Examiner cancelled the check unreasonably

einepilotin

einepilotin

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einepilotin
The examiner cancelled the checkride yesterday after I arrived in time with every document prepared because he was ****ed about my IACRA signed a bit later than he wanted. Still 1 full day early though. What an ass. Do you think this makes sense?

Technically it was my instructor's fault but he called the examiner to explain the situation. If it was the problem, he should have told me don't come at all in the first place. Unprofessional ****. He should lose his examiner permit
 
Examiner sounds like an idiot. As long as everything is ready by the time he logs into his IACRA account, you should be good to go.
 
What does your CFI have to say about this? Sounds like there might be some history between your CFI and the examiner in question.
 
Yep, this is indicative of that the mess which occurs with the political morass the examiner designation system is.
 
The FAA rations out the designations through an old boy patronage system.
 
can you explain the part about IACRA being signed "later than he wanted".
 
All the examiners around here will happily review and have someone correct their IACRA with their CFI if it's got a problem before the ride begins. Everyone, of course, tries not to annoy the examiner with a delay like that, but once in a while there's a typo or something. They'd rather have it right than turned in at any particular time.

Something else is going on with that examiner. Maybe they suck at reviewing applications and let too many through with obvious major mistakes and their FSDO quality folks gave them grief, so they implemented a "have it in the system the night before" policy so they could review them better.

Who knows? But being angry about paperwork when candidates are handing them as much money as candidates do these days, is somewhat unprofessional. I could see being annoyed by a really messed up application getting past both the candidate and the instructor, but angry about an application that wasn't turned in by a certain time? There's no requirement for that, if it's correct.

That said, if the examiner told the candidate they wanted something done and the candidate agrees, they'd best do it.

Did the examiner communicate this timeline requirement to you, many days before the ride?
 
Agreed with others that I'd be tweaked something fierce if the DPE did this to me. But as others have stated, there may be more going on that you may know about.

Whatever the case, I'd be looking for a new DPE. I wouldn't have faith that a fair evaluation would be given. Perhaps the DPE would give you a fair evaluation, but given the $400-600 that you're plunking down, I'd want to be assured that I'd be given a fair evaluation.
 
MauleSkinner said:
:rolleyes:
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Hmm. Sketchy.

Candidate is responsible for their own ride prep and usually talk to the examiner themselves around here.

Once in a while an instructor will call examiners if trying to help fix a scheduling issue when all of them are exceedingly busy.
 
There are a lot of students that try to schedule a check ride before their CFI completes the required logbook and IACRA endorsements. Many examiners will not schedule until the IACRA is done because they end up with cancellations by the applicants who thought they were ready.

When an examiner has two student wanting the same date/time the examiner has a choice - accept a student for a test with his IACRA complete and make some money or dink around with a guy who doesn't have the required form submitted.
 
At my flight school, we always set up the check ride. Our students are never responsible for that.
 
Just be glad you didn't get caught up in the 1 August 2016 ATP-MEL fiasco (itself a byproduct of the 1 August 2014 old ATP written sunset deadline), and the straight up highway robbery, pay-2-play scheme that was going on, in cash, all over the Country as a result of the timing glut. Plenty of people had to retake their checkrides after the cash was gone, as their DPEs got busted in short order. The only losers were the applicants out ~700 dollars (what I paid for my checkride) plus whatever they incurred getting recurrent in the airplane to replicate another checkride. Talk about double jeopardy.

Ditto the comments about the old boy patronage. The thing stinks to high hell. Part 61 is truly the underbelly of GA.
 
jordane93 said:
At my flight school, we always set up the check ride. Our students are never responsible for that.
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At the place I'm at now, it's cooperative. They expect adults to be able to call other adults and schedule things, but if the aircraft has a maintenance issue, or there's other circumstances, the instructors are there and available to assist.

You also don't get to call the examiner until the instructor says call and makes sure all endorsements are in the book and everything is ready.

It's kinda a "life PIC" thing. If you can't handle making some phone calls and scheduling stuff... which really shouldn't be any big deal.

Circumstance might dictate the instructor being involved from the start though, like the last couple of years where the FSDO has been unusually slow in scheduling initial CFI rides. The instructors around here seem to be quite involved in that process, since it helps move things along.

hindsight2020 said:
Just be glad you didn't get caught up in the 1 August 2016 ATP-MEL fiasco (itself a byproduct of the 1 August 2014 old ATP written sunset deadline), and the straight up highway robbery, pay-2-play scheme that was going on, in cash, all over the Country as a result of the timing glut. Plenty of people had to retake their checkrides after the cash was gone, as their DPEs got busted in short order. The only losers were the applicants out ~700 dollars (what I paid for my checkride) plus whatever they incurred getting recurrent in the airplane to replicate another checkride. Talk about double jeopardy.

Ditto the comments about the old boy patronage. The thing stinks to high hell. Part 61 is truly the underbelly of GA.
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Have any documentation on how many DPEs were busted? I haven't seen any indication that this was widespread. Around here our DPEs were all just hammered schedule-wise during that push, but I know of none who were booted or who were unfair on rides.

Besides, pilots probably suck at this in general, but if a DPE was busted out, they'd have an excellent small claims case to get a judgement for a refund. It's unlikely a busted out DPE would even bother to show up in small claims court. Summary judgement, done. Then of course one would have to collect, but you'd get it back eventually.
 
jordane93 said:
At my flight school, we always set up the check ride. Our students are never responsible for that.
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That is also how it was when I took my check ride. The school gave a list of 4 choices, including the pros, cons and costs. One of the choices was "Sam, who wants you to coordinate plans with you directly, here's his number...." The others they coordinated the time, date and details, once we picked the one we wanted to use.
 
Clip4 said:
I guess that is nice that you do that, but the student can go to any DPE he wants.
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I don't think any of our students chose not to go with our DPEs. There's really no reason not to. If they are a problem for our students, we stop using them.
 
Guess he doesn't get your $500+, freemarket fixes all
 
Clip4 said:
I guess that is nice that you do that, but the student can go to any DPE he wants.
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I doubt in your zip code anyone uses the FSDO for free, but in my parts they still do occasionally.
 
Clip4 said:
I doubt in your zip code anyone uses the FSDO for free, but in my parts they still do occasionally.
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Last time it came up for me was a CFI renewal..."we're not allowed to do optional checkrides in the district."
 
Clip4 said:
You should have told them it wasn't optional because it was required by FAA reg. LOL.
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I was mostly giving the inspector a hard time about tailwheel flying, but it still woulda' been a fun way to renew.
 
I hate hate hate the DPE system. Its such a good old boy club, and you only have to read checkride reports to see that there is a massive difference in ride quality(the 8 hour oral vs the 30 min chill session). One of the local DPE's wouldn't take a guys safety pilot time as PIC, until they got an (ASI?) to correct him. The other is known for either cakewalk rides or good luck even making it to preflight. So your options are devil you know or blindly pick some out of state guy.
 
falconkidding said:
known for either cakewalk rides or good luck even making it to preflight.
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Those are pretty subjective descriptions...I did my CFI airplane rides with an examiner who had a reputation for being a hardass...I thought the rides were pretty easy.

I later spent significant amounts of time on the other side of a very thin wall from his office and realized why he had the reputation...unprepared applicants.
 
Wouldn't be an issue with the examiners here. Sometimes mistakes happen, the examiner notices, and IACAR corrections need to be made (I've never had it happen with my students, but I'm careful as hell about it). I've also seen the examiners show up to discover that nothing in IACRA was done. In those cases the examiner is annoyed but it gets straightened out and doesn't influence the outcome of the checkride.

I always handled examiner communication and scheduling for the pilots. It was just easier since the examiner knew who I was. I also always made sure I was there for the start of the checkride to ensure that any paperwork issue could be handled if it popped up. Once the examiner indicated the paperwork was all good to go I'd head home.
 
einepilotin said:
The examiner cancelled the checkride yesterday after I arrived in time with every document prepared because he was ****ed about my IACRA signed a bit later than he wanted. Still 1 full day early though. What an ass. Do you think this makes sense?

Technically it was my instructor's fault but he called the examiner to explain the situation. If it was the problem, he should have told me don't come at all in the first place. Unprofessional ****. He should lose his examiner permit
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About the middle of every month since February you start a thread that strikes me as a bit unusual:

So, I'm thinking these issues will continue to follow you wherever you go, at least in the middle of the month.

dtuuri
 
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dtuuri said:
About the middle of every month since February you start a thread that strikes me as a bit unusual:

So, I'm thinking these issues will continue to follow you wherever you go, at least in the middle of the month.

dtuuri
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Or, the OP could be a troll trying to rile us up mid-month :). 17 posts since 12/16 is maybe 2 a month?
 
@dtuuri -- You didn't imply it's that time of the month, did you?

[Ravioli runs and hides]
 
falconkidding said:
I hate hate hate the DPE system. Its such a good old boy club, and you only have to read checkride reports to see that there is a massive difference in ride quality(the 8 hour oral vs the 30 min chill session). One of the local DPE's wouldn't take a guys safety pilot time as PIC, until they got an (ASI?) to correct him. The other is known for either cakewalk rides or good luck even making it to preflight. So your options are devil you know or blindly pick some out of state guy.
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How many checkrides have you had and with how many different DPEs?
 
Yeah don't think that's acceptable. The examiner I go to is awesome, my private IACRA was actually expired (due to multiple cancelled checkrides due to weather) and he worked with me and the chief pilot at my school to get a new one submitted, delayed the ride by a couple hours but still got it done.
 
dtuuri said:
About the middle of every month since February you start a thread that strikes me as a bit unusual:

So, I'm thinking these issues will continue to follow you wherever you go, at least in the middle of the month.

dtuuri
Click to expand...

Worst part is these drive-by posts. Post up something fairly controversial and then zero follow-up
 
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