The FAA wants you to rate your DPE

It's only a great idea if they actually do something useful with it. The most serious problem facing us now is that there aren't enough DPEs active. None of that requires any surveying to fix. Furhter, the FAA is supposedly already monitoring DPE performance. Alas they do a woefully inadequate job out of it. I fear this will go nowhere other than being an excuse to justify the capricious and chronyistic removal of designations.
 
I'd have filled one out if able. My PPL DPE was wonderful, and deserved the praise. But she retired and moved out of the area many years ago.
 
Tools said:
Need to start evaluating aeromedical folks…
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Metrics to include time to first action, total time from app to issuance, and discern where the rough patches are.

Then we can get congress to issue some sort of mandate for them to clean up their act, since they have no interest in doing it themselves. About anything.
 
Agree in principle. Disagree in practice.

We already have too many CFIs and others who shouldn't have their rating (in my relatively inexperienced, purely PPL opinion), I don't know how I feel about a system encouraging DPEs to pass even more people or risk de facto punishment.

Maybe grading them purely on scheduling? Like, they won't take a flight for 3 months: 0 stars. But rating based on your practical outcome? No. That's on you, bud!
 
From the NPRM, “In Section 833 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, Congress mandated that the FAA enhance its oversight of designated pilot examiners (DPEs) by, among other things, “[d]eploying a survey system to track the performance and merit of such examiners.” Because such a survey will necessarily constitute a time burden on pilots, the FAA is seeking OMB approval to collect pilots' feedback through such a survey system.

The FAA will ask pilots to complete a survey following practical examinations conducted by DPEs. The survey will consist of approximately twelve yes-or-no questions regarding DPEs' level of professionalism; the suitability of the exam environment; the content of the exam; and the duration of the ground portion and the flight portion of the exam. The FAA will use the information collected to track the performance and merit of DPEs.”

So the people who aren’t and never have been qualified to perform a role (Pilot Examiner) are going to become the arbiters of merit-based performance for someone in the role. Only Congress would come up with something as stupid as that.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
We already have too many CFIs and others who shouldn't have their rating (in my relatively inexperienced, purely PPL opinion), I don't know how I feel about a system encouraging DPEs to pass even more people or risk de facto punishment.
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Where did you get the idea they were using it to fluff pass rates?

Edit: ninja'ed with two remarks in this vein now. I assume the sole intention of this is to track statistical outliers (both santa DPEs and grinch DPEs) and increase scrutiny/ride-alongs and see what's what? As opposed to expecting them to get "all A's" on the questionnaire?
 
schmookeeg said:
Where did you get the idea they were using it to fluff pass rates?

Edit: ninja'ed with two remarks in this vein now. I assume the sole intention of this is to track statistical outliers (both santa DPEs and grinch DPEs) and increase scrutiny/ride-alongs and see what's what? As opposed to expecting them to get "all A's" on the questionnaire?
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My take is that there's already the natural human disposition towards rating the bad outcome. It's like looking at Google reviews to me.

People get their pilot rating but have the slightest gripe about how it went? Won't rate or less than 5 stars. Their entire career is potentially impacted by this...

People who don't get their preferred outcome? Oh, they're gonna rate 0 all day long and type up ALL KINDS of reviews.

It'll be the biggest bimodal distribution in history. Who is going to rate their DPE 3 stars? I'm having trouble envisioning a scenario where they say "he failed me for a good reason".

Anecdotally, I'm just thinking about @MauleSkinner recent review (I actually don't know if he's a DPE or some other designation). How would the guy who failed W&B rate him? Should a jet rating candidate be able to bite back because he failed?

Maybe the right answer is the FAA using some data tools on their end, assuming a standard distribution of applicants to each and look at pass/fail rates and find out if some are overly Santa/Grinch?
 
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ArrowFlyer86 said:
It'll be the biggest bimodal distribution in history. Who is going to rate their DPE 3 stars? I'm having trouble envisioning a scenario where they say "he failed me for a good reason".
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Hmmmmm, you make good points. let's have NASA administer it like we did with (RIP?) ASRS and in the same style :D
 
Reading the FAA RA, the reference section states

(a) IN GENERAL.—The Administrator shall establish an office to provide oversight and facilitate national coordination of designated pilot examiners appointed under section 183.23 of title 14, Code of Federal Regulations.

Digging deeper, it’s that office’s responsibility to

(6) Deploying a survey system to track the performance and merit of such examiners.

With that context, I would envision the national office would conduct a survey of the DPEs by number and type of rides given in their region and outside their region to determine whether that DPE should retain their status or not or whether a particular region needs more examiners or not.

The only relevant information an applicant could provide is
1. How long did you wait from signoff to checkride?
2. How many different examiners did you try to schedule with?

Both questions provide nothing but anecdotal responses and neither should be used to determine if a DPE is giving too many or too few rides.
 
If the FAA wants a DPE rating system, all they have to do is a quick search for anonymous, one-post rants on PoA and they'll have all the feedback they'll ever need! :ihih:
 
JimNtexas said:
My problem with DPEs is the demand for large cash payments with no receipts. The huge potential for tax fraud is obvious. FAA should require written receipts with tax id numbers for all payments to DPEs.
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Thing is, DPEs know that cash payments can trigger all kinds of things with the IRS, so they probably keep very meticulous records beyond the ones required by the FAA.

But if you want to stop the demand for cash payments, fix the applicants.
 
JimNtexas said:
My problem with DPEs is the demand for large cash payments with no receipts. The huge potential for tax fraud is obvious. FAA should require written receipts with tax id numbers for all payments to DPEs.
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Since when is tax collection the FAA’s probem? Should the FAA regulate airlines’ and flight schools’ payroll procedures?
 
JimNtexas said:
My problem with DPEs is the demand for large cash payments with no receipts. The huge potential for tax fraud is obvious. FAA should require written receipts with tax id numbers for all payments to DPEs.
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I’ve never had a DPE refuse to give me a receipt, but then again, fraud and money laundering is a risk.

Since there’s about 1200 DPEs nationwide and let’s say they average 1.5 checkrides per day at $1000 per checkride, that’s $1500/day per DPE * $1200. That’s $1.8M/day in cash transactions nationwide. Since there can be upwards of 330 flyable days per year, each DPE represents an annual risk about $495K in tax fraud. Since they aren’t reporting the transaction as income, they can’t put that money in a qualified retirement plan, and since this is all under the table, they can’t really use a bank, either, so turning that cash into real money via compound interest in an S&P500 Index fund is also off the table.

So is paying the home mortgage unless it’s serviced by a local credit union that will accept a cash payment, but then again that credit union had to do some KYC/CDD on the DPE when opening the account and the mortgage to find out where the money in that account comes from.

And because he’s always paying that mortgage in cash (along with all the other utilities and his cell phone and internet bills), the IRS has no idea there’s some highly qualified pilot making mid-six figures annually in an all cash business and legions have been doing so for decades to the tune of almost $600M annually.

Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in finance and banking, but I don’t see a huge risk of DPEs committing tax fraud since they’ve worked most of their career to get to that spot.

I’d look at Part 61 flight schools and young CFIs as the more likely tax cheats.
 
TCABM said:
I’ve never had a DPE refuse to give me a receipt, but then again, fraud and money laundering is a risk.
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I don't know what receipts would do to prevent tax evasion, unless the IRS required applicants to send in copies of their receipts. But the FAA knows exactly how many check rides a DPE performed, including when and for whom. The IRS could probably obtain that information pretty easily.
 
TCABM said:
So the people who aren’t and never have been qualified to perform a role... are going to become the arbiters of merit-based performance for someone in the role.
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Literally every "rate your doctor" site and every Interactive Customer Evaluation assessment that hospitals obsess over. *****, you didn't get antibiotics because you didn't need them for a viral sinusitis. I don't give a crap that you "always get them".
 
Lindberg said:
But the FAA knows exactly how many check rides a DPE performed, including when and for whom. The IRS could probably obtain that information pretty easily.
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Exactly along with every designee. And given the designee management system is a government database it allows the IRS to directly access it. No designee can perform any of their authorized functions without entering that work in the database.
 
JimNtexas said:
My problem with DPEs is the demand for large cash payments with no receipts. The huge potential for tax fraud is obvious. FAA should require written receipts with tax id numbers for all payments to DPEs.
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This one just won't die.

Why cash? Because if someone paid with a check, then fails the ride they just stop payment. Credit card? They file a dispute.

ALL checkrides are logged through the FAA via DMS, a government computer system. Think the IRS can't get access to this? DPE has 100 checkrides logged for the year, yet on his 1040 he shows only income for 50. Who do you think is going to prevail here?
 
flyingron said:
It's only a great idea if they actually do something useful with it. The most serious problem facing us now is that there aren't enough DPEs active. None of that requires any surveying to fix.
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Bingo. Being unnuanced and just cutting with an axe would be more effectual in this instance. Establish a productivity floor to keep the designation outright, or lose it to the next applicant.
 
I had a friend get called by the FSDO after a checkride for feedback.
 
Doc Holliday said:
This one just won't die.

Why cash? Because if someone paid with a check, then fails the ride they just stop payment. Credit card? They file a dispute.
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Why should DPEs expect any more business protection than any other service provider? I get not accepting checks, but requiring cash payment for >$1,000 is...antiquated. There are multiple witnesses that a DPE provided the service, regardless of the outcome. Any attempt a chargebacks would be quickly nullified. Does PSI have problems with chargeback attempts when someone fails a knowledge exam?
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Why should DPEs expect any more business protection than any other service provider? I get not accepting checks, but requiring cash payment for >$1,000 is...antiquated. There are multiple witnesses that a DPE provided the service, regardless of the outcome. Any attempt a chargebacks would be quickly nullified. Does PSI have problems with chargeback attempts when someone fails a knowledge exam?
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There’s been enough burned already. And not sure why cash is “antiquated”. Certainly not around here.
 
Doc Holliday said:
There’s been enough burned already. And not sure why cash is “antiquated”. Certainly not around here.
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Cash in that amount is "antiquated" because it requires either multiple trips on different days to the ATM (most banks have a $500 ATM daily withdrawal limit) or a trip to the bank during bank hours. If DPE are conducting themselves in a professional manner, they should be aware that the examinee is also a customer, and their time has value, too. "There's been enough burned already" is not data.

Zelle can also be an option, if the pilot's bank has high enough Zelle transaction limits. Zelle is not reversable, and neither is Venmo.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Cash in that amount is "antiquated" because it requires either multiple trips on different days to the ATM (most banks have a $500 ATM daily withdrawal limit) or a trip to the bank during bank hours. If DPE are conducting themselves in a professional manner, they should be aware that the examinee is also a customer, and their time has value, too. "There's been enough burned already" is not data.

Zelle can also be an option, if the pilot's bank has high enough Zelle transaction limits. Zelle is not reversable, and neither is Venmo.
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Again, not seeing a problem here. My son did his ratings last year (4 checkrides) and I paid cash each time, no big deal.

I typically carry more than that as pocket money.

Some of us like dealing in cash.
 
Doc Holliday said:
Some of us like dealing in cash.
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Great, then you can pay the DPE in cash. I can't think of another business that charges fees more than a couple hundred bucks (like a restaurant) that doesn't have a non-cash payment option.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Great, then you can pay the DPE in cash. I can't think of another business that charges fees more than a couple hundred bucks (like a restaurant) that doesn't have a non-cash payment option.
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DPE’s are a unique business. Again, can’t see the problem here.
 
Simple solution…if you don’t like the way the DPE does business, take your business elsewhere. Enough people do that, and change will happen.
Jeff Oslick said:
they should be aware that the examinee is also a customer, and their time has value, too.
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Most applicants could save way more time by being more prepared. That would help resolve a lot of other complaints, too.
 
Doc Holliday said:
DPE’s are a unique business. Again, can’t see the problem here.
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Not any more unique than an AME, and fair number of those exams don't go exactly as planned either.

MauleSkinner said:
Simple solution…if you don’t like the way the DPE does business, take your business elsewhere. Enough people do that, and change will happen.

Most applicants could save way more time by being more prepared. That would help resolve a lot of other complaints, too.
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DPE's are a government-controlled resource. Applicants often don't have much, if any, choice.

~80% of applicants are adequately prepared to pass. Of the remaining 20%, some fraction didn't prepare enough, some fraction had their CFI/flight school fail them in their preparation, and some fraction just had a bad day.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
DPE's are a government-controlled resource. Applicants often don't have much, if any, choice.
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Applicants have hundreds of choices. It just needs to be important enough to them to make that choice.
Jeff Oslick said:
~80% of applicants are adequately prepared to pass.
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As long as struggling through the oral and/or flight is considered “adequately prepared.” I tend to disagree with that.
Jeff Oslick said:
Of the remaining 20%, some fraction didn't prepare enough, some fraction had their CFI/flight school fail them in their preparation, and some fraction just had a bad day.
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Of the percentage whose flight school is at fault, how many of them were unaware of the ACS? Most of the “my flight school failed me” excuses are simply saying the flight school didn’t train them to the level the ACS requires.

Of the percentage who had a bad day, what percentage would’ve had a good day if they had been better prepared? I see my share of applicants who say, “I’m a bad test taker,” but few, if any, make the effort to be knowledgeable and proficient enough that something below their absolute best effort will pass a checkride. They tend more towards having minim standards as a goal.

And why is a 20% failure rate acceptable anyway?
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Why should DPEs expect any more business protection than any other service provider? I get not accepting checks, but requiring cash payment for >$1,000 is...antiquated. There are multiple witnesses that a DPE provided the service, regardless of the outcome. Any attempt a chargebacks would be quickly nullified. Does PSI have problems with chargeback attempts when someone fails a knowledge exam?
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How much experience do you have fighting charge backs for subjective services? Accepting cash only doesn't seem to be an impediment for most people taking check rides. And I'm sure dpes understand the alternatives.
 
Jeff Oslick said:
Why should DPEs expect any more business protection than any other service provider? I get not accepting checks, but requiring cash payment for >$1,000 is...antiquated. There are multiple witnesses that a DPE provided the service, regardless of the outcome. Any attempt a chargebacks would be quickly nullified. Does PSI have problems with chargeback attempts when someone fails a knowledge exam?
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Jeff Oslick said:
Great, then you can pay the DPE in cash. I can't think of another business that charges fees more than a couple hundred bucks (like a restaurant) that doesn't have a non-cash payment option.
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The don't expect protection. Requiring cash payments creates protection. On the spot.

Witnesses are called in court.

Cash payment is one and done.

Cash is fine. A grand cash is really not a lot of money...
 
Ten years ago my DPE for commercial asked if I would be cool being interviewed over the phone by the FSDO about him as DPE. I was very honest and glad to help I had nothing bad to say but was quite nervous. Now the other DPE I used a few years later…he was an idiot knew allot about maybe some other airplane worked the puppy mills in our state capitol. I could not believe he was allowed to be a DPE and the local flight instructors were desperate for anyone else. I really wish I could have talked to the local fisdo about him.
He was in his 80 and I believe dementia was beginning he is no longer a DPE still regret not saying anything it was the weirdest 15min oral ever. I think this should be in place but will acknowledge the government never improves anything…Why did this post turn into caring about someone else’s financial situation?
 
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