So?

If DPEs are making up stuff to ask questions about or have their "own version" of the standards that are different, this needs to be brought to the attention of the management level that can do something about it.

It doesn’t help when management is buddy buddy with the DPE. The only thing that came out of that attempted complaint was a mark against my reputation. The corruption is strong in some parts of the aviation world.

So did you contact John Duncan?

Did you keep going up the management chain?

There are no "reputations" that are kept by the FAA. Only the official records. If you know of corruption, there are whistleblower websites you can contact and use, as well as anonymous hotline complaints.

Let me put it this way, if you contact higher management, remember their job is to serve the PUBLIC, that is YOU, that means they need to look into it and get back to YOU. If that doesn't happen, you can contact your congress-person. Some of us want to see things done correctly. Unless we put a stop to it on both ends, it will continue.

Now, I've seen the flipside of this too. I've seen people in industry that claim all kinds of secret-squirrel stuff goes on in the FAA or the local office that just doesn't happen. I try to allow and encourage people to ask questions about these things to be open and forthcoming, but perceptions can be a hard thing to crack.

What this goes back to though is if you know you are right, you "know you are right". If no one stands up for what is right, the cycle continues.

To add more to this, when the student came back for the retest the examiner was very physical with the applicant. Afterwards a anonymous complaint was filed. The FAAs response was that the applicant needed to file a lawsuit against the DPE in order for them to proceed. The applicant wanted to stay anonymous due to the examiners significant influence in the local aviation industry so that was that. Sad