First checkride for one of my students
 

I have a student, I'm his 7th instructor, he has over 100 hours without a PPL. I finally signed him off for the ride and he's scheduled for Friday. He's ready and I'm doing some final prep, but I'm really nervous, more for myself than for him. I just am not sure if there's anything else I can do. We will do ground and fly everyday this week just to make sure. Any thoughts and advice for me as a first time CFI to send a student for a checkride?

I am sure you may have already thought of this, but have your student fly a mock checkride and do another practice oral evaluation with another CFI to get him out of his comfort zone to find out what it will be like to get the near silent treatment of no immediate feedback on manuevers in the airplane. Plus, for you another set of eyes on the student might catch some minor details you might have missed.

Good luck to your student!!

This is your first student going up? Good luck!

What you describe does raise a flag. 100 hours to PPL might not be significant if the guy was really busy and could not train consistently.

But do you know why he had seven instructors? If he's been working on this for five years, maybe they all just moved on...but there hasn't been a lot of movement lately...

Unfortunately as an airline-bound instructor you need to be concerned about you pass rate, maybe a little more so than other CFI's. Some airlines will use that as a measure of your suitability. You need to log that, but I suggest you don't do it in your logbook, put it somewhere else. That way interviewers won't have automatic access to it. They might still ask, and might insist on seeing your records but if you don't end up with the kind of pass rate you would like (90%+) no need to hand that over unsolicited.

I have an issue with that, because it is possible to "cherry pick" students so that you don't have to deal with challenges and can be assured of a high pass rate. Kind of like a doctor selecting only patients he can treat successfully...

I think you have something of a professional obligation to train all comers (assuming no personality conflict or other such issues). But you as an instructor are NOT obligated to sign someone off just because they have invested a ton of money into training.

If I got a student with this guy's history, the first step would be to analyze and discuss what got him in the situation he's in. Try to identify things to change so that his training with you can be more successful (consistent training, more studying, chair flying, listen to ATC on a handheld, etc).

Once training begins if I realize that the student is making slow (or zero) progress...have another chat, and at that time mention that a sign-off will not be possible unless things change. Keep reminding the student as things progress so that it will not come as a surprise at the end. I had one student who completed an entire IR training program, but she never quite mastered communications with ATC. I kept telling her that she had to master that too, and assumed that practice would et her there. In the end I never signed her off because she would get overwhelmed by complex instructions such as holds and even instructions to fly a heading, maintain an altitude, and intercept a localizer. Other than that she could fly fine. Sad situation but at least she had been warned along the way. Of course there was no way I could turn her loose in the system...I thought about sending her up for a ride just to see, but I was afraid that she might pass if the DPE gave her simulated ATC instructions...it was real ATC that gave her more trouble.

Tough deal, but it does happen. Make sure you give students honest progress evaluations, and if you spot any show-stopper weaknesses be sure the student is aware that is a no-go item for a sign-off.

Great advice Rick, and remember that part of your job as an instructor is to make that occasional tough decision that someone is NOT qualified to be a pilot. It is not a decision to be taken lightly of course, but it also not a decision to be mushy about because you may be saving a life. Airplanes are potentially dangerous machines and occasionally someone will present themselves for training and they are simply not made for it. I had a guy like that once, he had run through multiple instructors all of whom had dropped him and he had over 60 hours of flight training without soloing. I tried for ten hours to find the problem but after no progress was made I sat him down for a rather painful talk about things he can do besides fly airplanes. He took it well enough but I felt I did the right thing and may have saved his life. I also have had to shut down the Drop Zone I work at on occasion, and that is another tough decision that is never popular or easy.

I was always that CFI they gave the "this guy can't fly" students to, and with some proper care and feeding, these students always passed their check rides the very first time out. My attitude is that the airplane already knows how to fly, I'm simply going to teach you to guide it.

Everyone learns at a different rate, and usually the regular laws of learning such as the law of primacy and the law of exercise work well. Sometimes you need to crawl inside their head. When a student is standing their in operations with the control yoke still in his hand, with the wires dangling from the PTT switch, there's obviously something else going on in his life.

The mock check ride is a great idea, just call it training as this tends to reduce the threat level somewhat.

First two students I ever put up for a checkride (Part 141 safe for solo check) both failed. It was a minor event for both of them, I hadn't taught them the "SOP" method of a failed engine landing (low key, high key) but the results were failures regardless.

As I learned how to be a better instructor my pass rate went through the roof and before long I too was the "give him the problem student" instructor. Only ever had one guy that I finally had to tell him he was just pouring money away.

Don't sweat the pass rate too much this early in your CFI career. Becoming a great instructor is a learning process in itself. As long as you care about your students and aren't just using them as a stepping stone towards your own goals, the results will speak for themselves.

Ricks advice is spot on.

Thanks for the advice everyone, especially Rickair. The previous instructors he had, seems to me, like they didn't care about him, and didn't do much for him. He didn't have any xc, hood, or night time. Before we did the previous mentioned work, I did an eval of where he was and where he needed to be. He's been studying, but I have to quiz him often to make sure that he keeps the information in head, and his flying is great.

Non of his prior instructors had him do any hood work, so I got that taken care of. We even went actual the other day to see what it was really like and he did great, minimal loss of altitude and off from headings, radio work is shaky but acceptable.

I'm always quizing him about things that come up, such as "what kind of airspace are we flying in and what are our weather mins?" We had to pick up a few cases of oil from another airport, so before we left I had him do a Weight and Balance and explain what happens to an airplane performance wise with a higher weight. I try to take every opportunity to give them an education and have them learn something, but I know I can't teach him everything, but I try to give him all that I know. Even try to have him explain to me how something is done.

I do legitimately care about all of my students, and I ask myself before signing them off for anything, "Would I be comfortable having him/her fly my loved ones around?" I am confident in his abilities, even though he may not be, but he CAN do it.

I'm going to buy him some Captain stripes for Friday and give them to him after he has earned his "upgrade" to a position as a Captain of a Cherokee 140.

So as long as I keep caring about him, and give him an education at every opportunity then he should be ok? I'll let you guys know how he did on Friday. I'll take the suggestion for doing a mock check ride.

Also ask the other instructors around about the DPE if they have any PVT gouges. Sometimes arming them with that ammo about how the whole checkride will go can help settle some nerves or make them aware of some of the DPEs idiosyncrasies or pet peeves.

Certainly after the checkride ask him for some info too as this will help you better prepare students future students.

I have some news regarding my student, he is now a Private Pilot. He took his check ride today, and the examiner was very happy, one thing was that his steep turns weren't done @ 45 degress, but still within limits. Other than that, the oral went well as well as the rest of the flight. I was very nervous the entire time, but was glad upon the successful return. First student sign off, and he passed first time. Thanks for all the suggestions.

Nice work dude.