Zach7177

Good Morning,

I have my CFI check ride in a couple of weeks, just curious as to any tips others can provide regarding preparation for the ride.

Cant wait to get this ride out of the way, the pre check ride nerves and stress are already kicking in.

Again if anyone has any information that is useful such as how your CFI ride went, or maybe what areas your examiner stressed on.

Thank you,

Never2Late

Good Luck-

My CFI Checkride is tomorrow (Dec 23rd) so I will let you know, although I did take (and pass!) my CFI-I checkride Dec 3rd. What area are you in?

Zach7177

Ah nice good luck! An yeah by all means that would be much appreciate.

Im in the Virginia Beach area.

PT6 Flyer

For me, it was explaining the learning process. For example, be ready to explain and give examples of the Law of Primacy.

There is one more thing. In those days, examiners had a quota in that they had to fail a certain number of their CFI examinees. He failed me for something trivial, then had me come back the next day and passed me within ten minutes. He just had to get that "fail" on his record and then he was happy. (I am curious to hear if this is still happening.)

Zach7177

Thank you for the info.

According to words going around, the FAA is making changes to that. Apparently examiners were failing cfi applicants before even issuing the examine. Here in VA the failure rate was above 90% an was one of the highest in the country. But like I said I’ve heard rumors that changes are happening.

JamesNoBrakes

There has never been a quota. What there has been is if a DPE's pass rate is abnormally high, they just get more surveillance to be sure that it's because the students are prepared and the test is fair, rather than the DPE giving out free tickets or not even doing the test (has happened). Same thing if it's abnormally low, it requires more surveillance. There is a program now where the FSDO calls back many DPE applicants after their test to assess the test and also ensure it was fair. Whether DPEs took this all to mean that they should "fail" a certain number of students to avoid having to have an inspector go on a few more rides with them I don't know, but it seems that is the likely explanation.

As you are progressing through pilot ratings you are getting more used to checkrides and more than any other one, the CFI checkride is about knowing the standards and what is pass/fail. If you get failed for something that is not safety of flight, grossly outside of standards or failure to correct, you should stand up for yourself and speak to the FSDO DPE manager (who is just a regular inspector, nothing special). And if that doesn't work you start going up the management chain. This is very important as you are growing your pilot career and will ultimately have more responsibility and more things at stake. Your pilot in command authority comes from this and if you know you are right, you need to stand up. I give checkrides and I would never want someone being less than fair to me, so that's how I give a checkride and if I make an error, I welcome someone pointing it out. You get a lot more respect admitting to errors than trying to hide them. If a fail is legitimate, then you use it as a learning experience.

JohnBurke

Back in the early 90's there certainly was a quota, when initial-CFI candidates had to do their practical with an inspector, and the failure rate was mandated at a high rate. Take the ride close to the end of the month when inspectors had to catch up and the failure rate went up substantially.

JamesNoBrakes

Do you have documentation of this? How do you know there was a quota?

Here's an excerpt for practical tests from the old 8700.1 guidance, I see nothing there about quotas, but I just glanced over it. Perhaps you can find something?

http://fsims.faa.gov/WDocs/8700.1%20...2/2_001_00.htm

Never2Late

Not sure if it was an official "quota", however DPE's who pass rate was higher than some statistical norm, were looked at much closer. How do I know? When I got back to flying I googled the DPE who gave me my private 25 years ago. Seems he was involved in a lawsuit against the FAA for unlawful termination. Based on the reading online, he would give a check ride and sometimes, if the student passed, he would send in the paperwork saying they failed the first time and passed on the re-take, this kept his pass stats in-line (at least he didnt actually FAIL the student to do the same), it was found out when some of these students went to apply to airline jobs and were asked if they had failed any check rides. I believe the lawsuit was dismissed however I think he is still working for the FAA in some other capacity (so maybe some sort of settlement)

JamesNoBrakes

Most likely, that was what was happening. No actual quotas existed and some individuals decided to act outside of their authority, training and guidance. All an inspector wants to do when they ride along is see you are adhering to the standards and taking the appropriate action, whether it's pass or fail. Anything else is a ton more paperwork and work and must be based on something contrary to regs and standards. Having a DPE fail (or pass) people just so they wouldn't have to do more observations is just as bad as a student cheating on a test or falsifying documents (it is falsifying documents). Hopefully with the proliferation of the internet and how much information is at people's fingertips (standards, orders, regulations) this is a thing of the past, but I would maintain no official document or policy ever existed. A few individuals (comparatively) decided to act alone and outside of the scope of their designation. As a CFI, you should know when you are right and when you are wrong. This is also a good reason to use the FOIA process I described in another thread to check your own pilot records...just in case.