Questionable Weather for IFR Checkride

Hi all. I have my IFR checkride scheduled this upcoming week but the forecast on that day has been the same for a few days, which has not really changed: partly cloudy to cloudy in the morning with snow developing in the afternoon or potentially earlier. I will have to call my DPE the night before my exam to discuss this but am I allowed to request to at least complete the oral portion for the following three scenarios, if A. 100% chance we will not fly due to forecasted weather, B) 80% chance we may not be able to fly or C) 50% or less we wouldn't be able to fly?

Currently, its forecasted to have morning highs of 42, dipping to 20 by the afternoon. Obviously the storm is moving into the area as the day goes on, but I don't want to say the wrong thing and fail the checkride

 

you won't be the first checkride where weather came into play. my commercial was broken up, we did the oral one day but wx came thru (as we expected) so we did the flying portion another day. communication is key. not a big deal.

 

Wait for a perfect day to do both. No turbulence, low winds, adequate vis and ceiling.

 

I don't cancel plane rides until the morning of for weather. The forecasts aren't that reliable. I'm sure the dpe is used to this and feels the same way.

 

Of course you are allowed to ask, and you should. Of course, the examiner can also refuse.

And remember, you may gain points with the examiner for cancelling rather than making a bad Go-Decision.

 

The DPE deals with this all the time. You are hardly unique (sorry!), so just call them and figure it out.

However, DPEs are not supposed to start a checkride without a reasonable expectation of being able to complete it. I don't know why, and that rule doesn't make sense to me, but it's in 8900.2, the DPE guide. So if the weather looks good enough, so you start but then it goes downhill, that's okay (and actually the way I'd prefer to do checkrides, I've had two like that and it was great to get the oral out of the way one day and do the flight another). But if the weather looks bad before you start, you can't just say "let's just get the oral done".

From the 8900.2C:
"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."

 

How long has that been around because my private and commercial rides were both scheduled with known garbage weather. The private, I did the oral and we did the flight portion about 50 days later. The commercial I should have deferred the flight portion, but didn't, and paid for it.

 

I am not seeing how that passage from 8900.2C prohibits starting a test that was already planned and scheduled as a single-day event if the weather is bad. The weather could improve. And the weather was not known when the test was planned and scheduled.

 

brings a side question to my mind.... and it has been far too long for me to recall this....

What would happen if it was IFR but well above minimums...could or would a DPE do the ride?
I guess it would require the DPE to be current since the student is not yet rated.... oh never mind...answered my own question

 

The requirement that the Examiner not start the test if there is not a reasonable chance of completing it is fairly new.

My understanding and a bit of my own speculation is it came about due to some of the DPE issues in the news the past few years.
Essentially the FAA has significantly increased their oversight of examiners. I understand it used to be that the FAA just coordinated the the DPE when the wanted to sit in on a checkride to see how the examiner was doing.
Now the examiner has to give the FAA something like at least 24hrs notice before they start a checkride. This is so the FAA can randomly drop in on any checkride they might be doing. This is kind of pain when examiner show up at a checkride only to find out the applicant doesn't meet the requirements for the check ride and he is done in 30 minutes. He can't call his afternoon guy or the guy that he couldn't schedule in for 2 weeks and say Hey I am done early, want to start your checkride early?

I am not sure how not allowing 2 part checkrides fits into that but my speculation is that it may have something to do with it, maybe just because the FAA wanted to keep the scheduling system simple.

My understanding is that new rule has been causing issues for some of the DPE's in warmer area's during the summer. In the past they would do the Oral in the Afternoon when it was to hot to reasonably fly and then complete the flight portion the next morning when it was cool. Now they have to start the Oral at ridiculously early times so they can fly while it is still cool outside.

To the OP's question I think calling him the night before if there is an 80% chance or less of the weather being acceptable for a checkride just shows good judgement and planning on your part (He can, in part, check weather and decision making off of the list of things he needs to evaluate). But as another poster mentioned often a weather check again the morning of the check ride may be when to make the final decision.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL

 

Not sure, but it is pretty recent. I had a checkride in 2013 that was intentionally done over 2 days, so I'd say it's more recent than that at least.

 

I suppose that's an examiner and FSDO interpretation thing and maybe varies. I'm not a DPE.

I could see it being interpreted as "sure you tentatively scheduled the checkride 2 months ago. But now it's the day before, and now you're actually confirming your schedule, so the rule applies." I don't know, it's a guess. But I've had DPEs tell me straight out that the FAA won't let them intentionally split checkrides any more due to this paragraph.

 

To do a one-day CFI ride with a 6-hour oral in the summer here, the oral would have to start at 3am.

 

As far as I know, the expectation that the DPE is not to start a practical test if there isn't a reasonable chance to finish it has been around for at least a decade. I know some examiners who seem to have a much looser interpretation of this rule than others, which may be partially due to the variance between FSDOs and how closely they are monitoring the DPEs activities. I've never had to split one of my own checkrides but I have had to reschedule a couple of them and it took several tries to get a day that would work. My instrument checkride was done on an IFR clearance and in actual conditions, but that was before such activities were strongly discouraged.

About the only thing the OP can do is call the DPE the day before or the morning of the checkride and see what the options are. Hopefully they're not booked so far out that a weather event on the day of a checkride becomes a major setback.

 

For what it's worth, I scheduled my private checkride for a day that was schedule to be a bit windy. I don't mind a little wind, but we weren't going to fly it if it wasn't safe, of course. It was pretty windy when we started the oral, but things calmed down maybe an hour after, so we didn't have to defer it. It was no problem.

So my thought is that it's fine to schedule if you and the DPE think there's a decent chance of good weather, and you're both comfortable with deferring if you change. You just have to be prepared to participate in that decision on the day of the checkride. If you're ready for your checkride, you need to be ready to make that type of go/no-go decision anyway.

 

I did my IFR checkride yesterday and the winds were wicked. I had scheduled my ride about 4 weeks earlier and when the day came I thought the DPE would put it off. Instead he texted that he would see me at 1300 so I headed over to kflo where the winds were reported 17 gusting 24. It was difficult to hold altitude and course headings, so bad that I would be flying along trimmed up at 2000’ and then a blast would put me at 2200’. The added stress of managing the turbulence and fighting the controls caused me to mess up in a few other areas such as atc communications. What made the ride a little easier is that I had done some IFR practice in turbulence and wind. That preparation made it a little easier to endure the checkride under tough conditions. Bottom line. Don’t be afraid to go up and train in bad conditions. You never know what the weather will be on the checkride day. When the ride was over the DPE said he expected better altitude holds but under the conditions it was acceptable. I passed, and on the way back to the home drone atc gently reprimanded me for not reporting altitude on my missed approaches. “Roger that”.

 

Good for you. Congrats. I did my IR ride in November, and honestly, it was the worst weather I’ve ever flown. Passed.

 

6 hour oral for a IR practical?

 

@Possum you are saying ATC waited until after you dumped off the DPE to give you that insight on the holds?

I assume you didn’t have to hold on your flight home.

They actually read the note in your flight plan and gave grace?

 

I did fail to give my altitude on one of the missed and departure had to ask my altitude. After the ride, I took off and was heading back to the home airport, then was told to contact departure. It was female controller who gave my instructions on departure. A few seconds later a male controller called me and very mater of factly told me to give altitude when speaking with approach/departure. Perhaps a supervisor? Anyway they knew I was on a checkride because we had traffic issues trying to do the ils and had to ask for the ils several times. My guess is they probably ran out of patience. I cancelled flight following as soon as I could. When I got back home and called my cfii with the story I got a real good chewing out. Lesson learned.

 

I’d say go for checkride. Once you complete your oral, check the weather. If the weather is no good, demonstrate your risk management skills by making a no-go decision. Officially it’s a discontinuance. Type up the letter and have you/DPE sign it. Then rebook for the rest of it.

I had to do that for my PPL, and I’ll likely have to do that for my commercial.

FYI: for a discontinuance, the student must declare it

 

@Possum your CFII chewed you out after passing the IR practical?

I say congratulations sir. Forgetting to say altitude in that situation . . . Forgivable (IMO). A simple “432 echo Romeo say altitude.” Works. I’m sure it would have clicked as the stress came down.

 

The CFII was happy about me passing but not so pleased with the ATC reprimand. He is a great instructor but by the book. ATC phraseology is something he always insists you get right. A good day for me and one I’ll never forget. I will say the winds were way above my personal minimums when I took the ride.

 

I’m glad the winds were above your minimums but not seemingly above your maximums.

;-)

 

Ha!!! Looks like I need to work on both ATC AND POA communication. (It was very windy).

 

I had to cancel my IFR check ride 3 times with 3-4 weeks between appointments. Finally it's mid Dec and the weather early is MVFR. Spend 3+ hours doing the oral in the morning. The DPE said it had to be VFR to take the checkride. I was ready to file but no. So for 3 hours I figured I would have reschedule the flight. The clouds lifted for about 4 hrs just enough for the check ride and the flight back to my home airport. Took about 4 months to get the check ride done.

Good luck with yours.

Like said, the DPE is interested in your weather decision making. If it is not safe you are not going to get them into the plane.

 

Thanks for all the opinions and help. I’m happy to say I passed my checkride! Of course nothing goes as planned on a checkride and the weather did deteriorate during the flight portion. And of course not only did my final approach include an rnav approach and circle to land on a runway I’d never landed before due to bad winds, but my dg failed on the final approach (not the examiner blocking it, it actually failed). But I was told my the dpe if I can do it on a checkride, I can do it in real life haha! Thanks again everyone

 

He clearly said for CFI. 6 hours is still pretty extreme, though. I think mine was 4 hours with one of the more thorough DPEs around here.

 

He must not have a vast set of experience outside the local area. While ATC is very consistent on some things, and should be, I see a lot of variation on expectations just up and down the east coast. More than I ever heard hanging out on UHF in the military. Congrats on the checkride though!

 

Congrats! And nice catch on noticing the DG was out.

 

That happened to me. I was at a 10 day course, I was ready for the checkride on day 9 but the instructor hadn't scheduled the checkride. I had to stick around an extra couple days for the ride. But, morning of the ride it was 2200' overcast. We could complete the whole checkride under VFR conditions except for the ILS, that required going up to 2400'. The DPE wouldn't do the checkride if it was actual IMC.
I was not happy, two extra days of rental car, two extra nights of hotel room, and it was the beginning of covid and couldn't find anyone near home that would do a checkride. I finally found a DPE to do it, but the recency of instruction had expired and I had to do another 3 hours with an instructor before I could do the checkride. I got it done but what a mess!

 

I'm nearly positive that IR check ride was conducted in actual IFR conditions, but I was wearing foggles so... let's just say that I passed and the DPE asked me if I was going to file back to the home drome or wait it out.