Was this a busted checkride?
 

Hello,

Back in 2008, I trained at American Flyers for CFI and CFII.

Before my CFI checkride, I had my End of Course for CFII under part 141.The plan was to do CFII under part 141 and then get my CFI with FSDO within the 60 days. After oral and flight portion, the chief pilot that I had my End of Course with, said that he wanted to do another quick session, either in the simulator or airplane. At that point, I realized that I didn't have enough money to continue with CFI anyway and I never officially finished my CFII.

My logbook shows this event as regular training flight. My record obtained from FAA doesn't show it anything regarding failure, since I'm trying to be as honest as can be, should I think of it as a busted ride?

Thank you in advance,

MM

The FAA would not have a record of that since it was 141. Note that this is going to change in the near future due to colgan, but I think it will only affect checkrides which occur after the change becomes official, I can't imagine there is any way to collect that data retro-actively since 141 student records are only required to be maintained for three years.

As to whether that End of Course counts as a checkride depends on several things, and it's kind of a grey area...

- Did the CP have examiner authority? Was he going to hand you a temporary cert at the end? If the answer is no, it was not a checkride since you would still have to take a checkride with a DP. But I suspect the answer was yes at AF.

- Did you fail the oral or the flight test? If it was the flight test, your logbook probably shows a clear paper trail. An interviewer will see consistent training with one instructor, followed by one or two flights with a check pilot, then one flight with the CP. To me (or anyone else familiar with 141) that shows that a checkride occurred.


But regardless, even if there was no flight test, your logbook still shows a series of training events for a CFII (enough to get you to a checkride) followed suddenly by nothing...this is going to be very suspicious. The only explanations are
1) You were so bad they refused to sign you off.
2) You failed the checkride.
3) You were overwhelmed and quit.
4) You ran out of money.


1) and 3) are very bad, but might be mitigated if you were very low time.
2) is not great, but if you lie it about and get caught then it's very bad.

4) is thin because after all that time and effort most people would have scrounged up a few hundred bucks to finish...if not immediately at least in the near future.

You have to decide how to address this, but getting caught in a lie is automatic non-employment while one checkride failure is hopefully not that big of a deal.

But you might want to consider getting a CFI, otherwise folks might suspect you were overwhelmed by the CFI...which means you will be really overwhelmed by airline training unless you acquired to some 135 or corporate time.

Since then I had 3 other successful checkrides, including CFI.

I believe in honesty and I will confess everything during an interview. I'm just trying to get more info regarding how a potential employer might look at something like that.

You'll be fine, just accept responsibility and tell them what you learned (if you dind't learn anything, make something up).

Rickair7777,

Thank you Sir for your help!

Safe Flying!

When I looked into doing the CFI-II program at American Flyers in Chicago this is what they told me:

I would train for CFI and II at the same time, but they did not have examining authority for the CFI initial. So I would take a 'checkride' with their in house examiner for II before they sent me off for my initial with the FSDO. But they couldn't really count it as a II checkride because I was not already a CFI and they do not have examining authority for initial CFI rides, I would have to come back and do a quick flight with the same person that I did the 'checkride' with so they could put it in my logbook as a checkride and make all of the paperwork official. I was totally confused about why they do it backasswards like that. But they explained that their theory was that by doing the CFII 'checkiride' thing before the CFI it gets the applicants in checkride mode and helps to ease their nerves before going to the FSDO. And if the II 'checkride' goes really well they pretty much already consider it that you passed your II so they just have to do a quick ride one hour flight or so after you already have an initial CFI to make it official. If you didn't do well on the 'checkride' then you would spend a couple hours getting ready for II, so you would be ready for the official ride.

I don't know if that helps, but that is what they explained to me. I thought it was odd, but surely someone who's going to AF knows if this is how they do it or if I got my facts straight.

Pretty much that's what they told me back in 2008. I just don't remember if they mentioned anything about going up again after the official CFI ride...

I remember being kinda confused about how it worked and asking them how I could take a checkride for an add-on before I even had the initial done. That is when they told me I'd have to go up for a quick flight upon passing the initial with the fsdo to make it an official CFII checkride. I was told that pretty much nobody fails their II because they either pass it in the unofficial checkride before their initial and then have an easy 'official' checkride, or they do some extra training and pass it during the official ride. But the checkride before you take your initial isn't a real checkride because they cannot technically give people a checkride to an add-on before they pass their initial.

Maybe you should contact someone from American Flyers and see if they are still running their CFI-II classes this way and find out what that flight is considered. It would be a shame to be reporting this as a failed checkride if it really wasn't a checkride to begin with.

Bellanca,

Thank you very much for your help. I will contact AF and report back.

Thanks again.