Can you share/dish anything about the ride?
Sure! My DPE has 16,000+ hours of dual given so he had a pretty good idea what he was looking for. Thankfully, my instructor, who is also a DPE, had me very well prepared.
The exam was comprehensive and followed the PTS closely. 6 hour oral and 1.6 on the Hobbs.
We spent a great deal of time talking about professionalism and what that really means in terms of planning, preparation, and presentation for each student as an individual. He asked how I would deal with various hazardous attitudes, and progressing people through the levels of learning.
That was followed with a dive into the regs, especially, of course, 61 and 91. Heavy emphasis on being familiar enough with the regs, not to know each by heart, but well enough that you can quickly find and reference the text when needed. We also went thoroughly through endorsements with an emphasis on “recurring” student endorsements like the 90 day solo, pre-solo knowledge and training for different airplane makes/models. Also emphasized the importance of the TSA endorsement.
I taught ground lessons on runway incursions, airspace, and emergency descents. Then we hopped in the plane and ran through a huge list of maneuvers, with me teaching the entire time. We hit all of the takeoff and landings including power-off 180s, straight and level, steep turns, chandells, slow flight, power-off stalls, elevator trim stalls, emergency descent, emergency landing (which incorporated a forward slip), 8s on pylons, and unusual attitude recovery. It was taken for granted that I could fly the maneuvers to commercial standards, and the ones that I flew, I did for the most part. But even when I started to deviate from the standard I took it as an opportunity to point out common errors and how to correct. The test was very much about how well you could teach so basically I talked step by step through everything, no matter how small.
It was an exhausting but incredibly rewarding ride. Definitely the hardest one I’ve taken, but thankfully, the one I was best prepared for.
