Never2Late

Sonic-

I get what you are saying and kind of agree with you. It could have been easy when I first started doing it that he asked "are you doing this or showing me", on the other hand, I should have realized I wasnt being tested on MY ability to fill out a Navlog, I am being tested on my ability to EXPLAIN and teach the navlog (the reason why he said have it prepared and be ready to explain it next time). I should have known better. In all honesty, I have probably have done only 3 or so Navlogs in the last year (for my commercial) so I wasnt the most fluid at it either, I had a few eraser marks on it!

tm602

Mine failed me for doing a go around. "Failing to get it right the first time is a lack of instructional knowledge" was his explanation. And the kicker, it was for a no flaps, soft field landing, on the numbers. Not even in the PTS!!!
Of course he would not write the landing type, just "lack of instructional knowledge". My instructor took it up with the local FSDO, who agreed it was bogus, but "we were not there to witness it" was the impotent reply.
That examiner later died in a plane crash I'm told.

chronomaster31

Good riddence

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TiredSoul

Just playing devils advocate here but if the DPE is asking you to demonstrate something which is not in the Private, Commercial or CFI PTS then you should politely point that out without attempting it.
You’re just opening the door if you start attempting things you’re not supposed to.
What if a student dared you to do something, would you do it?

If the “flaps don’t work” it’s an abnormal situation and you act accordingly.

JamesNoBrakes

Exactly this. And you stop the checkride right there for safety of flight if they don't agree. It's sad that DPEs are out there like this, but unless someone takes a stand, it'll continue and your knowledge as a CFI is one of the primary ways to do this. The DPEs actions obviously teach people to do the wrong and unsafe thing when this occurs. If the FSDO won't investigate, call the regional FAA office and find someone that will, keep going up the chain until you get it resolved.

On the previous failure a few posts back, if the DPE assigned that task (XC flight planning) as your "teaching lesson", it could be a legitimate fail to just fill it out or simply "telling", that is going to depend on the circumstances. One subject is selected for you to teach from the PTS if I recall correctly, other selected subjects are to verify your instructional and technical knowledge, but only one is intended for you to "teach" in it's entirety. If that was it, that might have had something to do with it. To that extent, I would have the student "do everything" and guide them through the planning process, plotting courses, getting the right weather data, making the calculations. Once they've done that process a few times themselves with you guiding, they learn it, rather than having them watch you and then turn them loose and hope they can "figure it out", which almost never works. Hard work and time spent with the student early on with a lot of these processes pays off later when they learn it and can do it by themselves, rather than having to constantly baby-sit every process. Sometimes there's a tendency to want to "speed up" some of these processes by doing some of the work for the student, cut down on the oral time, but patience always paid off for me and required less "re-training" and time spent in the end.

Never2Late

Something doesnt seem right about this. If faced with a no flap (assume flaps inop), soft field landing, common sense says in real life I am not doing this and I would proceed to an alternate with sufficient landing distance and pavement. Certainly WORST CASE, if I am stuck and have to make this landing, you better believe a Go-Around is an option if the landing doesnt seem right.

I was also told (please correct me if I am wrong as my re-test is Thursday!) that a go-around is always an option on the CFI checkride EVEN for a power off 180 (which is not allowed on the commercial exam). I was told because you are being tested on how to teach, not necessarily on the maneuver itself. Could someone chime in?

Never2Late

The PTS requires a "preflight lesson on a maneuver to be performed in flight" (teaching lesson) so you have to teach a maneuver. Since I did my CFII first, this is not a requirement for the "CFI Add-on". However, the PTS states Task II one of the options is "Navigation and Flight Planning", reading that requirement, I didnt do that, I should have pulled out the PTS and MADE SURE I covered everything in there. It is not the DPE's job to pull it out of you. I'll take the loss and move on, it would be easier to "blame" the DPE, but then what do I learn?

jabr800

1970 or so, took my CFI Ride with an FAA Guy.
Oral somehow went OK though I don't remember much about it now, but I do know I was ready.
Flight portion was OK, but the Gentleman was nice enough during the flight to mention, that I wasn't talking enough.
He was probably correct (nerves kicking in for me), so I went into high gear and didn't shut up until we landed and went back into the GADO building.
He said that he was considering failing me do to my lack of instructing that I was demonstrating, however, since it changed dramatically after his comment, he passed me, when he determined I could adequately perform the job.

About a year later did the CFII ride with a different FAA Guy and it was similar but different.
I apparently was instructing OK in the flight portion, but he briefly announced that I wasn't looking outside for traffic while teaching.
He was probably correct to his standard, so I immediately adapted to that scenario and had my head on a swivel while teaching to the point that I think he got dizzy watching me, as I pointed out numerous targets to him, several that he never saw.
Anyway, another first time pass !!!

My moral to the story is just like teaching a real student later when you are licensed, you have to figure out what ain't happening and make the change in a timely manner.
Had to do just that on both my check rides and it worked.
I was lucky that the examiners both gave me some clues on what I needed to do better, before maybe dropping the axe on me.

Good luck.


jabr800

JamesNoBrakes

You are being tested on your ability to maintain and comply with the standards for the maneuver you are executing. That doesn't mean perfection, but it does mean within standards. If the DPE is flying as a student, then they are usually looking for you to point out errors, you can't be responsible for their actions while they are flying, except to take the controls during safety of flight scenarios and when a negative transfer of learning is occurring from them doing a maneuver wrong. Sometimes they are looking for you to critique their performance after they accomplish a maneuver and tell them whether it was within standards or not.

The simply way I interpret this is: If the candidate is on the controls, they must comply with the applicable standards. If the DPE is on the controls and evaluating the CFI's performance, the CFI is responsible to demonstrate their instructional knowledge and maintain safety of flight.

Power off 180s have always been a little bit in the grey, since once you "start", you either complete it successfully or not. If you are doing this in real life, you have no "go-around", unlike a short-field landing. I've known a lot of DPEs to give some leeway on this and honestly if something comes in and interferes like a downdraft then you should get another attempt, but that can be a touchy area, was it your planning, or a downdraft? I see lots of people flying "best glide speed" on the downwind past their point, which makes little sense to me. So you are going to fly best glide, maximizing the distance in the opposite direction to where you want to go, often with a tailwind, then you are going to turn INTO the wind and now you are forced to maximize your distance on final. IME, going to "best glide" is not warranted unless you are on final and need to extend your distance there. I tried to teach these as a "box", you keep yourself in the box where you have options, ways you can get lower or higher on the approach path, vs. flying best glide early on and screwing yourself later. I got really far into these and came up with specific criteria, amounts of wind, distances and altitudes and a formula where to make the turns so it would be repeatable and reliable for various conditions. The reason I got so analytical with them is the "catch-22" of the maneuver, technically it has to work the first time. If my students got a "2nd attempt", all the better and in the rare case they didn't nail it the first time I'd given them enough tools they would be able to analyze why it didn't work. IME, private and commercial students are not very good at "guessing" and they don't have the thousands of hours that are necessary to operate much more on feel, so you have to provide a good structured basis for their decisions, on which they'll develop those higher skills.

Not a direct answer, but if something unforeseen interferes with the maneuver, it may be repeated. Sometimes it's hard to get a tower to give the spacing, sometimes an airplane hasn't cleared the runway, etc. If it's your planning on a power-off 180, probably not. Doesn't mean you shouldn't go around, continuing and landing when you know it won't be in standards would be even worse obviously, but due to the nature of this maneuver there may not be a "second chance". Same thing with an engine failure to emergency approach to landing task, you don't really get a "go-around" on that one either.

JamesNoBrakes

Correct, I wasn't remembering it quite correctly.

The good thing is that as you do this, you learn the PTS/ACS much better and become an expert on this. This benefits you greatly down the road with checkrides for yourself and students. Then it's becomes much less of a "mystery" and you know when someone is trying to get you to do something outside the standards.