Pathetic excuses on a skill test.

[Keygrip]

One for the examiners, really.

You know the situation - having completed all the necessary flight and ground training hours, somebody comes to you as a candidate for a skill test of some kind, SEP, MEP, IMC, CPL, I/R - whatever.

They are presenting themselves for a test for licence or rating issue that will let them fly any make, mode, type of aircraft, etc - yet, part way through the flight you ask them to do something and they come out with some line, which is clearly grovelling for sympathy, but actually means, I haven't learned this properly yet - I hope you wouldn't ask that.

Something along the lines of - "I've not flown this particular aircraft before, I don't know how to turn the radio on".

You know what I mean - all those lines and comments that really p**s you off and make you think, "Well why did you come for the test then?"

[Charlie Foxtrot India]

"my instructor didn't show me how to do/ told me you wouldn't test me on/ that"

"I didn't think the wind direction was important"

"NOTAMS? was I supposed to check the NOTAMS?"

"Someone must have moved that hill, it wasn't there last week"

"there's something wrong with the ailerons" (forgot to disconnect autopilot)

"But I really need to finish my licence today! Can't you just....."


:hmm:

[BEagle]

With an innocent expression on her pretty little face, a young blonde candidate brushed a loose piece of damp hair from her face before smiling sweetly, glancing down at her thin blouse and saying "It's so hot in here - would you mind taking control for a sec whilst I take my top off?"

















Oh well, perhaps one day....:E

Until then it's usually "Shall I go around" when the glide approach is obviously never going to make the runway. "No - why don't you just kill us both instead" is what you want to say- but you have to say something like "You must make all decisions - but if I have to take control as a result, you will fail" in rather an insistent manner - and quite quickly.....

[mad_jock]

I always thought the "What are the current NOTAM's" was a test in how well you could tell Fibs to the examiner.


They would normally start the game by telling you that they are 75kgs so you can fill the tanks, maybe 30kgs out on a good day.

MJ

[duir]

It's not so much the fibbing about the weight as having to gently usher his thighs to one side every time you reach for the carb heat or cowl flaps! In certain circumstances this can give the examiner the wrong impression.:p

[porridge]

Whats this - "Pass 'em all Paul" not passing them all quite so regularly anymore?
Yes - sometimes, somewhere we all come around to the full circle and to the same conclusion, if they are not safe to fly on their own with your nearest and dearest they don't get to pass - no matter how much they have to 'offer'!

[Tinstaafl]

Oh! You want the one's I've been given - not the one's I gave.... :O

[mad_jock]

Porrige I know what your having a dig at.

And although the exam may get turned into a lesson. The very brief period i had anything to do with the scene in FL. The dig you are getting at happened quite a few times even though there was no failure paper work completed. The student still went on to do retraining and re-sat the test

Which I might add is very common through out the land.

And the whole ppl examiner system in the US needs looked at never mind one individual. I personally will freely admit i shouldn't have been given a license on the GFT I did. I only learned this after completing a FIC and listening to a proper RT test without the examiner banging the wall and yelling "get it right C**t"

MJ

[VFE]

I was suprised I passed my FAA PPL skills test (not with Keygrip I might add) as I even forgot to put in the wind corrections on my plog for all my headings! What a prat eh?! It was dodgy from the off but somehow I pulled it around however had that been in the UK I know I'd have failed quite quickly.

VFE.

[Send Clowns]

M J

I take it you attended a certain school at about 29°18'04"N 081°06'49"W? In the sunshine state, not too far from the coast? Has a way with his tests, does that one.

[Chequeredflag]

Out of interest, as my own skills test is getting ever closer, are there any statistics showing the % rates of first time passes for the ppl? Do the majority pass first time?

[Whopity]

Something along the lines of - "I've not flown this particular aircraft before, I don't know how to turn the radio on".

Sounds like a failure point to me!

[Onan the Clumsy]

And although the exam may get turned into a lesson. In the US they specifically say the exam is an exam and not a training session.

I guess I understand what they mean, but still, every new flight and every new cockpit companion presents the opportunity to learn.

Understandable it might be, but an opportunity lost it also is I think.

[mad_jock]

every new cockpit companion presents the opportunity to learn.

How so true. And that works both ways. I always learn't something new every lesson I gave to a student.

MJ

[BigEndBob]

I was ready to fail a guy by the time we got to the holding point!

Instead he failed by the time he set course, IMC, at his planned x/c altitude.

[shortstripper]

Speaking as a non instructor, I've never tried to blag my way through a test but haven't always been perfect either!

In my experience, the better examiners are those who can recognise someone who is safe, competent or whatever, and if necessary, make a slightly fudged error into a kind of lesson come workout. I realise the commercial world has strict guidelines, but I would hope that a certain amount of examiner discretion is still allowed? After all, who'd want to be a bank manager these days? Once, they could make there own minds up and actually be proper accountable human beings ... now they hide behind computer decisions! Would you, as an instructor/future examiner, really want to just be yet another box ticker?

SS

[Send Clowns]

Yes MJ, but some of those lessons can be scary :ooh:

[mad_jock]

I must have been lucky in my 900 hours of instructing. I never once had to work hard to recover off a student. Which pissed a few of them off.

I did have a couple of scary ones in the early days but that was more my fault than the students.

ie don't fill the C172 to the tops when you haven't seen the 3 fat bastard rugby players who are the next trial flight which coupled to a fat bastard instructor equals a seriously over weight plane, thank god for the curvature of the earth and ground effect (BTW after getting the seat from between my bum cheeks i gave myself a bollocking for that one and didn't do it again)

And don't mess with mountain wave, going up at 1500ft per minute with the power off at Vne nose down is a bit diconcerting.

And certainly never walked away from the lesson thinking that bugger tried to kill me.

Even if you learn how to put across a point in a different manner.
I always worked on the principle that it was up to me to change my teaching style for the student. Not the student changing there learning style for me.

MJ

[Send Clowns]

I was thinking of the one that forgot to rotate again on the touch and go at Compton Abbas. Or the one that thought the action for wing drop at the stall is to snap full opposite rudder - amusing in a Robin 200 (not cleared for spins for very good reasons!). The one that thinks nose up is always good, even when you've just cut the power for an EFATO drill.

All in a day's work :}

[BigEndBob]

I was checking out a new instructor who froze on the controls, holding off at 10 feet above the ground with no hint of applying power and going around. I had to grab the controls quick.
After that i never relax with anyone no matter what their experience.

[-IBLB-]

not a checkride, but a checkout of a new renter, the situation: C172, 1500'agl, 30deg of flaps, and in a spin.....
The excuse: "i am not used to the surroundings...."


-IBLB-

[P.Pilcher]

I was invited to come on a jolly with two friends who owned their own aircraft. The idea was that friend A would fly to destination from where he was going to pick up his girlfriend. Friend B would then fly the aircraft (of a type I had never flown before) back to our point of departure.
On the way out I sat in the back, enjoying the view. On the way back, friend A wanted the back seat with girlfriend so I sat in my customary position with friend B in command. It was dusk when we made our approach, though not past official night. I was aware that friend B did not hold a night rating and as I watched, I suddenly realised that he was not going to flare due to the conditions. I grabbed the pole and pulled saying at the same time "give me full power". A few yards further down our enormous runway, I gently touched down - and got a new night rating student!

P.P.

[Pronto]

Many moons ago, when I did my PPL, it was with a club where the aircraft maintenance standard was such that the examiner refused to fly in the bulk of the fleet. Fortuitously, perhaps, the club is no longer with us.

As a result of the Examiners "lack of faith" there was one C152 that was reserved for flight tests and was known, perhaps unsuprisingly, as "The Examiners Aircraft". Inevitably, the first time (and only time) you flew this aircraft it was on your flight test. Equally inevitably, this example of Cessna engineering was the newest aircraft on the fleet, was fully carpeted and with spats (both absent from the rest of the fleet). Worse, the radio was newer than those in the rest of the fleet and was manufactured by a different company.

I was lucky, I was allowed to do a few solo circuits in the aircraft before meeting the Examiner but for most, the question of "how do you turn the radio on in this aircraft?" was probably reasonable!

[Onan the Clumsy]

when I did my PPL, it was with a club I've had some student who took that approach to learning :}