LibertyDante

Hey All,
I'm a commerical pilot with ME rating and I went for my single engine addon today with a total of around 230 hours. I failed my flight portion of the checkride in the area of Landings, T/O's, and Go Arounds. It was by far the worst flight I have ever been on and totally hit me by surprise. Anyways, here is the story...

After my multi-engine course, I was given a new instructor at a very well known flight university. He told me I was his first ever commerical student and that he hasn't done the maneuvers himself in 2 years or so. Anyways, He taught me all the maneuvers and everything and after about 9 lessons, he signed me off. Anyways, fast forward to today and I went in for my checkride. My oral was a piece of cake and then came the flight. The examiner had me start off by doing a Short-field T/O and we went South to do maneuvers. Anyways, Out of all the maneuvers I did which were exactly the way my instructor taught me, he said chandelles, eights on pylons, lazy eights, and steep spirals were wrong. He pointed out various things that I had never been taught to do like clearing the engine on every 360 degree turn on the spiral and using full power instead of 65% on chandelle's. Anyways, he was very irritated with me and very rude and talked to me like a little kid the entire time... He had told me after Idid my lazy eights hat I had failed and then on our way back to the airport, he told me to turn South and showed me how he does it and then I did it.. and then we went back to do landings at the airport. By this point I was completely miserable because everything I had been taught was wrong... anyways, my soft field landing was not soft and he failed me for that without letting me do another one... The whole flight took it's toll on me and now I have two failed checkrides on record and I am depressed as hell. After I failed my instrustment, I vowed never to do this again, but how can I not when I am doing everything wrong? What do you guys suggest I do? Can I do anything in this situation or do I just have to take it and move on? Thanks guys.

ryan1234

chandelles (to turn around a "candle") are a performance maneuver and should be entered at cruise airspeed and then add full power for max performance. If you think of the original reason behind it... WWI French pilots drop bombs and do a climbing 180 to avoid ground fire (it was also used as a lag pursuit in air to air combat)...most would probably use full power (i.e. full energy) to gain the most altitude while using precise control of airspeed to control radius of the turn. MCA will be a slightly lower airspeed with full power (max performance). If you think of practical application (i.e. turning about in a valley, etc) it may make it easier. As a commercial pilot, generally it's easier to think in terms of energy when doing each maneuver, including soft field landings (i.e. using the ground effect and MDR to land while), short fields.. just control airspeed with AOA and descent with power, combo brings angle to the ground.
Yeah, you have to take it and move on... maybe find another examiner, personally something that saved me from ever failing a checkride was talking through a maneuver on the ground, if he added something or said I was doing it wrong.. I'd ask him specifically about why he does it that way.. and then do it on the ride.

III Corps

Did you explain to the examiner that you were doing the maneuvers EXACTLY the way you had been taught?

When I worked in training, if any pilot didn't meet standard, the first place they went to was not the pilot but the instructor. The instructor was debriefed and in some cases, it was the instructor who got an additional ride.

Second, the examiner may have been a dorko also so talking to him may be a waste of time. NO ONE should berate or talk down to someone taking a checkride. No one goes for a checkride expecting to fail and his attitude is also suspect. This happens.

Still, talk to the examiner and ask questions. You should have gotten a full and thorough explanation on every maneuver that didn't meet standard.

Is the instructor employed at a flight school or just an individual instructor. IF s/he is employed at a flight school, go talk to the owner. From hearing YOUR side of the story, sounds like you did not get your money's worth.

Cubdriver

When someone fails a checkride it is always a mixture of elements conspiring to cause the failure. In fact most pilots fail a checkride one at one point or another, so your career is not over by any means. As far as what went wrong on this ride, I have no doubt your instructor may not have been as excellent as he should have been due to the slow pace of commercial students coming along. The commercial maneuvers are tricky without regular practice and even harder to teach. And as III Corps said, your examiner should not have belittled you for failing either and that was very unprofessional. Unfortunately not all examiners are aware how they are coming across. You have my sympathy there and I would like to point out that I have met some truly exemplary examiners in my day, and not all of them are this tough. And despite your troubles I recommend you ask your instructor to get you ready for a retest as soon as you feel up to it, a few days perhaps. Don't hold his laxity against him because although it is not acceptable it is also a fact that many instructors suffer from this same problem and you may very well be in his shoes one day. Let him try and get you ready for your retake, he should be sensitive to the fact your failure reflects on his own performance. He will admire you for sharing the blame and I think he will try harder to get you ready this time. Failure is the pillar of success. Good luck.

hotelmode

Sorry you got a bum instructor. I'm sure you'll both learn something from the experience. Failing 2 rides is not a big deal and I wouldn't worry at all about it (unless the examiner makes you pay twice!). I'm guessing since you didn't fail on the maneuvers you don't have to do them again? When it comes time to re-learn them if you go for your CFI, etc, you'll want to get a copy of the Airplane Flying Handbook published by our friends at the FAA. It really is a good book. Get your hands on a copy of the PTS, too. It walks through all of the maneuvers...I found it very helpful getting ready for my CFI ride.

Good luck on the retake!

WmuGrad07

Not to sound like an jerk but as someone going for your Com checkride you should know PTS for maneuvers and how to do them yourself, and not just go by what some instructor says... It really sucks that your instructor didn't teach you properly, that is not your fault by any means, but this could have been figured out in the oral portion of the exam if the examiner asked you how to preform the maneuvers and you told him the 65% power thing w/ chandelles.

I'm sure you'll do fine with the retest. like the previous post the Airplane flying handbook is great and describes everything you'll need to know for any maneuver you'll need to know about.

The Juice

Commercial pilots should have a copy of PTS and know it cold. Period! You should have discountinued the ride the moment you saw things were going to go bad, went back with the instructor and see what you are lacking and again, read the PTS book. All of my students, private to CFII, always had a PTS book in their bag. How can you pass a test you dont know how you will be graded?

Also when I did rides it gets very old hearing students blame instructors for everything, "My instructor never told me that."

Rationalization is a term you will hear when you are an instructor.

Dont want to sound mean but you need to except the responsability like you will as a commercial pilot and one day as a Captain.

III Corps

The training dept I worked with.. everyone knew the standards. And we were frequently monitored when instructing or giving check rides. So we were very standardized (-121ops).

Also, the policy was something apparently not done much in gen av and that is 'debrief to standard'. You get two events for that.. more than two and yes, the ride is over. But everyone has occasional cranial gas. If you could explain what happened, why and what went wrong, we could debrief to standard (ie.. pass)

But since we are using exclamation points to emphasize points, let me use bold font...it was an ex-instructor who berated or belittled the student.

And so you took the student at his/her word or did you debrief the instructor to find out what was taught and how?

Must have worked in different communities. I never heard it...

Funny thing is I went into the left seat of a 707 (KC-135.. actually a Boeing 717) in 1972... so it's not like this is my first day on the playground.

I was just trying to help the student ask questions of the instructor and examiner. From the post, it sounds like there wasn't much of a debrief, which you as an instructor knows is where much of the real learning takes place.

usmc-sgt

So you failed a checkride..big deal old news.

What can you do about it? Nothing.

What can you do about the re-check, now we are in business.

Go out and have a beer and have a good time, hit the PTS and fly hard and do your very best on the next checkride to knock it out of the park (which statistics show the re-checks have a VERY high success rate.)

Failing a checkride is a bummer but no sense hanging on the moment. Some advice I can give for doing many checkrides with different DPES who all have their own odd quirks is: When they ask you why you did _____ a certain way tell them its how you were taught and ask them how they would do it. They will typically gladly show you and then you tell them how great it was and how you will adopt that as your new savior in all that is holy in the flying world. Examiners dont want to be argued with or have even the slightest hint of attitude. Say you will change everything you know and do and adopt their techniques because the clouds have opened up and the sun hath shown down from the heavens and the good lord above showed you the way to chandelle righteousness.

Sorry about the pink slip...what kind of beer are you having tonight?

Cubdriver

Pilsner Urquell with a side of tequila. Wups wrong thread...