Failed checkrides
 

Getting closer to starting my PPL. I’ve read a lot about failed checkrides and how it seems most everyone has at least a failed checkride. Are some DPEs just out to give everyone at least one fail? Is getting a certain DPE a requirement for making sure you don’t have failed checkrkdes when interviewing for the big leagues?

This is something very important if you want a good career and the flight schools are not honest about it. Do what you can to not have any failures. They will weaken your chances at the majors and in some cases be a complete dealbreaker. Being ready and well prepared goes without saying. Everyone knows who the easy examiners are. People get grief for going to the easy ones, but the airlines won't excuse your failures because you had a tough examiner. Get an opinion of a CFI other than yours to see if something is missing before you take the checkride. Don't let a manipulative flight school push you in to bad ideas during your training. .

Anyone can pass OR fail ANY given checkride. We’ve all seen morons skate through unscathed, and the golden boys get screwed somehow. That said, prepare for every checkride as if you’re going to war. This is YOUR training record. Failures can have life long effects on your earning potential so make sure no stone is left unturned and when possible, try to ensure you get the “easy guys”. In your career you’ll come across DPEs that are wildly inconsistent with their peers and frankly, make $hite up. It ain’t a perfect system but that’s how it goes. I have no shame in doing my best to avoid the wild card examiners. No airline will care about your war story. You’ll just have to come up with some narrative that makes it look like you had some life changing epiphany or moment of personal growth after the pink slip, no matter what really happened.

It’s good that you realize this early on how important checkrides are especially if your goal is to fly for a living. I wish my instructors would have had the talk with me in the beginning! It wasn’t until I failed my commercial multi add on rating my instructor beat his head off the desk (literally lol) in front of me and said it’s going to hurt my chances getting a job at the majors down the road. That woke me up fast to the enormity of taking a ride.

Like others said, study as hard as you possibly can for them, leave nothing up to chance, and only take it when YOU feel ready. Don’t let any flight schools push you if you are unsure.

If you do fail one or two, you’re probably okay for the regional level, but it will be a little tougher getting on at a major-not impossible but you will need to have a bit of a stronger resume most likely

I would estimate that about about 50% of major airline pilots have failed a check ride. Few have failed more than one or two. Try not to fall any, and part of that involves knowing the story on any DPE you use.

And I'm sure that 50% will go wayyyy up in the next 5-10 yrs, possibly sooner. There is no way the majors will be able to be that picky when the retirements peak. I bet the big 6 will be no more competitive in the mid-late 2020's than Frontier is present day if I had to make an educated WAG.

No offense to Frontier of course!

Cutting a couple of corners here for simplicity sake, the further you get the more consequences a fail will have.

Is there a process to dispute and possibly remove a failure?

With a DPE you would have to appeal with the FSDO that provides DPE oversight in that region. I’m not sure what the time frame is but I expect it would have to be the very next workday if not immediately.
A FAA inspector may decide to re-examine you if grievous actions on the part of the DPE caused the fail.

Like what I should have done in the case of one of my students long time ago.
Student made it to the airplane and the starter failed upon which the DPE decided to give him a pink slip because he was “weak on the oral anyway”. So why didn’t you fail him then?
He should have been issued a discontinuance, that’s specifically what they are for.
Anyway I was weak and didn’t want to make waves so I didn’t appeal it just verbally protested with the DPE in question who lost his designation about 10 years later.

Now saying that you weren’t out of tolerances on a maneuver is going to be impossible to prove. A DPE can also set an intimidating atmosphere which will lead to a fail, now this may be intentional but again very hard to prove.
Forcing an applicant to fly in clearly unfavorable conditions is another one.
Now this is a tricky one as you can be reasonably expected to handle some less then ideal conditions as you should have been exposed to those during training.
However gusting 25 for a Private pilot applicant is too much AMS that is why you should be available for your student during their check-ride and you as the instructor should pull the plug on a ride and take the possible backlash.

Not going to happen like that. If an applicant fails a check, they certainly have the option of filing a complaint with the FSDO that has oversight. An investigation will be held, which includes interviewing the DPE and the applicant. This takes time, and is not going to be a quick "next day" event. And during this, the fail remains on the record through airman records.

The next step will likely be having the applicant recheck with another DPE. The applicant has the right to request an Inspector give the ride, but right now resources are low and that may take considerable time.

The original failure will remain on record, unless the DPE was found incompetent and the airman wishes to go through a long and complicated process to attempt to expunge the record.

Finally, the FAA gets several complaints against DPE's for failures. In our society today, it's always someone else's fault. The majority of those complaints usually end with no action after it's determined the DPE was well within the scope of his area of operation.

Choose DPE's carefully.

Yeah, quick and FSDO are not in any way synonyms. Expect an appeal process to take 30 to 90 days with about a 95% chance of it failing.

Failing a Private Pilot or initial CFI checkride is fairly common and are recoverable events. Failures after that would have me concerned.

You partially missed my point but that might be because of my poor explanation.
What I meant was that you need to complain/appeal post haste, as in contact the FAA same day as the failed ride or the very next work day.
Did not mean to imply you’ll get a re-check next day.

Your original post was very clear.

4 Busts, what next?
 

Question:
So I had completed my PPL a year prior and after leaving the military decided to go to a prominent accelerated flight school to get my ratings quickly and boom 4 busts in record time: IR oral, IR flight retest, CMEL(initial)x 2. I decided to leave this training establishment after these bust due to finances because there was a lot of delays with weather, and the busts didn't help either. I have been working maintenance side for the past 1.5 to 2 years (I am also A&P ).

All my checkrides have been with the same examiner including my PPL which I passed first time. I ended up having to get another examiner for my final recheck for commercial multi. I didn't have much say in DPE choice, the school just set you up how they wanted to and availability in the area. I could go into details on all these busts but that's not why I am here. I have learned from them despite how unfortunate. I am just seeking some advice on if it makes sense to even try to fly for a living. Would getting my ASEL add on, CFI, CF-II without failure make me more marketable? or would it make more sense to just build some time and try to get on right seat with a Part 135 operator or something like that? I don't have an issue with the airlines, but the end goal for me is more like being the captain on a G-VI or Global flying around the world. Or do I need to give up, fly for fun and just be the best mechanic I can be?

Cliche, but control EVERYTHING you can. Don’t study and/or practice until you get it right, do it till you can’t get it wrong.

You can’t afford to fail any check rides because of something that was within your control.

I totally agree, that was how I approached my PPL. Sometimes I regret going into a program that doesn't give you the option to do this, but you can't change the past just have to learn and keep moving forward. I saw others going through a similar experience it was a case of sink or swim and a little bit of luck in that environment. Some make it, and some don't.

Failure is part of the learning process, but do not make it habit. A known history of failures will throw up a reg flag with reputable flight companies, airlines, etc.

Honestly... airlines (majors) are frankly looking pretty grim for you right, for the mid-term, any that hire will have their pick of fully experienced airline pilots with multiple types, and few or zero busts.

The retirements are still out there, so they might loosen up standards in 5-8 years but it's also possible that the covid carnage will drag out for so long that it nullifies much of the retirement bubble. I think the later would be the extreme case, more likely that there will still be some retirement-driven hiring mid-late in the decade.

Corporate might make more sense for you, that tends to be somewhat more personality driven (who you know) as opposed to being filtered by a computer from a stack of 10K applications. Also.., any aviation profession knows that it's possible for a young person to struggle with initial training for any of several reasons, but still go on the acquire lots of professional experience and a very solid track record with all necessary lessons learned. Corporate will likely hire someone like that (I would personally). Majors on the other hand are concerned at the HR and legal level about how your past record (which can never be erased) will appear in the media and courtrooms in the event of a serious accident (reference Colgan).

I feel for you, friend. Sounds like the above is some pretty solid advice.

I had a CFII that I let lapse (stupid) and I’m sitting on some military paperwork that will give me an MEI through mil competency—but I would need to re-hack my CFII first. I’d love to do that, paper drill the MEI, then go out and do my CFI add-on, but I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze. I’m fortunate to not have any black marks on my record, and all it takes is a one bad day for me (or the DPE) to change that.

It’s a shame that’s how the system works.

Never understood how a DUI can be expunged off your record, but if you unsat a steep turn it follows you to the grave. It should only be on your record for 5 yrs. I don’t get the system.

Never thought of it like that. I don’t get the system either.

i’d even go for 10 years, but the permanence is ridiculous.

Well...one is a product of the legal realm and the other the aviation training/evaluation realm.
The problem doesn't even lie with the record - you could say it lies with the hiring department and their criteria.
That hiring comes in waves - sort of like pilot slots in the military can go up and down depending on the political climate and the defense budget.
At certain times a busted checkride will be a good story at the interview. At other times your resume/application will never make it past the screening for the interview.

To the OP - you have some serious work to do going forward I think - especially outside of the P91 industry where I agree with rickair - personality/networking gets you the job more time than not - not the resume filler past the minimums. But the fact is that you, in your short aviation career, have failed a majority of your checkrides. I think you will certainly have learned a lot about the pros/cons of those fast paced, train to the checkride, get in-get-out schools. They aren't for everyone. Slow down. LEARN FLYING. Get some experience outside of the classroom and you could still have a career in the aviation industry.

regardless if it's expunged or not, it's still on you to be honest and report it. Just like if a failed checkride was expunged, it wouldn't mean it still wasn't failed.

what part of your stage/life was the failure. back in private pilot land ? or during your professional flying career ? which check ride ? etc.

Ken88, you’re in a very similar situation as I am, unfortunately. I asked a similar question here: https://www.airlinepilotforums.com/c...-you-do-3.html Hopefully some of those answers help you find a path to move forward, too.

Are you working as an A&P now? I’d only “just” be a mechanic if it’s something you truly enjoy, and really want to do it for a living. I will tell you from my experience that working as an A&P is not very satisfying if flying is your ultimate goal. If you’re working, and can afford it, get those ratings finished, and at the very least you can fly on the side and build time that way. Aircraft ownership becomes fairly inexpensive when you have an A&P, that’s basically what I did, and now have over 1500 hours. Just a few things to think about.

I visited that thread and alot of good info there as well thanks. I do work as an A&P it is not a bad way to make a living, but I definitely agree that it is not as satisfying when you really want to fly. I am going to keep pushing along possibly get a little C150 and build some time until I can find a decent flying job and work and study my hardest and ensuring I go nowhere near another failure.

USMCFLYR, I absolutely agree. I beat myself up many times saying the same thing, SLOW DOWN.

You need to ask yourself if you’d be happy as a regional lifer. You might even make check airman and make today’s equivalent of 150-200k. ACMI is another possibility. If that sounds acceptable then continue. Anything beyond that will be gravy.

Quite a few guys at legacy carriers with a few blackmarks. It's normal.

There is a difference between a few black marks and having failed most of your checkrides before ever getting to the ATP level and type checks and such.
The OP has been given good solid information thus far - but let's not blow sunshine all over the place either. What the OP has in his history up to this point is NOT normal.

4 is going to make it near impossible to make it past the computer. I’m not saying impossible but op needs to be honest about if he’d be happy not making to the top tier. It’s not just a possibility but a probability.

The good part is failures before ATP seem a lot more forgivable. The bad part is 4 is already a lot and you really need to push for a clean record from here on out.

I know a couple pilots with several busted rides and other black marks that finally got the majors to interview them in the past few months (checkride busts + a 121 training failure or ac incident) . Both of them have CJOs at legacies and class dates canceled indefinitely because of covid. So it really remains to be seen if it will ever come to fruition for them. At some point it will get to the point again where Delta and United can't just skim the creme de la creme off the top of the app pool and they'll start looking at people aren't 'perfect' again. However, this covid recession probably set that back another 7-10 years. There's still a glut of highly qualified applicants, as people build more experience that number only gets bigger.

I also know a couple people that flowed up to AA that would have really struggled to get hired off the street.

People don’t make it to the top tier in MOST professions.
- Actor
- Singer
- Sports
- Lawyer
- Doctor
- how many other?

What is top tier anyways?
Top pay? Top quality of life?
Top benefits?

Many certainly chose pay to be the #1 driver.
I’d say it is top tier in pay but it is far from top tier in my personal career choice for numerous reasons.
what did you say a Regional CA can make? Someone recently said a LCC CA could make $300k.
can someone on here REALLY SAY that that isn’t a great paying career.
if so - you are ignorant and somehow think that everyone can make TOP WAGES?
Foolish.

That’s great! I hope you make it to your career goal. Be sure to get an Autogas STC for your 150, it saved me a ton of money over the years on my airplane.

LCC CA can make quite a bit more than $300K, or at least they could last month.

Safest career to hit it out of the park is Dr.... if you graduate from med school you're probably set. Most of the others it's a long, steep climb with many or most falling out along the way to the top.

^^^THIS^^^
The best bet would be to get those ratings/training going again and make sure you are perfect from here on out. If you have 400 hours and your multi, try to get in the SCM program at FS or CAE. You might not make it through the computer screening even at a regional, so face time at any and all job FAR’s and career expos is your best bet. And spend some $$ on resume and interview prep even for the job fairs. They have a lot of great insight on putting the best spin on check ride failures, DUI’s and other driving record issues. But you will have to show your face and present well to get a call. You probably would not get one with just submitting an application.

I mean your best and only bet is to get on somewhere with Flow if it still exists after all of this. It was built for people like you.

Even with the flow regionals they still have restrictions in place on individuals with backgrounds that mainline would not find acceptable.