seminolepilot

Hey everyone, as of yesterday I passed my CFI intial. I did my CFII as the intial. I failed when I went for the check ride Friday. The examiner was great, I've done all my check rides with her. I agree the failure was my fault but here's the story behind the fail. The whole flight and ground went flawless, the GPS partial panel was the last thing we were doing and that as going to be it. We were coming back into KRVS to do the GPS rwy 1L. We started getting vectored and was about 4miles from the IAF when ATC says we can't do the approach. No option to hold or do another approach was given. At that point we were both thinking "what's going on" so we agreed to do an GPS approach into an airport to the south of us where we just came from KOKM (okmulgee,ok), at this point I turn the aircraft to the east and try to get the approach into the box as fast as I can without any mistakes Once I get it in I'm trying to figure out are we, where we think I am, not paying attention to the receiver telling me to fly south. A couple of seconds after chasing the needle and figure out something went wrong I decided to go around as I was taught when I'm lost on an approach. That's when it was too late at that point. I knew we were close to tbe IAF on our second gps approach but we were about 2 miles from it. Come to find out the reason I couldn't do the approach was because at KRVS (Lloyd jones jr) in Tulsa they need a 6mile bubble around the aircraft if approaches are being done into opposite direction traffic, which we were doing an approach to circle. This rule applies even in VFR, I didn't know anything until after I failed about this rule nor the examiner. Apparently it came out two days before I went on my check ride, and my instructor forgot thinking it wouldn't be a big issue or nothing this big anyway. I feel like i just flew into a crappy situation, but Like I said before I completely accept the failure as being my fault. Even though we wee almost on top of the IAF for our backup approach I should have glanced up and looked at the receiver, circled away from the second approach we choose to give us more space, or just went into map mode on the receiver. The receive is one of the old Bendix kings that are in the Cessnas. Sorry I can't give the model number but any pilot who's flown a c-172 knows what I'm talking about. Before this I never had any failures, how would an airline take this? I know 3 or more and a lot of places are frowning at you. How about flight schools? I know a lot of great instructors that failed their intial.

Hawker445

As long as you learned from your experience and correct the errors you made, it should be fine, that is what i would think.

twebb

One reason the cfi and cfii should be the easier checkrides is because you can mess up and turn it in to a teachable moment. If you correct the issue and explain, I don't think the examiner should fail the applicant.

Yoda2

The situation you experienced will happen again; just be prepared to handle it better next time. Rule, no rule, whatever; controllers do this relatively often and for the reason stated. You need to be ready for a nearby airport to switch runways, causing your approach to be modified or terminated. Etc. Controllers will not normally do this to you if you are in actual conditions, or at least they will give you clear instructions if so. A related problem is that, unfortunately, our flight training system is largely geared to getting you to pass a checkride, not to be prepared for many of the real world experiences you will encounter... Some basic advice I can give is to, always be ready for a switch up, don't descend, don't hesitate to query a controller, always know where you are and have a plan (What did you do?, What are you doing now? and What are you going to do after that?) ... You will be fine and I'm sure it was a teachable moment/learning experience...

pw4056

You asked how the airlines will view this during an interview. It won't be a problem. CFI rides are oriented toward teaching while airman certificates gauge your flying ability, and the bust rate on CFI rides is higher.

Your down might be a topic for interview questions (what did you learn? how did you handle it? etc), but primarily as a tool to see how you handle adverse situations.

seminolepilot

Yes I can definitely go down a list of stuff I learned, and could have done differently. I'm looking forward to sharing that story with others, and my students, so thats one less mistake they will make during their training. No one is happy about a fail, but in a sense it's good as pw4056 said it will now give me something to talk about during the interviews. How do flight schools look at fails when their hiring for instructors? I know the fail rate is high for the CFI ratings so I would imagine that it really can't be too frowned upon unless its something ridicolous, or a crazy amount of times.

Stickandrudder

Like others have said, CFI has the highest fail rate. I know many people, including myself, who busted that one the first time and are at the regionals. Learn from it and hang in there man!

FLYZERG

Failed my initial instrument, only pink slip I have ever had. One fail is not a big deal as far as I can tell during the interviews I have had. Granted I have only had 4 or 5 real interviews but whenever it comes up it has never been more then a 40 second discussion topic. "What happened?" Ducked below MDA "Ok yeah that happens". Then they move on to things they actually care about. If the interviewer has had a bust in his/her past I feel that it gives you a more human element to your interview, of course I could be way off base on that one. The important thing is to be honest.