Originally Posted by
Centaurus
The simulator instructor gives him a FAIL because in the instructors opinion the pilot should have gone around again because he was too high to be stable by 500 ft.
Had the FAIL been because of "failure to conduct a good circling approach" then I think the pilot could reasonably feel hard done by, since the simulator itself prevented a good circling approach by virtue of its limitation.
But if the fail is because of something else, then it doesn't really matter WHY the pilot was high - he's being assessed on his reaction to being high. That could have been induced by any number of means, some of which could be representative of real world conditions. You can end up high on a real approach - what decision would the pilot make?
Non-pilot opinion, but it really comes down to what the assessment is against. If I, while learning to drive a car, am doing the parallel parking exercise and some swine nips in and steals the space while I'm setting up, I doubt I'd be failed if I drove off and said to the instructor "cant park there". If I persevered nonetheless, and either rammed the other guy or got into a fight in the street over 'my space' I think I'd deserve to fail the test. Even though the 'space stealer' isn't part of the test setup, my reaction to it is an indication of my behaviour that CAN be judged.