Tiny rant. Subject: DPEs

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Dilly

Filing Flight Plan
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Dilly
I've been a student pilot for over a year now, and have had such a terrible experience with the DPE system. My ppl checkride was canceled two hours before it was supposed to begin, and I wasn't even allowed to do the oral portion. Now I'm being told its going to be months before I can get another chance. Anybody else had this frustration? Does it get better, or do I have this sort of thing to look forward to for flight reviews and future checkrides? Is there any hope of the DPE shortage being fixed?
 
Most experience this for quite some time now.

Not likely to get any better soon. Flight reviews are CFI only, so not nearly as problematic. Other checkrides gonna have same issue.

Becoming one is a hassle. Getting the clearance to become one is REALLY tough. Maintaining the qualification is hard enough to scare away qualified applicants.

Hang in there. It’s worth it, your rant is justified and hereby acknowledged!!
 
Tools said:
Becoming one is a hassle. Getting the clearance to become one is REALLY tough. Maintaining the qualification is hard enough to scare away qualified applicants.
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I don't doubt this at all but would love to hear the specific nature of the challenges.
 
Have you tried other DPE's? Most ARE scheduled months out, but if you're ready now, someone might have a cancelation or take mercy on you. The geographical restrictions have been lifted, so you're no longer limited to the 2-3 in your immediate area.
 
Never had a DPE cancel, but I have started an oral knowing a discontinuance was likely due to weather. Since there’s a 60-day timer on discontinuances, if the DPE felt it wasn’t likely to fit you in, I’d rather have a cancel and not be charged.

Having said that if a particular DPE is so busy they’re booking >60 days out, I’d find a different DPE, even if that I meant I had to travel to that DPE.
 
It can be frustrating for sure. Where are you located? I know of a couple of DPE’s that have reasonable availability and don’t cancel unless there is a damn valid reason for doing so.
 
Location is important, and flexibility. I flew with a Dallas FSDO DPE recently and there have been a number of DPEs added recently and there shouldn’t be that big of a shortage unless scheduling is a huge conflict.
 
Jim K said:
Have you tried other DPE's? Most ARE scheduled months out, but if you're ready now, someone might have a cancelation or take mercy on you. The geographical restrictions have been lifted, so you're no longer limited to the 2-3 in your immediate area.
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I have connections with some pilots in my area (Raleigh, NC), and they suggested I transfer over to a Part 141 flight school, since bigger schools often have their own DPE's. (That turned out to be sort of true: There's one guy who is the DPE for three 141 flight schools at my airport) So I transferred over and have had a great experience so far. I'm learning now that I probably wasn't ready for my checkride back in December, and doing my primary training in a six pack at a non towered airport really wasn't very helpful.
 
How was doing primary in a six pack not helpful? Going from six pack to glass is easy as opposed to the inverse.
 
Dilly said:
Does it get better,[snip] Is there any hope of the DPE shortage being fixed?
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No and no, ime. Most people pinch their nose because it's the gold-rush dream of making 250K+ while lacking the academic aptitude and timeline protraction willingness required for medical specialties or equivalent. Recreationalists are either in the stockholm syndrome, or eff this noise camp. Lots of people who PPL and never come back, for reasons in addition to the DPE bottleneck, to be fair. Welcome to the suck, cherry type of thing.

Stevel said:
I don't doubt this at all but would love to hear the specific nature of the challenges.
Click to expand...
As someone in the flight training business relcutantly looking at 121 post .mil employment but really rather not, DPE was a draw initially. Conversations through the years have yielded little in the way of hope as a viable option for most interested/qualified. Too political/timing/regional dependent. I suppose if it were truly accessible, pay would become diluted enough to not be worthwhile, so I guess catch-22. Asset inflation and COL continues to price me out of lower paying work like ASI and single pilot work, otherwise I would say there's a good shadow inventory of qualified applicants willing and able to do great work in said space.

They just need to hire more ASIs and the pay needs to be increased dramatically to account for post-2020 M2 inflation. I always had a principled disagreement with the concept of FSDOs chucking taxpayers to DPEs and telling the taxpayer they can't take front-facing customers at the door (SAT I'm looking at you). Moot now, as all of that (+hiring, +wages) is a non-starter with the current admin, so I won't even waste time debating the merits.

I suspect our big overlords will do another round of bailouts, and QE within the next 48 months, making inflation worse again and keeping assets inaccessible to primary wage earners writ large. Whole thing is cooked for a while longer. DPE is the least of our worries in this affordability crisis.

Airline hiring is slowing, which is the only valve they're willing to rely on. Organic demand lowering to meet a [de facto] static supply of regulators. We're doing the same thing in DoD training and accessions, to be clear. Walking through these 45 year old delapidated glass doored Brutalist architecture every day, to strap into an airplane my 1910s, late grandfather could have retired from, I'm reminded of what a national trend of capitulation looks like. The peeling tape of "train the world's best aviators" in broken/missing font on the glass overhangs is just chef's kiss. I'm embarrassed for our NATO partner students. Digressing.
 
Dilly said:
I have connections with some pilots in my area (Raleigh, NC), and they suggested I transfer over to a Part 141 flight school, since bigger schools often have their own DPE's. (That turned out to be sort of true: There's one guy who is the DPE for three 141 flight schools at my airport) So I transferred over and have had a great experience so far. I'm learning now that I probably wasn't ready for my checkride back in December, and doing my primary training in a six pack at a non towered airport really wasn't very helpful.
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Now I'm confused. You switched to a 141 school after you were signed off for your check ride? I don't know how that works, but if expect they'd be required to give you a certain amount of instruction in their program. And I'd say a six pack and uncontrolled airport would be the PERFECT way to do your primary training.

Why did your CFI sign you off of you weren't ready, and why did the DPE cancel?
 
Racerx said:
How was doing primary in a six pack not helpful? Going from six pack to glass is easy as opposed to the inverse.
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Okay, poor choice of words. I don't regret learning the six pack. I would just disagree about the switching back and forth being more difficult for those who started on the glass cockpit. The glass system presents so much information in one, and the six pack system is really telling you only what you need to know. I'm used to looking at one instrument for one piece of information, and now its a computer that has more information than I could ever use. The sooner you start training on the glass system, the sooner you get used to it.
 
Lindberg said:
Now I'm confused. You switched to a 141 school after you were signed off for your check ride? I don't know how that works, but if expect they'd be required to give you a certain amount of instruction in their program. And I'd say a six pack and uncontrolled airport would be the PERFECT way to do your primary training.

Why did your CFI sign you off of you weren't ready, and why did the DPE cancel?
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Yes, my part 61 flight school instructor signed me off to do the checkride. I didn't end up taking it, so the endorsement expired. I transferred over to a part 141 flight school and did a 5.5 hour mock checkride, and they put me at a level. Sorry I'm not explaining this very well...

Again, I don't regret doing my primary training the way I did it. But it was far from perfect. As I'm looking towards pursuing a career in aviation, my lack of confidence in controlled airspace and my unfamiliarity with nicer planes is something I think a 141 school could have helped me with sooner. Then again, maybe my school was just not a good one.

My CFI was simply not good. I know that now. He was training me for the checkride and nothing else. I've learned more in the three weeks I've been at my current flight school than I did from him. I blame myself for only looking as far as the checkride, but I also wish my instructor had been the bigger man. The flight instructor problem is a whole other conversation.

The cancellation was weather. However, my frustration was that I was not given any notice about the possibility of canceling the oral portion, nor was I informed until 2 hours before the scheduled checkride that I would not be able to be rescheduled with that DPE until March. I did a lot of work to prepare, and while I knew the chances of flying were nada, no one told me that I was going to have to wait until march for the oral as well.
 
Dilly said:
while I knew the chances of flying were nada, no one told me that I was going to have to wait until march for the oral as well.
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I have seen it argued that the oral and flight portion must be done on the same day. That was not the case when I became a CFI 24 years ago (I drove 150 miles to take the oral on a day with bad weather), but there may be DPEs who believe that is the rule.
 
Dilly said:
Again, I don't regret doing my primary training the way I did it. But it was far from perfect. As I'm looking towards pursuing a career in aviation, my lack of confidence in controlled airspace and my unfamiliarity with nicer planes is something I think a 141 school could have helped me with sooner. Then again, maybe my school was just not a good one.
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Maybe your school did suck, I don't know. But they were training you to fly an airplane, not be an airline pilot. At the initial training stage, I think that's actually a good thing. You'll have another 1400 hours and 4 or 5 more ratings to learn to be an airline pilot. And familiarity with "nicer" planes really isn't an issue.
Dilly said:
My CFI was simply not good. I know that now. He was training me for the checkride and nothing else. I've learned more in the three weeks I've been at my current flight school than I did from him. I blame myself for only looking as far as the checkride, but I also wish my instructor had been the bigger man. The flight instructor problem is a whole other conversation.
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There are bad and good CFIs. But training for the checkride isn't necessarily a bad thing. If that means using the ACS as a syllabus and completion standard, I think it's actually a good thing.
Dilly said:
The cancellation was weather. However, my frustration was that I was not given any notice about the possibility of canceling the oral portion, nor was I informed until 2 hours before the scheduled checkride that I would not be able to be rescheduled with that DPE until March. I did a lot of work to prepare, and while I knew the chances of flying were nada, no one told me that I was going to have to wait until march for the oral as well.
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This is very unfortunate. The DPEs i know leave room for contingencies like this. Cancelling for weather and sending you to the back of the line doesn't sound normal to me. If that's how that DPE works you're right to look for a different one.
 
A 5.5 hour mock checkride. Woof. No wonder you didn't think you were ready. My mock oral sucked. Hell the oral portion on my checkride sucked. At least I thought it did. Completely spaced on the 4 types of hypoxia. But it was never stopped so I guess it wasn't that bad.

How long was the downtime from being checkride ready to switching to the 141?

You not knowing you can't start the oral without a reasonable chance to complete the whole checkride is on you and your instructor, not the dpe. Honestly, if the dpe cancels last minute due to weather. I'd have to imagine the dpe was waiting on the applicant to cancel first. So you better bet you're going to get a good dose of weather and personal minimums when you do do the checkride
 
Call local FSDO ask for point of contact for their DPEs ….. explain you can’t get a check ride for months and it’s costing you thousands of $ and if he/she can help. They may make some calls and get you a DPE. But FAA has known of the DPE problem and has done little about it as they would love to see GA go extinct. I have heard of pilots calling their representatives to complain about the Faa issue and somehow they get a DPE appointment quick or Faa inspector will begrudgingly do it.
 
hindsight2020 said:
No and no, ime. Most people pinch their nose because it's the gold-rush dream of making 250K+ while lacking the academic aptitude and timeline protraction willingness required for medical specialties or equivalent. Recreationalists are either in the stockholm syndrome, or eff this noise camp. Lots of people who PPL and never come back, for reasons in addition to the DPE bottleneck, to be fair. Welcome to the suck, cherry type of thing.


As someone in the flight training business relcutantly looking at 121 post .mil employment but really rather not, DPE was a draw initially. Conversations through the years have yielded little in the way of hope as a viable option for most interested/qualified. Too political/timing/regional dependent. I suppose if it were truly accessible, pay would become diluted enough to not be worthwhile, so I guess catch-22. Asset inflation and COL continues to price me out of lower paying work like ASI and single pilot work, otherwise I would say there's a good shadow inventory of qualified applicants willing and able to do great work in said space.

They just need to hire more ASIs and the pay needs to be increased dramatically to account for post-2020 M2 inflation. I always had a principled disagreement with the concept of FSDOs chucking taxpayers to DPEs and telling the taxpayer they can't take front-facing customers at the door (SAT I'm looking at you). Moot now, as all of that (+hiring, +wages) is a non-starter with the current admin, so I won't even waste time debating the merits.

I suspect our big overlords will do another round of bailouts, and QE within the next 48 months, making inflation worse again and keeping assets inaccessible to primary wage earners writ large. Whole thing is cooked for a while longer. DPE is the least of our worries in this affordability crisis.

Airline hiring is slowing, which is the only valve they're willing to rely on. Organic demand lowering to meet a [de facto] static supply of regulators. We're doing the same thing in DoD training and accessions, to be clear. Walking through these 45 year old delapidated glass doored Brutalist architecture every day, to strap into an airplane my 1910s, late grandfather could have retired from, I'm reminded of what a national trend of capitulation looks like. The peeling tape of "train the world's best aviators" in broken/missing font on the glass overhangs is just chef's kiss. I'm embarrassed for our NATO partner students. Digressing.
Click to expand...
Don’t goto an airline. You’ll hate it.
 
Gilbert Buettner said:
I have seen it argued that the oral and flight portion must be done on the same day. That was not the case when I became a CFI 24 years ago (I drove 150 miles to take the oral on a day with bad weather), but there may be DPEs who believe that is the rule.
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There's written guidance on this, so there's really no argument to be had.

There's no requirement that a practical test "must be done" on the same day - rather, it must be the intent of the designee to complete the practical test in one day. This allows for the possibility of a discontinuance due to unforeseen "... environmental, mechanical, or personal situations."

Per FAA Order 8900.2C:

"The intent of the designee must be to complete the entire practical test in one day. Designees must not schedule the test to be planned as a multiple-day event. Extenuating circumstances may allow for deviations, but must be approved by the managing FAA office."
 
Tools said:
Most experience this for quite some time now.

Not likely to get any better soon. Flight reviews are CFI only, so not nearly as problematic. Other checkrides gonna have same issue.

Becoming one is a hassle. Getting the clearance to become one is REALLY tough. Maintaining the qualification is hard enough to scare away qualified applicants.

Hang in there. It’s worth it, your rant is justified and hereby acknowledged!!
Click to expand...
Are you still trying?
 
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