Fustration

What do you get when a few DPEs get together?  Usually a bitch session about how bad check rides are going.  That's exactly what happened a few days ago.  Four of us hanging around the airport waiting for the weather to clear up to either go fly ourselves or finish up a checkride.

We started comparing notes on recent rides.  All of us were seeing very similar issues on orals, weak cross country planing and lack of system knowledge.  That hit home for me as I just issued a Notice of Disapproval to an initial CFI and Private pilot applicants. Both for lack of knowledge in those two areas.  Those two applicants had something else in common, the same recommending CFI.  That's where the frustration sets in for me.  The lack of knowledge of a CFI will mostly likely be passed down to their students.  How did it get this far?  There are any number of reasons but somehow it has to be caught and corrected before an incident or accident occurs.  

Some of the weakness we found common and unnerving.  Pilots and CFIs not knowing how to lean a mixture (some have admitted to me that they have never leaned a mixture), Not knowing how to recognize a blocked static port and what to do.  Not knowing how to identify or handle a failed alternator.  Not knowing how to calculate ground speed without a GPS (I use to ask this question inflight up to a couple years ago.  Now I ask it on the ground because pilots are taking 20 minutes to get an answer and most of the time it's not correct.)

None of us DPEs like to issue a Notice of Disapproval.  Matter of fact, I hate it.  It sucks telling pilots, who have worked so hard to get this far, that they are not meeting the requirements of the ACS.  Usually when a DPE pulls the plug on a ride, they have given the applicant more than a fair chance to get it right.  It usually boils down to a larger issue of safety. We feel bad that the applicant didn't pass but it's not as bad as finding out the applicant was involved in an incident or accident of some kind.  The DPE goes home feeling as bad as the applicant and is left wondering if it was something the DPE said or did to cause the failure.  It sucks.  We want to see you pass and are rooting for you as much as anyone else.  It may not seem that way when you're on the other side of the table from them but they are.  

Fortunately the weather cleared up before we'd be forced to divert (the diversion has a name "Slicks Bar and Grill").  There's no better way to cheer up grumpy pilots than to go flying.  And that's what we did.