baseball

I would post the DPE's name.

The rest of the aviation community has a right to know who this clown is.

TiredSoul

That could be a lawsuit for slander as we’ve only heard one side of the story.
Definitely call the FSDO and inform the POI that supervises DPE’s in the area.
Follow up with e-mail so there is a permanent record.

captive apple

You didn’t fly but the DPE broke many regulations? I don’t follow.
You might want to cut the part about the 5.5 hour oral. Pretty standard stuff for an instructor ride.

Moonlight

Quoting from the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge.

80 percent of all accidents come from pilot error.
External pressures is one risk factor category that can cause a pilot to ignore all the other risk factors. External pressures put time-related pressures on the pilot and figures into the majority of accidents.

Accidents continue due to external pressures. Pilots continue to fly contaminated airplanes, make bad decisions due to family, employer and self-induced pressures. Good judgement and taking command seems to save more pilots than prayer.

Pilots are produced and molded by the CFI who than reassures this biennially by giving a flight review.
The CFI responsibilities may not be well understood by new CFI’s.
The recipient has decided the DPE has taught him/her a good lesson on external pressures.

Jdub2

Are you referring to yourself in the third person, or someone you know? 800 feet is tight but doable especially on a cfi ride. My oral was nine hours long with a one hour lunch break so I'm glad yours/theirs was only five and half. Weather is a part of the job and the weather didn't seem unsafe to me, but ultimately it is the PIC decision and I won't begrudge them that.

It does seem odd to reschedule three or four times.

JamesNoBrakes

Yeah, that's not "ok" either. It happens, but it shouldn't be and I'd question that DPE's judgement too.

Jdub2

I did my MEI as my initial so there’s a lot to cover. Maybe it was long but I don’t think it should be an easy oral, almost more so than the flight. That’s just my opinion though and it isn’t worth much!

Omniscient

It honestly sounds like a combination of a DPE that wants to get things off his desk and make some money and of a CFI applicant who wants ideal conditions for a check ride.

As others have mentioned, this is a CFI ride, not a private. As a CFI you will have many times where youre taking a student up and trying to piece together a meaningful lesson while working with ceiling and or wind that isnt the most ideal. Many times I remember trying to find holes in the weather to get a lesson in, as a student and instructor. And as an instructor, you ultimately do your students a disservice if you are canceling at any weather that isnt perfect. Student pilots get stale pretty quick and canceling lessons will only run their bills up.

Get a new DPE, realize that weather is always dynamic and in this career, it wont always be perfect. And just because it isnt perfect, it doesnt make it unsafe.

Moonlight

Thank you for the comments.

JamesNoBrakes

That’s the issue IME, you can’t possibly cover “all” information, even in a couple days. The point is to cover the subjects to assess knowledge and if a weak area is found, you go further to determine if it meets the standard, but you can’t possibly cover every aspect about a subject. This is why not everyone can or should be an examiner, it’s a skill. The idea that as a cfi you are going to teach something in its entirety in 15-30 minutes is ludicrous, for any of the subjects they would likely be hours-long in of themselves and you’d be there for days. So the examiner should be choosing elements of the subjects to assess knowledge and going further when weakness is detected.