I've been through 5 check rides with 3 different examiners, and each examiner is different. One hates... let me reiterate HATES tower controllers". During a check ride we recieved conflicting directions from the tower basically during our landing flare. I was about ask for clarification on the radio when he stopped me, told me what to do, then assaulted the tower with a diatribe about them issuing conflicting directions while the airplane was landing and already cleared... ... ... I remember him saying "why dont you give me a phone number to call and we'll listen to the recording and square this up right now... We didn't get a phone number. Another DPE is a stickler for weather and likes to turn everything into a scenario. He'd show a picture of the bottom side of a thunder storm sitting over an airport and ask if you'd try to land there. Have you tell him what's goin on on a dipiction chart or prog chart, etc. One he had me plan a XC to an unfamiliar airport, then during the oral, quized me on different things that could happen during the flight. Like... "ok so were doing this flight at night and you notice that the alternator is cranking out 80 amps and the ALT light is on. We are here(points to a spot on the flight path near KDAG). What would you do? I go over the steps to lower amp draw and keep the battery alive as long as possible and choose to land at KDAG. He continued with the scenario, acting like a non pilot passenger who really wanted to finish the flight to the destination for an important business meeting etc... ... ... Once sure that I wasn't goint to relent on the landing NOW part of it, he asks me "ok the winds are calm, which runway are you going to land on? There are 2 runways at KDAG, 22/4 and 26/8. I look at the AFD and say "we're going to land runway 22." He gave me a look that got me nervous at this point and said... rather loudly "why the hell would you land on that runway, the other one is 1300 feet longer and 50 feet wider!!!!". I was obviously a little shaken, but my response was somthing like....(insert quivering voice and knee knocking in the backround) well were landing at night with electrical
problems... 22 is 5100' long, plenty long enough to land on, and it's the
only runway with a VASI. He then smiled and told me that it was the right answer but he was trying to shake me up a bit. (success on his part). He didn't keep that intensity the whole time. Expect a trick or two, if you know your answer is right, stick to it, if you think you've got the wrong answer and he's leading you down a path of wrong answer to justify another wrong answer, tell him. I got crossed up between Pressure altitude and density altitude, and which one is corrected for this that and the other..... DPE asked me "are you sure?" My response was somethin like "I want to say yes but I feel like i'm heading down the wrong path ( i was), I want to look it up". That got smiles from the DPE.
My private checkrides PSEL and PMEL were the only ones where the examiner tried to throw a couple of things at me while on the ground. During runup, he took out his cell phone and wedged it between his ear and headset and pretended to have a conversation with somebody while I was doing the pre take off briefing. He scolded me a little for letting a passenger do that... also, I didn't notice that he didn't have his shoulder harness on. I assumed that because I read it on the checklist that he had just done it. We took off and got started with the flight before i noticed him write down "shoulder harness" on his note pad
He scolded me for not ensuring that my passenger was properly secured by the shoulder harness. I had incorrectly assumed that he would be acting like the umpteen thousand hour pilot/ check airman/ DPE that he was, not like a passenger who had never flown before.
Remember to relax, be confident, and if your not sure about an answer during the oral, look it up or say "im not feeling 100 percent confident, I know I can find the answer to that in the ****** do you mind if we look it up?". There's nothing that says you cant look at your knee board if you get mixed up about cloud clearance in class g airspace above 10,000 but less than bla bla bla.... Knowing where to get the answer is as important as knowing the answer. I had one stop me from finding the answer because in his words "i just needed to see if you knew where to find the answer".
These things are stressfull, but all 3 DPE's ive used have gone out of their way to try and make the test as comfortable as possible. The DPE I used for my commercial single engine test kept telling me "relax man, were just 2 pilots going out for a flight, that's it." It was funny, I had to work later in the day, so I came to the checkride dressed in my work attire, a suite and a tie. He was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, his first comment was "man, your going to sweat your @$$ off" then laughed. It was hot that day. After our last landing his comment was "well, if you can taxi us back to parking without hitting anyghing, you'll have a new certificate"
Remember, they are pilots, they've been through checkrides, they know your nervous and that your performance will suffer a bit as a result. It's been said before, go through the PTS, Know your airplane, engine prop, gear, etc, then go fly hang out with another pilot for a few hours and walk away with your PPL.
