Failed?
 

Hey guys - Just a thought here whilst I was lying in bed last night...

I was wondering, we always talk about how to pass your PPL checkride and QXC, what you did and where was a bit dodgy etc...

But it might be useful for people who failed their checkride or QXC to come here and say what exactly happened, and why the examiner failed them so others near-PPLs like myself can learn?

So... talk away...and thanks :ok:

(sorry if this has been done before!)

Ian

Would love to share, but passed both first time.

Remember the 5 Ps - Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance.

There are 6 'P's.

Any advance on 7?

Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents P!ss Poor Performance.

So far as what goes wrong, refer to sods law! Everything can and will go wrong at the most inconvenient time!

Better luck (or preparation) next time!

OK I will open the proceedings first as no one else has :D

I mucked up my PFL on my test. Following my failed test I went up with my instructor and he made me do 10 one after the other and did them perfectly!!!

Needless to say I passed second time.:ok:

Hi there,

I messed up a PFL on my PPL and got a partial pass. IMHO the reason was a bit weak though….I apparently set up for a landing downwind. There was forecast of calm winds from the sfc upwards to 5k. Apparently I should have noticed there was slight drift from the VOR tracking section. Right. Light and variable worst case. I wasn’t allowed a second chance. Oh well, I'm probably just bitter!


On a side note IMHO opinion the best way to pass a PPL is continuity in training. Not switching instructors over and over, and not leaving big gaps in your training if financially possible. I have found throughout private and commercial training instructors teach things differently. Not everything is standardised or set out as such. Switching instructors a week before my PPL nearly led to failure…. I was taught a new and better way to keep my plog (different to all my prior training). Guess what went t over a on the test…yup, without some quick thinking would have failed the nav section too due to cocking up the plog.

Bizarrely I found on a personal level the CPL and ME/IR flight tests easier than the PPL test, purely because I was far better prepared to take them, and got them first time. If you are prepared properly you will pass.

Oh yeah finally never decide in the test you have failed this or that section, if you make a mistake deal with it and carry on to the best of your abilities!

Best of luck!
:ok:

I got lost on my QXC, tend to fail when that happens:(
Stupid mistake and panic set in, concentration out of the window and all you want to do is land!

Got it the day after though, needed to calm down and think more.
All in the bag now so lets just say it was a good learning experience.

YYZ

Failing the PFL seems to be the most common!

Happened to me, as I spent too much time doing the cockpit drills and not enough time flying the aeroplane.

And me a glider pilot!

Doh!

:O

SD

I failed the short field landing the first time. Did it again and passed three days later.

i heard a story of a chap at my club landing on the wrong runway during his QXC. it could have been very bad situation indead, fortunatly no one was injured. he tried again after some1 explained wat the big white numbers ment.

I was a little lucky on my PFL during the PPL GFT. My instructor, who happened to be the chief flying instructor and staff examiner, pointed to a field and made sure I was looking at the right one, then reduced the throttle to idle and said "oh dear it looks like you have an engine failure". I've never been very good with PFL's at the best of times.

Passed on the first attempt and I didn't even know I was doing the GFT, I thought it was a practice session before going for the GFT. Having the examiner as my instructor helped somewhat to ease the nerves.

Shame you aren't allowed to be trained by the same guy who is going to examine you under the new rules.

The most important thing is that you're safe. Basically the examiner is just ensuring that he or she would be happy to let their children, spouse, friends, family etc fly with you in the left hand seat as P1.

All the best.

Charlie Zulu.

Tee hee.

The usual advice is that the instructor is looking out of the right window, so there's usually a better field that way than there is out of the left window, where the student would naturally look first.

However if instructors only look out of the right window they can get it wrong ... I once got given a PFL when just out of the left window, unnoticed by the instructor, was a bloody great runway!! OK, so disused and somewhat derelict, but not an unreasonable choice for a real forced landing. (I didn't get away with it; when I told him that's where I was going he said "er, right then, that's not a runway, it's a swamp, pick somewhere else" so I had to look out of the right window after all.)

should have told him a concrete/tarmac swamp was a good choice for a PFL!:ok:

I'd still go for a field on the left if possible: I like to keep my beady eye on it at all times and examiners get in the way! :)

I was very lucky with my test, seemed to have it easy on all counts. The thing I did wrong was the first landing: came in waaaay too fast, flapless on a wind-free day. But at least I proved I could do a go-around! :O

Am I missing something here? I thought that the picking of a viable field, by the stude, was a key part of the test? Surely, if someone else picks the field, you haven't tested the stude's ability to estimate gliding distance and then prove the estimates to be okay?

Great idea for a thread!

I got a partial pass the first time. The NAV went really well, as did all the upper air work and even the PFL (but I think the wonderful Bob Cook at BA, Wycombe, was being kind to me: "don't worry, nobody ever gets that 100% right" he said as I climbed away from a barely passable attempt!).

But when we got back to the circuit, my world fell apart. We had a blustery cross wind, which was also generating quite a bit of shear on final approach. I made a mess of the crosswind landings as a result. I hadn't done many in the period leading up to the test, and I went to jelly. Although we survived (!) it wasn't up to par, and so I was given the partial pass (I think quite right too).

Anyway, the CFI took me out that afternoon for some cross-wind circuit bashing and said he reckoned I was just about up to standard at the end of it... but I was too drained to attempt the test again and so I came back the next Saturday and flew the circuits (in relatively benign conditions) and passed.

Since then, I've worked at getting x-wind right and have learned the technique that works best "for me" (I like to get the wing down by ~300' or 200' rather than crab all the way down and kick at straight at the end). Now it's one of the most satisfying things about flying, and I look forward to it!

So there, that's my confession :O

Andy :ok:

Brilliant stuff - any more for any more!?

This is a great thread, perfect for us undergraduates :\

Keep the stories coming please ! ! :ok:

I got lost on my test. Thought one airfield was the one I was looking for and feature crawled to find out it was the wrong one. I got worried i'd failed but just overflew the airfield and then worked out a new line and heading to where I was supposed to be. He said after he was thinking about failing me but was happy with the way I handled the situation.

Sh!t happens it's how you deal with it that counts!:ok:

Would be interesting for me to compare these experiences with CPL fails and see where the differences are. However, the new thread would have to be in wannabes I suppose...