I would say it’s pretty common to see DPEs here say “teach me about X”, with X being something quite broad, and adding “go until you run out of things to teach or I say stop.”
I would NOT say it’s typical to need those items in any particular order determined by the test standards, HOWEVER, teaching them in an order that goes from basics to more complexed or nuances that truly require prior items, e.g. “stepping stones” — is a best practice for teaching AND a good DPE will he also evaluating that along with the topical knowledge.
At least on a CFI ride, which is what we’re discussing I assume... the lesson plan and the presentation of the material should make some sort of instructional sense.
The old, “Don’t start with the turbocharger, they don’t know what an engine is yet.”
Technically you’ll never truly run out of topics. They all interrelate. Or you can “stepping stone” into a new one.
You’d never teach that much about it in a single sitting perhaps with a student because they’ll hit saturation. You can also bring this up with most examiners as well as ending up discussing how you’d break it up to be most effective, and at the beginning you can ask what level of pilot you’re presumably teaching, etc.
If you’re up to it, asking the simulated student if they have any questions is fairly real world and a long time DPE can probably toss you some absolutely insane questions someone actually asked them when they were confused.
Of course this part of the ride is somewhat a knowledge test, somewhat an organizational test, and somewhat a scenario simulating a real student. If you wander off into deep aerodynamics or say something way out of scope like engineering tolerances for a cylinder being machined, expect the DPE to start playing “confused student” and looking at you funny.
Completely impossible to know truly what the DPE saw (or didn’t see) that they didn’t like in this round of simulated instruction. They have to give a reason within guidelines for the bust, but there’s a lot of subjective evaluation going on alongside the objective evaluation. If you’re just utterly blowing it as an understandable lesson, you’re going to blow some of the objective items at the same time. It’ll completely fall apart and be a “legitimate bust” but there will be more to the story.
At the end of the day you have to know you were giving it everything you’d had to confer information and/or skills via instructional knowledge and not just academic knowledge.
Does that kinda help explain why it’s extremely difficult without being a fly on the wall to truly know the complete picture of a bust on a CFI ride unless you’re the candidate or examiner?
Now... would we all like it if the examiner gave a BETTER description of what they saw going wrong, perhaps more guidance to the candidate after the bust, and even maybe a private chat with the recommending CFI? Absolutely. And many do. But it’s not truly a hard requirement — any legitimate objective bust reason is technically good enough for the paperwork...
And let’s be honest even if it isn’t what FAA wants to hear. Very few rides bust out at the FIRST mistake. DPEs know candidates are stressed and do goofy things. But by the time someone has triggered enough red flags to just out of a CFI ride, there was more than one. Usually three or more things, if we’re all being honest about it.
My bust was absolutely legit. I twisted myself into an incredible mental pretzel over a topic that on a different day I could teach quite well. Frankly I had my head square up and locked a few minutes into that and the DPE gave me at least enough leeway to attempt recovery. I doubled down on a bad instructional technique and made it worse! Ha.
Wasn’t a good day. Fatigue, stress, over-thinking. You name it. I was there.
The bust actually had the effect of removing all that self inflicted pressure and then I worked on the order of ops stuff a bit and relaxed and walked in and actually taught — the next time.
I wouldn’t get too wrapped up in any stories about “this was the only thing I did wrong” or even if it was the only thing written down — because it probably wasn’t going well for a reasonably long period of time before that point.
Annnnd ... the candidate may be missing that too. Which is a shame but I could see it happening.
Not all DPEs will take extra time to give pointers and show a candidate where their mental train went off the tracks. They’re not required to, honestly. Most will. But you’re going to see both types eventually. They literally can’t instruct DURING the evaluation, this is AFTERWARD and most who do, make it a freebie to avoid the image of them charging for instruction to pass second rides. Can’t do that either.
In the end all they’re required to do is write down an objective reason for the bust. Even if they had ten in mind for a half an hour. They’re supposed to halt it at number one, but as already mentioned there’s a bit of human factors involved and they know sometimes nerves just plant someone’s foot square in their mouth. If the candidate can recover quickly and correctly... we never hear about those later on.
I do think it’s a shame that various shenanigans have curtailed the old school ability for recommending CFIs to sit in and watch and listen — that’s a thing of the past now — which could lead to greater understanding of how the train wreck occurred... but also was abused in other ways we’ve discussed here in the past.
On the flip side, greater use of scenario based evaluation seems to be much more effective than the old stump-the-chump style seen far too often long ago.
Bottom line: I bet that oral was going way sideways long before that given reason for stopping it. The recommending CFI may have a lot of work to do to get the whole story and picture out of the candidate to help them fix it, too.
