I have been part of a 141 program since late 2019. I had to balance work and flight training but usually was able to fly at least once a week, weather permitting. Weather is a huge factor here, as there's plenty of days that make it a no-go. On top of that, the flight school had few instructors, only 2 planes, and about 30 students going for various ratings. To make matters worse, COVID hit and the school shut down for a few months, and after getting back in the saddle, here I was in April 2021 signed off for a checkride at just over 70 hours. I'm usually pretty hard on myself and like to hold a high standard, but after 2 mock checkrides from 2 CFI's, they both sign me off and say they are very confident. Altogether, my PPL flight training cost me over $16,000 and has went way over budget so I'm looking forward to having something to show for it.
Now the DPE the school uses is notorious for his temper and outbursts. I've met him several times in passing prior, and he lived up to his reputation. Anything from politics to mentioning David Clark headsets are tight on the head I've seen him go into a fit of yelling at the person closest to him. Everyone walks on eggshells and triple thinks before they talk when he's around. I like to think I have a very thick skin, and hardly ever get offended. I have a military background, and I'm used to rough environments. But he's something else.
Checkride day comes and have a knot in my stomach the size of a football. We start the oral and at this point I'm more nervous about him than I am about my knowledge/performance. First question out the gate, and he gives me a long-winded scenario about flying to another town to see a friend, who has another friend who I don't know, and his car is broken down in my town, and now he wants to fly with me, and he has all this baggage etc. Ok. He asks me "What do you need for this flight, now that you have this passenger and stuff?" and answer confidently "Well, now that I have a passenger I'm going to need to make sure I have my 3 takeoffs and-" at which point he yells "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! First question huh? Try again!" I'm so nervous that I feel sick so I start stuttering out other requirements and eventually he moves on. The rest of the oral is like this, and by the end of the hour, I'm stuttering out stupid answers and rethinking my life decisions for $16,000, Alex. I end up passing, nonetheless.
On to the flight, and he's already ****ed because there's a rip in the interior pocket of his plane he never noticed before as he's trying to adjust himself to climb in the plane (he's a big guy). As he does so, my pen must've rolled underneath the seat since he bumped into my XC paperwork as he climbed in. I don't realize this until I'm getting the weather, and I ask him if he saw my pen by chance, and he just stares at me ****ed not saying a word. ATIS is on it's 2nd go around, and I luckily spot a pen left by another student and use that.
That set the tone for the remainder of the flight. He pretty much yells at me every chance he gets. ATC had us extend out on runway heading on departure for incoming traffic, and he yelled at me for not requesting other directions from ATC. He yells at me for one reason or the other on each maneuver. I won't go on and on for each instance, but each time he talked, I found him to be very unclear between all his hollering. One specific instance, he told me to bring the plane to idle. He had been mumbling about the broken EGT in his plane throughout the flight, so I wondered if that had something to do with it. I wait for further instructions before he asks "What are you doing!?" and I just gave a nervous chuckle and said "You get that EGT figured out?" before responding "No! What do you think I'm having you do?" I was honestly dumbfounded and a nervous wreck, and thought maybe he wanted me to perform engine out procedures. Luckily I was right and without asking any further, I performed the necessary steps.
I'm completely over it by now, and want nothing more than to quit. I get the weather, and write it down. I notice another plane on my GPS but I hear Tower giving him clearance to land straight in, and know this will be no factor as I'm coming in for what I imagine will be a left base as I'm 10 miles away. It's the top of the hour, and I'm thinking I'm probably going to get new numbers before going in. I'm looking down at the Zulu time and doing the math in my head real quick while at the same time making my radio call to the tower. As I'm doing so, he grabs the top of my headset and physically yanks my head up, putting the mic into my eye, and yells "Are you seriously writing your radio calls and reciting it?!" I bite my lip, show him my kneeboard and say "It's just the weather." I'm stunned that he did this, but think to myself I never want to fly again with him, so let's just do the landings and get this over with.
To collect my thoughts, I back off the throttle just a touch to about 2300 to calm my shot nerves, and prepare for my short field landing. There's no traffic in the area any longer and ATC is laid back. As I'm flying in, he grabs my hand and shoves the throttle to full "Let's go! Why are you slow rolling! This is ********!!" I almost went to assert my PIC authority, but really don't need my face to find itself against the six pack with a potential outburst, so I don't say anything. Radar service is terminated with tower, and I squak 1200 in response, not thinking about them never saying Squak VFR (my mistake) and the DPE of course, starts yelling at me about it as I'm preparing to turn base to final. I muttered something about "sanitized cockpit" as I'm pretty shaken up and put in my crosswind correction down to land. My leg is shaking as I apply rudder cause I'm so nervous. Winds were at 18G28, so I knew this was going to be challenging but hey, at least this hell of a flight is almost over and I can change out of this soaking wet shirt. I chose the thousand foot markers, came down on centerline and....touched down too early. DPE screams "WHAT WAS THAT? NOT ACCEPTABLE! PARK IT!"
After sitting alone for a few minutes in the plane after parking, I walked in and got my letter of disapproval. All that being said, I know I made some mistakes during the flight, I was not perfect, and do not claim to be whatsoever. But I'm left wondering if I would have done better if it wasn't for my DPE constantly yelling at me and putting me on edge. I'm not sure, as I have about zero confidence right now. I know some of you will probably think I'm exaggerating or whatnot because I got a pink slip, and I get where you're coming from. But to counter, this DPE is even mentioned by name on Reddit a few years back for similar behavior on a commercial checkride. I take full responsibility if I fail something of my own doing, pink slip or otherwise.
Anyways - I want to get my PPL wrapped up. But I have reservations about taking a retake with this same DPE, my CFI has just left for another job and I really liked him, but at the same time, don't know if it's really worth it traveling somewhere far away for retraining and another DPE. I'm doing my best to think over what I could do better, what my weaknesses are truly, and filtering out everything else. I've always wanted to learn to be a pilot, and want to perform at a high standard, I just don't know what to do next. Any advice or insight from folks that are far more experienced than me is appreciated.
Now the DPE the school uses is notorious for his temper and outbursts. I've met him several times in passing prior, and he lived up to his reputation. Anything from politics to mentioning David Clark headsets are tight on the head I've seen him go into a fit of yelling at the person closest to him. Everyone walks on eggshells and triple thinks before they talk when he's around. I like to think I have a very thick skin, and hardly ever get offended. I have a military background, and I'm used to rough environments. But he's something else.
Checkride day comes and have a knot in my stomach the size of a football. We start the oral and at this point I'm more nervous about him than I am about my knowledge/performance. First question out the gate, and he gives me a long-winded scenario about flying to another town to see a friend, who has another friend who I don't know, and his car is broken down in my town, and now he wants to fly with me, and he has all this baggage etc. Ok. He asks me "What do you need for this flight, now that you have this passenger and stuff?" and answer confidently "Well, now that I have a passenger I'm going to need to make sure I have my 3 takeoffs and-" at which point he yells "Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! First question huh? Try again!" I'm so nervous that I feel sick so I start stuttering out other requirements and eventually he moves on. The rest of the oral is like this, and by the end of the hour, I'm stuttering out stupid answers and rethinking my life decisions for $16,000, Alex. I end up passing, nonetheless.
On to the flight, and he's already ****ed because there's a rip in the interior pocket of his plane he never noticed before as he's trying to adjust himself to climb in the plane (he's a big guy). As he does so, my pen must've rolled underneath the seat since he bumped into my XC paperwork as he climbed in. I don't realize this until I'm getting the weather, and I ask him if he saw my pen by chance, and he just stares at me ****ed not saying a word. ATIS is on it's 2nd go around, and I luckily spot a pen left by another student and use that.
That set the tone for the remainder of the flight. He pretty much yells at me every chance he gets. ATC had us extend out on runway heading on departure for incoming traffic, and he yelled at me for not requesting other directions from ATC. He yells at me for one reason or the other on each maneuver. I won't go on and on for each instance, but each time he talked, I found him to be very unclear between all his hollering. One specific instance, he told me to bring the plane to idle. He had been mumbling about the broken EGT in his plane throughout the flight, so I wondered if that had something to do with it. I wait for further instructions before he asks "What are you doing!?" and I just gave a nervous chuckle and said "You get that EGT figured out?" before responding "No! What do you think I'm having you do?" I was honestly dumbfounded and a nervous wreck, and thought maybe he wanted me to perform engine out procedures. Luckily I was right and without asking any further, I performed the necessary steps.
I'm completely over it by now, and want nothing more than to quit. I get the weather, and write it down. I notice another plane on my GPS but I hear Tower giving him clearance to land straight in, and know this will be no factor as I'm coming in for what I imagine will be a left base as I'm 10 miles away. It's the top of the hour, and I'm thinking I'm probably going to get new numbers before going in. I'm looking down at the Zulu time and doing the math in my head real quick while at the same time making my radio call to the tower. As I'm doing so, he grabs the top of my headset and physically yanks my head up, putting the mic into my eye, and yells "Are you seriously writing your radio calls and reciting it?!" I bite my lip, show him my kneeboard and say "It's just the weather." I'm stunned that he did this, but think to myself I never want to fly again with him, so let's just do the landings and get this over with.
To collect my thoughts, I back off the throttle just a touch to about 2300 to calm my shot nerves, and prepare for my short field landing. There's no traffic in the area any longer and ATC is laid back. As I'm flying in, he grabs my hand and shoves the throttle to full "Let's go! Why are you slow rolling! This is ********!!" I almost went to assert my PIC authority, but really don't need my face to find itself against the six pack with a potential outburst, so I don't say anything. Radar service is terminated with tower, and I squak 1200 in response, not thinking about them never saying Squak VFR (my mistake) and the DPE of course, starts yelling at me about it as I'm preparing to turn base to final. I muttered something about "sanitized cockpit" as I'm pretty shaken up and put in my crosswind correction down to land. My leg is shaking as I apply rudder cause I'm so nervous. Winds were at 18G28, so I knew this was going to be challenging but hey, at least this hell of a flight is almost over and I can change out of this soaking wet shirt. I chose the thousand foot markers, came down on centerline and....touched down too early. DPE screams "WHAT WAS THAT? NOT ACCEPTABLE! PARK IT!"
After sitting alone for a few minutes in the plane after parking, I walked in and got my letter of disapproval. All that being said, I know I made some mistakes during the flight, I was not perfect, and do not claim to be whatsoever. But I'm left wondering if I would have done better if it wasn't for my DPE constantly yelling at me and putting me on edge. I'm not sure, as I have about zero confidence right now. I know some of you will probably think I'm exaggerating or whatnot because I got a pink slip, and I get where you're coming from. But to counter, this DPE is even mentioned by name on Reddit a few years back for similar behavior on a commercial checkride. I take full responsibility if I fail something of my own doing, pink slip or otherwise.
Anyways - I want to get my PPL wrapped up. But I have reservations about taking a retake with this same DPE, my CFI has just left for another job and I really liked him, but at the same time, don't know if it's really worth it traveling somewhere far away for retraining and another DPE. I'm doing my best to think over what I could do better, what my weaknesses are truly, and filtering out everything else. I've always wanted to learn to be a pilot, and want to perform at a high standard, I just don't know what to do next. Any advice or insight from folks that are far more experienced than me is appreciated.
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