What is considered "a good record"? My understanding is that that particular DPE from that thread has had a reputation change over the last few years that is better than his previous reputation. He previously was highly recommended not to go to...at least based on comments from the Club and CFI I used for my IR.
To be fair though: The guy who is nice enough to let me use his plane just had a successful IR ride with the same DPE....he was more than fair with him. Results may vary by day and personality I would guess...
I'll echo this. Without any hint of approaching the topic on my part, on my second (and successful attempt) at my check ride with a different DPE we were interrupted no less than 2-3 times by someone passing by. The conversations went like this:
"Sorry to interrupt, are you a DPE? I took your card"
"Yes, we're doing the practical"
"Sorry about that, I'm going to give you a call.. I keep having incidents with <insert my first DPE name here> and my students and I want to send them somewhere else"
"Well he's here for the same reason so give me a call".
That happened I think THREE times but let's be conservative and say two.
We landed and the direct quote was "I dont know what the hell <DPE name> was thinking, but your CFI seems to think that there was no way you could have passed anyway, and that must have been the case".
I flew home... the next day I took my wife to breakfast and on the way through the FBO I ran into a local. The conversation went like this:
"Hey you must have passed your check ride how did it go!"
me: "First one not so well, but the retest was fine"
"Did you go through <DPE Name>? I was just at breakfast and the other few guys started bitching about him saying he was yelling at their students. I havent heard a thing good about him".
Me: "I would concur with that but draw your own conclusion, I went through <New DPE name> this time".
My advice to the OP... If you were in any way graded outside the standards or feel you were mistreated... COMPLAIN. Worst case scenario is they say "okay" and thats about it. You may get offered a free checkride with them (and I hear the odds are never in your favor on them).
My new DPE sat me down and had me walk through my first checkride that I busted. We were able to clearly identify two to three places that were clearly not in the PTS, and he highlighted a portion that even still gives the examiner some discretion. It says something like "Consistently is outside of standards" and "does not make corrections".
Where as my other one, for example, didnt like my stall recovery because it was not at enough of a climb, vs a climb. PTS says they are recovery into a climb, it doesnt say 1000 feet per minute or any specification.
Things like that. Bottom line.. If you dont like it, go elsewhere. If you are on the east coast and want to come to the one I just rode with, he reduced his fee for me because of how horrible the first one was.
)
