Strange Outcome to CFI-Initial

ljg said:
if what you're saying happened as it happened, it sounds like the FAA doesn't know their own regulations. This no longer surprises me anymore. The people who should know it best, often don't.
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This is hardly a rare occurrence.
 
Lead said:
You took it with the FSDO right? So this examiner was a fed? I've seen and heard of stupid busts like this. Basically, it boils down to the examiner being a moron/ahole (if everything is as you say it is). Did you explain to him that you recovered at 1000 ft AGL. Maybe he didn't know what altitude that was and thought you were lower than you were? Did he want you to add 50 ft to the 1000 for the "tallest object within a 2000 ft radius?" Even so, the 500 ft rule should have applied based on your description. But I've heard feds call a rusty barbed wire fence in the middle of nowhere a "structure."

As for the engine failure, maybe he wanted to surprise you? Maybe he forgot what he briefed? Who knows.

Most people fail there CFI initial. Also, you have a good explanation, so I don't think it will hurt you too much in the future. If your worried about it you may want to call AOPA and ask them what your options are.

Did you get something stating why you failed? What does that say?
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I understand holding CFI applicants to high standards since CFIs have a huge amount of responsibility (and liability), however the way some FSDOs take CFI applicants for a ride on the oral (lasting 4-10 hours judging by the stories I've heard) then expect them to perform perfectly on the flight is unrealistic (and a violation of the IMSAFE checklist in some cases). Personally, if the oral is going to be so long and in depth, wouldn't it make sense to mandate it be a two day checkride, oral one day and flight the other? I guess it really comes to the fact that there are some real tools that work for the FAA that stand out over the decent people that work there....
 
Personally, I find the whole process laughable, because some of the best "instructors" I've ever met have never held a CFI ticket in their lives. I don't have a CFI ticket, never got it starting out, and now, there's no way in hell I'd put myself through the stress of doing that ride with a 4-10hr oral for something that may or may not be all that useful for me in the long run. The sort of in depth and asinine questioning followed by a bogus flight with "gotchas" is something I watched many buddies go through - and the difficulty had nothing to do with PTS, rather it was dependent on the examiner, and whether or not said examiner had a burr up his or her ass.

I was signed off for my CFI, and my plane broke a few days before the ride, and wouldn't be up - it was the only complex airplane that was available on such short notice on the field, so I told him I'd call him to reschedule. The examiner bitched me out for not having my "stuff" together - basically telling me that I was going to fail - and a day later I got a job, so I said screw it, and never did the ride. In retrospect, it was a mixed bag. Not having the CFI made things harder, for sure starting out, and I'll get it "one day," but the process by which the rating is obtained is laughable at best. You sit in a room for 4-10hrs, then you go out and fly around in the right seat (which you probably only have a dozen hours in) doing maneuvers which looking back have little practical application to much of what you do "at work" so that you - a 300hr pilot - can teach other pilots how to fly. No, CFI mins should be ATP mins, and the checkride should be like checkairman authority (where you get an "applicant" and have a fed watch you instruct/give a checkride). But whatever, I don't really have a dog in that fight anymore.
 
ppragman said:
" but the process by which the rating is obtained is laughable at best. You sit in a room for 4-10hrs, then you go out and fly around in the right seat (which you probably only have a dozen hours in) doing maneuvers which looking back have little practical application to much of what you do "at work" so that you - a 300hr pilot - can teach other pilots how to fly
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Totally agree, the way the ride is structured now is kind of silly. Try to "teach" a lesson to an examiner is about the most synthetic and meaningless exercises I have ever experienced. Teaching an actual student is a totally different thing.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Totally agree, the way the ride is structured now is kind of silly. Try to "teach" a lesson to an examiner is about the most synthetic and meaningless exercises I have ever experienced. Teaching an actual student is a totally different thing.
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I agree... it needs some major overhauls. In the oral the fed kept telling me it showed I didn't have a lot of teaching experience (which is true considering I haven't had any students) and when I was describing spiraling slipstream I used the word "prop wash" and explained it as the air that comes back from as a result of the propeller spinning and the fed played dumb and gave me this look and said I don't get that.
 
Trev0079 said:
.the examiner starts ripping me a new one telling me how I just busted a regulation and that the people who lived next to this field were probably going to call in to the FSDO tomorrow and complain about a small plane coming to close to their house. The examiner then states that I just failed the checkride and that I use really bad judgement.
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An examiner is not allowed to let a check ride progress to the point of a regulatory violation. If he did that, he was more in error than you were even though you were the PIC.

Unfortunately, that fact won't help you any. However, it is frustrating when the examiners violate their own requirements.
 
Passed the retest it took under an hour. New examiner was way cooler then the other woman.
 
ppragman said:
there's no way in hell I'd put myself through the stress of doing that ride with a 4-10hr oral for something that may or may not be all that useful for me in the long run.
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Sorry to change the subject but the oral is really 4-10 hours? That's crazy! Do you have to use two planes, can't you just use complex for the whole ride?
 
Troy said:
Sorry to change the subject but the oral is really 4-10 hours? That's crazy! Do you have to use two planes, can't you just use complex for the whole ride?
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With the FSDO you can expect an oral from 4-10 hours. It's not uncommon for initials to become 2 day checkrides. You don't have to use two planes, but the only complex around was a little more money then I wanted to spend to relearn all the maneuvers and speeds.
 
how was the retest? Did they actually give you credit for everything you already did? I am asking only because I failed my initial CFI on a short field landing because I landed 25 feet short of where I said I was going to land. Passed the oral but would like to know if they actually give you the credit for the areas you already completed.


Nick
 
think the credit you get for stuff already done is written on the letter of disapproval. it says: "this letter may be used to show the satifactory performance of..."
 
My CFI oral was about 4 to 5 hours... really sucked.

I like the way the Army trains and checks its instructors. For my two Army IP checkrides I gave the entire academic oral TO the examiner who was in role reversal. He messed some stuff up intentionally and I had to retrain him on certain areas. Seemed a lot more realistic than a brutal half-day oral where the examiner asks zillions of questions. Plus it only lasted as long as I wanted it to.
 
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