Check ride test – Was he treated fairly?

5 Answers

1. 
   

   
   

   Russ Roslewski on Dec 06, 2021

   I’m not sure which part you’re asking about being fair – the checkride failure or the cancellation of the retest?

   For the checkride failure, there is no way to tell if it’s “fair” or not given the information you provide. And really, without a recording of it, there’s no way for anybody else to be able to tell. It’s been my experience that applicants who fail a checkride tend to extremely downplay why they failed – I assume it’s human nature, a defense mechanism. “Couldn’t describe the airspace rules for Class B, C, and D” and “couldn’t calculate a weight and balance” becomes “only missed two questions” when they tell others. Obviously I/we don’t know the specifics here, but this type of thing happens all the time (I’d say probably on most failures to some degree).

   For the cancellation of the retest, again, no way to know if it’s “fair” or not. It’s undesirable of course, but who knows? Maybe the DPE got COVID. Maybe his or her child got very sick. Maybe some other personal reason. Heck, maybe their DPE status was revoked – I actually saw something similar happen a few years ago.

   There are bad apples in the DPE world, of course. And maybe this one is one of them. But given the information above, there’s no way to tell.

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2. 
   

   
   

   Kris Kortokrax on Dec 06, 2021

   I don’t see where the poster said that his “friend” failed the ground portion of the test. Only that he had missed two questions.

   If he failed the test, he should have received a Notice of Disapproval. If he did not fail the test, he should have received a Letter of Discontinuance, showing the areas of the test that he had passed.

   It appears that the examiner was charging $1000 for the test, but only collected a portion of the fee for the ground portion.

   He could ask around the school to see if the DPE had any issues that prevented him from giving the test.

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3. 
   

   
   

   Russ Roslewski on Dec 06, 2021

   Kris, you may be right. From the wording “He needs to meet with his CFI, to go over them,” I assume a disapproval was issued with those two areas. Otherwise there would be no requirement to “go over them”, though of course it would be appropriate to suggest they do.

   But you could be right.

   If that is the case, then I have a couple additional thoughts.
   1) DPEs aren’t supposed to start a checkride unless there is a reasonable expectation of completing the whole thing. From FAAO 8900.2, “The intent of the designee must be to complete the entire practical test in one day. Designees must not schedule the test to be planned as a multiple-day event.”

   2) A retest fee for a failure is pretty standard. A retest fee for a weather cancellation is pretty appalling to me but probably happens. A retest fee for a weather cancellation where the DPE knew about the weather and purposely suggested doing the first half anyway in an attempt to get double the fee, is downright unethical and if that’s the case, the DPE should never be used again by anyone.

   3) If the examiner only charged a portion of their fee for the oral, and was going to charge the rest for the flight portion, that actually seems pretty reasonable and fair (although it violates the 8900.2 rule) – assuming $1000 is the going rate in the OP’s area of the country.

   Now, why the DPE can no longer do the checkride is anyone’s guess without asking them.

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4. 
   

   
   

   Kris Kortokrax on Dec 06, 2021

   I remembered the caveat concerning not starting the test unless there was a reasonable expectation that it could be completed, but could not find the reference (searched for “weather” and “completed”). Thanks for that.

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5. 
   

   
   

   stillkicking on Dec 07, 2021

   These replies are most appreciated. Let me clarify a few points so perhaps we can go even further.

   My friend is, as am I, in his 60’s. We both began taking lessons at the same time and with the same freelance CFI’s but had never met before. We are now good friends and have done our best to help each other on what has become an often difficult, costly and even heart breaking journey to obtain a pilots license.

   I obtained mine earlier this year. He failed his first oral by one question. He came back and, as I recall, failed again due to not having called the FSS to get the weather that morning. The third time he failed the flight portion when he got confused as to his location above an airport.

   He passed all the maneuvers and take off and landing tasks with flying colors. He had only to redo that one portion but the DPE said he could not retest him after failing three times.

   Is that correct?

   This meant he had to find another DPE. He did so and the DPE was briefed by the first DPE on my friends situation.

   He retook the oral and failed two questions. One was a simple FAR he could have looked up but after some 4 hours of grilling, he was just exhausted.

   He was to come back to complete those two failed questions and take the flight portion this past Sunday when this second DPE cancelled on him. He would not tell him why he cancelled and would not reschedule another day. He would not even discuss it with his CFI. He just dropped the ball completely and told him to find another DPE

   My friend has spoken with yet another DPE who will retest him later this month. He needs to start over from the beginning. Take the entire oral portion, again, for the third time.

   As you can imagine, this has been hard on my friend. Frankly, I see no reason this has to be made so difficult let alone so costly. Several thousand dollars for DPE’s and CFI’s and still no end in sight.

   BTW: His ground school will expire the end of this month. He may have to retake that, as well.

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