gitmo234
Line Up and Wait
So, a lot of you read my busted check ride thread. My checkride became an adversarial relationship and in my opinion it was way out of the bound of professionalism. A couple hours after my check ride, I got a call from another DPE and I wasnt sure how. I was able to piece together how...
I had a called someone I know who works in general aviation and confided a bit in her about how it went and gave her the details. Turns out what she wasnt telling me was that she had a similar run in and knew this DPE, told him what had happened, and he knew of several similar incidents.
He called me and offered to give me a checkride for a greatly reduced fee.
Since my busted checkride I've flown two mock checkrides. One with my CFI, and one with a CFI out in colorado. That's all the flying I've been able to get in. The result of both were "You're ready, lets get you scheduled". Weather and maintenance issues prevented a checkride while I was in Colorado so when I came back, I gave the DPE a call and got on his schedule and I must have hit the lottery with the weather.
I showed up early in the morning, winds were calm, and we got started. The first thing I noticed was he was very detailed oriented, and very social. He talked to everyone that walked by for a few minutes. I will also say I got some additional validation from another examiner and a couple CFIs that came around during the first hour or two. I was in the right place.
After some admin stuff on the ground, IACRA, reading the various documents, etc. We went out to my airplane. I did my preflight. He had more questions because of historical interest than asking about the preflight. During the call after I busted my checkride he gave me some references to write down for any examiner that said I was entitled to credit for what I had already completed and he told me yesterday that he wasnt going to touch anything I had already done unless I gave him a reason, so no questions.
By the time we got in the air we had spent more time socializing and talking aviation history than anything else. Probably 2-3 hours.
Once in the air he had me do 3 takeoffs/landings and a go round. We went out to a maneuver area and started steep turns. The only thing I noticed was the very second a maneuver was done there was zero delay in going to the next. Roll out of a steep turn and before I could say anything he would give me the next thing.
Did stalls and then he brought me down to ground reference. Knocked those out without issue. We then started flying back and I kinda laughed because he was taking video of my airplane, taking pictures, and looking at everything because of its vintage (1956 C172, it was about 700 off the assembly line).
We landed, parked and got out. I had a good feeling I had passed because other than social chatter and telling me what maneuver to perform he didn't say anything. We got out and he said "okay now you're gonna take a picture with your thumbs up". So at that point I knew.
I wrapped up the paperwork, got my temp cert, he gave me a handshake and said "I dont know what the other guy was thinking...congratulations". Like that, I was done. Still in a bit of disbelief. I texted my wife, she met me at the airport, we went up for our first joy ride. All was well.
Judging by how that went and how comfortable I got, there is no way I'm using anyone else for any further checkrides. That was by far the most common sense, professional, and overall good experience I could have asked for. Night and day from my last experience. A couple of members here recommended this guy as well, so my thanks to them!
Now.....sooooo many places to fly.
I had a called someone I know who works in general aviation and confided a bit in her about how it went and gave her the details. Turns out what she wasnt telling me was that she had a similar run in and knew this DPE, told him what had happened, and he knew of several similar incidents.
He called me and offered to give me a checkride for a greatly reduced fee.
Since my busted checkride I've flown two mock checkrides. One with my CFI, and one with a CFI out in colorado. That's all the flying I've been able to get in. The result of both were "You're ready, lets get you scheduled". Weather and maintenance issues prevented a checkride while I was in Colorado so when I came back, I gave the DPE a call and got on his schedule and I must have hit the lottery with the weather.
I showed up early in the morning, winds were calm, and we got started. The first thing I noticed was he was very detailed oriented, and very social. He talked to everyone that walked by for a few minutes. I will also say I got some additional validation from another examiner and a couple CFIs that came around during the first hour or two. I was in the right place.
After some admin stuff on the ground, IACRA, reading the various documents, etc. We went out to my airplane. I did my preflight. He had more questions because of historical interest than asking about the preflight. During the call after I busted my checkride he gave me some references to write down for any examiner that said I was entitled to credit for what I had already completed and he told me yesterday that he wasnt going to touch anything I had already done unless I gave him a reason, so no questions.
By the time we got in the air we had spent more time socializing and talking aviation history than anything else. Probably 2-3 hours.
Once in the air he had me do 3 takeoffs/landings and a go round. We went out to a maneuver area and started steep turns. The only thing I noticed was the very second a maneuver was done there was zero delay in going to the next. Roll out of a steep turn and before I could say anything he would give me the next thing.
Did stalls and then he brought me down to ground reference. Knocked those out without issue. We then started flying back and I kinda laughed because he was taking video of my airplane, taking pictures, and looking at everything because of its vintage (1956 C172, it was about 700 off the assembly line).
We landed, parked and got out. I had a good feeling I had passed because other than social chatter and telling me what maneuver to perform he didn't say anything. We got out and he said "okay now you're gonna take a picture with your thumbs up". So at that point I knew.
I wrapped up the paperwork, got my temp cert, he gave me a handshake and said "I dont know what the other guy was thinking...congratulations". Like that, I was done. Still in a bit of disbelief. I texted my wife, she met me at the airport, we went up for our first joy ride. All was well.
Judging by how that went and how comfortable I got, there is no way I'm using anyone else for any further checkrides. That was by far the most common sense, professional, and overall good experience I could have asked for. Night and day from my last experience. A couple of members here recommended this guy as well, so my thanks to them!
Now.....sooooo many places to fly.
