The reason some examiners give here from time to time is as follows.

They ask themselves: "If this person's next flight was with my kid as a passenger, would I be happy about it?"

Yes means pass, no means fail.

mmm interesting reading - Suppose its basically down to the examiner - your luck - and straight down to showing that you can actually fly even if you do make silly mistakes.... in a nutshell..

I failed my IMC rating the first time around. Everyones' human and you can never have the perfect flight - guess you need a bit of luck on the day

god knows my driving test was like that!

Well I guess I should my story now.

I took my test about a month ago and got a partial.

mainly screwed up my PFL, lined up a field that I thought would do, into wind and an ok size (nothing special tho) as I decended onto it, it turned out to be smaller then I thought, and whilst thinking what to do I let the speed drop off slightly. It also turned out that I had got totally disoriented and was actaully landing downwind. Not quite sure how that happened, there was quite afew showers about so that may have been a factor.

My EFATO could have been better too, It was pulled on one of my circuits. My test was at prestwick and they have a 3km runway so it was no problem to just land ahead back on the runway. With the huge expanse below me I got complacent and didn't shut down the engine or call a mayday. doh.

And finally again on one of my circuits the examiner gave me an altenator failure on climbout. I couldn't remember what to do as this took me by surprise.

I have to admit that I thought I was going to get a fail so I was pleasently surprised about getting a partial. The weather since has been awful and so have only flown once to practice some PFLs. Hopefully the weather will get better.

Charlie Zulu page 1:

Sorry to go back a while, but I didn't think that you were allowed to do you GHT with anyone you had recieved instruction from previously?

Because if that was the case I would have done it with my own instructor (a lot cheaper!)

Certainly at my club it is verboten for the instructor to also exam the student - but I don't know if this is a "club rule" or CAA requirement?

Andy

It is a JAA requirement.

However, Progress Checks and Safety Checks flown by a UK FE/PPL on a student do not disbar the same FE from conducting the PPL Skill Test with that student.

This ruling does not apply to the NPPL (although it is recommended) nor to the IMC Rating as both are non-JAA.

Radio 'navigation' is not really part of the PPL Skill Test apart from fixing position by use of navigation aids and also a short 'radial' tracking requirement. Some FEs, however, seem to be demanding considerably harder radio navigation work which is contrary to the whole spirit of the requirement. See the article in the supplement to the latest Pilot for an example.....

For those who don't know, the CAA Standards Document 19A http://www.caa.co.uk/application.asp...detail&id=1206 provides a fair bit of information for PPL Skill Test applicants.