applicants: arbitrarily number is okay.
Look at any number of regional’s as of late. It hasn’t hit the majors yet, but it will.

HR often doesn’t know their head from their caboose. A friend was told he needed more leadership experience,.... a Naval officer, like as in commanding officer. But the dude who walked diabetic blind dogs on the weekends has exemplary leadership qualities. Yeah, OK.
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Current shop talked to me at length about their training program during the phone screen.

Inability to complete training within the allotted time also costs money, and number of failures is an easy metric by which the folks who make hiring decisions can sift the pile. Is it a fair metric? I dunno, have your failures all been for the same thing? (What's-his-name on CJC3407 apparently couldn't fly a V1 cut to save his life. Whether or not that maneuver is a useful or realistic exercise is another topic, but it really spoke volumes about his raw flying ability.)

At the risk of sounding like myself again, the job is to safely operate the airplane.
 
@Autothrust Blue We have a horrendous training program, and it's a wonder it hasn't switched to AQP sooner. I had your classmate in the jumpseat the other day, he said there were a few failures (one oral and check ride?).

On a cost savings, I assume AQP is better to train, al beit, I'm out of my element when it comes to safety-benefit and cost benefit of AQP vs our traditional PC's.
 
Nark said:
@Autothrust Blue We have a horrendous training program, and it's a wonder it hasn't switched to AQP sooner. I had your classmate in the jumpseat the other day, he said there were a few failures (one oral and check ride?).

On a cost savings, I assume AQP is better to train, al beit, I'm out of my element when it comes to safety-benefit and cost benefit of AQP vs our traditional PC's.
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So, you guys finally went to AQP?
 
Nark said:
@Autothrust Blue We have a horrendous training program, and it's a wonder it hasn't switched to AQP sooner. I had your classmate in the jumpseat the other day, he said there were a few failures (one oral and check ride?).

On a cost savings, I assume AQP is better to train, al beit, I'm out of my element when it comes to safety-benefit and cost benefit of AQP vs our traditional PC's.
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I have had both and honestly I cannot tell the difference. Although that may have been due to the LDS implementation of AQP, and not any fault of the ideas behind AQP. My last CQ, bluntly, was a joke for reasons I will tell you about offline.

I seem to remember everyone in my class did fine with some extra sessions sprinkled in. The subsequent class had a boat load of drama and a bunch of oral busts.

Our program is uniquely suited to taking someone who is a 121 crewmember in an advanced jet and making them an Airbus pilot. If the applicant isn’t any of those things, it quickly snowballs from there. There isn’t really any time for retraining, among other issues, so you get to get things right the first time, or it snowballs.
 
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