ChasenSFO
hen teaser
Now first off, the examiner was a totally cool guy. He was really relaxed and made me feel a lot more at ease then I felt walking in the door. But everyone I've told about it seems to be blaming the examiner, except me, and I want a second opinion.
He asked me maybe 2 or 3 wx questions, spent some time on mx, only 2 aeromedical questions, but then NAILED me on systems. Over ONE HOUR of non-stop questions about the systems. I'm told an examiner will only ask about 2 or 3 systems usually. I got asked about every system in the POH, no exaggeration. I drew the schematic out for the fuel system, vacuum system, pitot-static system, electrical system(he asked me for all of them) and told him what everything was and what went where, but then he bombarded me with stuff I've never even heard. "How do you tell military fuel from civilian fuel at night if you can't see the color?".
"Will fuel ever weigh more than 6lbs/gal?" I said no to that, and of course it was "Are you sure? How are you so sure"...
It kind of went like this for every system. He just kept going and going until I didn't know enough about it to answer his questions. I figured the hydraulics system(like I said, he asked me about EVERY system) were simple enough to explain, but no. I figured all he would want was how much fluid is in the plane, that it is used for the braking system, and that you can check for leaks by pumping the brakes when you first start to taxi and looking for fluid out the window. Nope. "Ok, that's what the hydraulics system IS, but what does it DO?". I said "It flows to the break discs when you step on the toe of the rudder pedals." He says, "How?". I didn't really know how to answer that I was so tripped up at this point. It went like this for every system, I swear he was fishing for a wrong answer.
Then we get to airspace, which I thought I knew well. But I got tripped up bad. Stuff like this:
"What airspace is this?(points to D)"
"Delta"
"Why?"
"It has a segmented blue circle"
"Why isn't it Charlie?"
"Its not a magenta circle"
"Are you sure?"
"yes"
"So you don't have the 2 mixed up? Do you want to think about it for a second."
"Uh..."
"Uh? So you're unsure now?"
"No, its delta."
"You sound too unsure, its a theme here, you aren't convincing me you're PIC"
and for everything else:
"what airspace are you in?"
"golf"
"Why?"
"Because its golf up to x altitude"
"Why?"
ect...
....
So in the end, he said everything was great EXCEPT airspace and systems, took my $450, said we'll do those two next time(another $250), and kthxbai. Granted, I honestly didn't know some stuff, but BOY did he exploit the few things I answered wrong.
Now, at first I thought "Wow! I was unprepared." But then a bunch of my CFI friends I talked to told me the PPL exam is NOT supposed to be like that, and it sounded more like a commercial or CFI oral in all the depth of systems he was asking me and how he challenged almost every answer I gave him(got real annoying and made me kind of shaken up). My CFI said he thinks I didn't get failed for my knowledge, but he said the DPE told him afterwards that I made the right answer feel wrong because I was unsure in myself. Well yeah...I was nervous enough and he totally confused me of course I'm going to tripple think all my answers before I give a wrong one. So my CFI told me "They can't fail you for not being confident enough, but they won't pass you either". What the eff?
This was my first checkride, so I assumed everyone gets grilled like this. My question is was he being fair and everyone(many from jc infact) who told me he was being a d-bag is wrong. Or did he just decide to fail me the second I walked in the door? Just going to throw this out here, he had a bad flu and had to run to the restroom 4 times during the oral.
He asked me maybe 2 or 3 wx questions, spent some time on mx, only 2 aeromedical questions, but then NAILED me on systems. Over ONE HOUR of non-stop questions about the systems. I'm told an examiner will only ask about 2 or 3 systems usually. I got asked about every system in the POH, no exaggeration. I drew the schematic out for the fuel system, vacuum system, pitot-static system, electrical system(he asked me for all of them) and told him what everything was and what went where, but then he bombarded me with stuff I've never even heard. "How do you tell military fuel from civilian fuel at night if you can't see the color?".
"Will fuel ever weigh more than 6lbs/gal?" I said no to that, and of course it was "Are you sure? How are you so sure"...It kind of went like this for every system. He just kept going and going until I didn't know enough about it to answer his questions. I figured the hydraulics system(like I said, he asked me about EVERY system) were simple enough to explain, but no. I figured all he would want was how much fluid is in the plane, that it is used for the braking system, and that you can check for leaks by pumping the brakes when you first start to taxi and looking for fluid out the window. Nope. "Ok, that's what the hydraulics system IS, but what does it DO?". I said "It flows to the break discs when you step on the toe of the rudder pedals." He says, "How?". I didn't really know how to answer that I was so tripped up at this point. It went like this for every system, I swear he was fishing for a wrong answer.
Then we get to airspace, which I thought I knew well. But I got tripped up bad. Stuff like this:
"What airspace is this?(points to D)"
"Delta"
"Why?"
"It has a segmented blue circle"
"Why isn't it Charlie?"
"Its not a magenta circle"
"Are you sure?"
"yes"
"So you don't have the 2 mixed up? Do you want to think about it for a second."
"Uh..."
"Uh? So you're unsure now?"
"No, its delta."
"You sound too unsure, its a theme here, you aren't convincing me you're PIC"
and for everything else:
"what airspace are you in?"
"golf"
"Why?"
"Because its golf up to x altitude"
"Why?"
ect...
....
So in the end, he said everything was great EXCEPT airspace and systems, took my $450, said we'll do those two next time(another $250), and kthxbai. Granted, I honestly didn't know some stuff, but BOY did he exploit the few things I answered wrong.
Now, at first I thought "Wow! I was unprepared." But then a bunch of my CFI friends I talked to told me the PPL exam is NOT supposed to be like that, and it sounded more like a commercial or CFI oral in all the depth of systems he was asking me and how he challenged almost every answer I gave him(got real annoying and made me kind of shaken up). My CFI said he thinks I didn't get failed for my knowledge, but he said the DPE told him afterwards that I made the right answer feel wrong because I was unsure in myself. Well yeah...I was nervous enough and he totally confused me of course I'm going to tripple think all my answers before I give a wrong one. So my CFI told me "They can't fail you for not being confident enough, but they won't pass you either". What the eff?
This was my first checkride, so I assumed everyone gets grilled like this. My question is was he being fair and everyone(many from jc infact) who told me he was being a d-bag is wrong. Or did he just decide to fail me the second I walked in the door? Just going to throw this out here, he had a bad flu and had to run to the restroom 4 times during the oral.
