kgruber took his check ride about the time I took mine.
There was a new requirement the year I took it, with mandatory hood training for the PPL.
In 1969 two of us took the check ride with the same DPE, and had used the same instructor. He took almost twice the hours to get signed off as I did, implying that I was a better student.
He went first, the check ride was 2 hours in the air, and he failed.
I went next, I had certain advantages that did possibly bias the DPE, when I did the weight and balance, I did it with a calculator, not the charts in the POH. He asked why, and my answer was that I was cargo loading officer for an air mobile Army unit, and since we were at the weight limit of the plane, accuracy was important. I knew his weight, and had burned exactly enough gas coming to be at gross. I also had my graduation certificate for a Commercial Ground School class. He was also surprised how much hood time that I had in my log book, I explained that my instructor had done hood whenever it was convenient.
Our flight was high stress, as heading changes were continuous, and altitude changes ended in the middle of heading changes. I nailed every end point, altitude or turn. VOR identify and intercept, then track was included in those altitude changes and turns. We did stalls under the hood, and on the power off stall, he kicked the rudder, and we spun. Recovery was under the hood. Steep turn 360 each side, with him clearing the area, hood again, and unusual attitude recovery, two different aircraft attitudes and conditions. Hood off, where is the airport, fly there and land, engine out.
The check ride was 0.49 hours tach time, and I passed.
The debrief in the office was relaxed, and he complimented my instructor for my skills. He had noted the grass strips in my log, both with and without my instructor, commented that if I had flown in and out of those particular runways solo, I had the skills needed to pass in a check ride.
The other pilot went for his second check ride, it lasted 2 hours, but he did pass. I flew with him ONCE after he received his PPL, and never again. His skills were just barely adequate, and in adverse conditions, dangerous. Fortunately, finances took him out of the club, and he quit flying.
Addressing the topic more directly, the check ride today must be quite different, as others have stated. Understanding the electronics and failure modes is a major area to be tested for, and there are more aspects of this that must be demonstrated. The testing of actual flying the plane has suffered as a result, but the over all check ride should be much harder to prepare for, and pass.
Navigational situation awareness with all the equipment functioning should be far better today, and the entire flight can be programmed into the GPS on the ground, engine not yet started.I do not understand just how the DPE simulates the failures that we had in the '70's on check rides. The DPE simply reached over with a black rubber stick on, and that device was failed. On the ground, the quiz on system failures required you to tell him what else should be expected to become unusable if, for example a vacuum gyro went out. The equivalent failures would be hard to know for a variety of brands of electronic displays..
