Legal action against the CAA and examiner
The joy of that is that anybody who fails, has already tried to fight me and knows that they lost!
I'm wondering if we can find a way to introduce the concept into aviation? Examination by dogfight? It would certainly make the CPL skill test a lot more fun.
G
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Firstly, the examiner provided you with an invaluable lesson. It was just a very expensive one. Secondly, maybe the examiner saw the wrong setting at the beginning but figured (as you'd have already paid for the hire of the plane, etc). that it'd be unfair to say "turn back now" and thought he'd give you the chance to prove you could do everything else right? I'm sure the flight must have provided other learning/practice opportunities for you? If you think of the exam flight as being an opprtunity to conduct the entire flight with zero input (so there's no instructor to help you out) then it's a really useful training flight...from which some people get a pass and others don't.
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It seems to me that the altimeter setting being a little off in a commercial test situation has more to do with professionalism than it necessarily being dangerous or not. For a CPL test in VFR conditions it obviously isn't the same issue it would be for an instrument rating but you are doing a test for a professional licence and they want to see that you are a stickler for detail because some day an oversight may come back and bite you, in a not good way. Now you claim that there was the possibility of a visual error but I find it hard to believe that an experienced pilot such as an examiner would not take account of or be unware of that and there would have to be a serious height difference between both of you for it to even manifest itself as an issue, something that I never saw in my interesting but limited experience.
Sometimes in life it's best to exercise some tact. Whether right or wrong, take it on the chin and move on. I failed my FAA single engine commercial after messing up a chandelle and a bunch of other manoeuvres after that. Up to that point I'd done literally scores of them with no problems. After the test the examiner just gave me a sympathetic smile and said that he knew I could do them but the integrity of the system relied on strict application of the rules and guidelines and that he couldn't pass me on that occasion but he looked forward to next time because he was sure I would blitz it, which I did.
Now it's a different situation of course and I didn't feel hard done by, just disappointed in myself but I was impressed by how he handled it. I actually felt good after his calm and reassuring debriefing and just maybe some examiners need a bit more training in that department but you need a tough skin to be a pilot and have to know when and when it isn't appropriate to take certain matters into the legal sphere. Honestly I wouldn't worry about the odd failed checkride, it just means that you didn't meet the standards on that occasion, for whatever reason.
Take my advice and don't pursue this any further.
Regards.
Sometimes in life it's best to exercise some tact. Whether right or wrong, take it on the chin and move on. I failed my FAA single engine commercial after messing up a chandelle and a bunch of other manoeuvres after that. Up to that point I'd done literally scores of them with no problems. After the test the examiner just gave me a sympathetic smile and said that he knew I could do them but the integrity of the system relied on strict application of the rules and guidelines and that he couldn't pass me on that occasion but he looked forward to next time because he was sure I would blitz it, which I did.
Now it's a different situation of course and I didn't feel hard done by, just disappointed in myself but I was impressed by how he handled it. I actually felt good after his calm and reassuring debriefing and just maybe some examiners need a bit more training in that department but you need a tough skin to be a pilot and have to know when and when it isn't appropriate to take certain matters into the legal sphere. Honestly I wouldn't worry about the odd failed checkride, it just means that you didn't meet the standards on that occasion, for whatever reason.
Take my advice and don't pursue this any further.
Regards.
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Having read the first post in the thread I spent condiderable time checking and cross-checking my computer's clock since I believed that it must be 1st April.
Regardless of what you may think - I am aware that in the City, references are taken informally, taken verbally through friends, ex collegues, Alumni contacts etc.... You will never know what was said, when they sense something, they will tell you something in line with the law...ie sorry your experience does not match expectations etc.. so be careful.
Most pilot recruitment involves the odd phone call to an old mate or two to check somebody's real reputation -the stuff not on their CV.
I work a lot in the academic world, where we do the same as well.
I've certainly had my share of those phone calls over the years, and on occasion have felt that in all honesty I had to be, well, honest.
Getting drunk and trashing your hotel room 20 years ago, lectures you didn't turn up to that p***d off your lecturer, that course you failed then just dropped from your CV, the affair with the Chief Pilot's wife..... All of it will follow you for the rest of your life.
Of course, all of us end up with some reputation or other for something - so the best you can do is keep the bad stuff to a minimum, bury the bodies good and deep, and try and have enough good reputation to outweigh the bad stuff.
G
Getting drunk and trashing your hotel room 20 years ago, lectures you didn't turn up to that p***d off your lecturer, that course you failed then just dropped from your CV, the affair with the Chief Pilot's wife..... All of it will follow you for the rest of your life.
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Quote @talkpedlar
'Young man... My task in life involves the selection and recruitment of aircrew for a well-known middle-east airline.'
How sad that you are in a position to downgrade CRM in the Middle East.
'Young man... My task in life involves the selection and recruitment of aircrew for a well-known middle-east airline.'
How sad that you are in a position to downgrade CRM in the Middle East.
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A question for examiners:
I always check the altitude indication after setting QNH.
As I know the apron elevation, I cannot make a big mistake. But I would not notice a one hPa mistake, as it is to small to be significant.
(eg If actual QNH is 1023.9, the A/G will say 1023, if I set 1024 by mistake, I wont notice the error by checking the altitude indication).
Q1: Would it be a fail at this point?
Aligned on threshold, I always check altitude is in line with threshold elevation before taking off.
Then again, I would not detect a wrong QNH setting of only 1hPa.
Q2: Would it be a fail at this point?
It's only in flight, after my first Freda check, that I would compare QNH set and QNH written on my kneeboard.
Then I would correct it.
Q3: If everything else is ok, would I fail the test?
I always check the altitude indication after setting QNH.
As I know the apron elevation, I cannot make a big mistake. But I would not notice a one hPa mistake, as it is to small to be significant.
(eg If actual QNH is 1023.9, the A/G will say 1023, if I set 1024 by mistake, I wont notice the error by checking the altitude indication).
Q1: Would it be a fail at this point?
Aligned on threshold, I always check altitude is in line with threshold elevation before taking off.
Then again, I would not detect a wrong QNH setting of only 1hPa.
Q2: Would it be a fail at this point?
It's only in flight, after my first Freda check, that I would compare QNH set and QNH written on my kneeboard.
Then I would correct it.
Q3: If everything else is ok, would I fail the test?
Last edited by 172510; 24th Mar 2012 at 09:58.
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If ATC tells you QNH is 1024, you set 1024, even if the altitude showing is wrong.
Would it not be better that everybody flies with the same QNH, instead of somebody making their own personal rules, and sets 1023, because that gives correct apron elevation.
Would it not be better that everybody flies with the same QNH, instead of somebody making their own personal rules, and sets 1023, because that gives correct apron elevation.
This guy is unable to spell and has no command of the (written) English language.
Would YOU fly with a person who questions the judgement of an examiner because said person has failed a test?
If any members of the public or press are reading this, then I invite you to comment.
Would YOU fly with a person who questions the judgement of an examiner because said person has failed a test?
If any members of the public or press are reading this, then I invite you to comment.
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This guy is unable to spell and has no command of the (written) English language.
Questioning the judgement of authority is absolutely correct and thwarts tyranny, surely?
While I agree that examiners have the march over pitiful me in terms of experience and judgement, they are not excluded from the human traits that afflict us all at times. Fallibility is one of those traits. This 'guy' is merely exercising the rights provided by the CAA.
His/her reasoning may be questionable, as is his/her public airing before the resolution of his/her grievance, but this doesn't make him/her a bad pilot.
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Truckflyer:
Maybe I don't write a good English.
So I explain again my point for you:
If ATC tells me 1024 OF COURSE I set 1024.
BUT I might make a mistake and set 1023 instead of 1024. This could happen to you as well.
Then I (and you should too) check my altitude indication and compare with apron elevation.
If the difference is too large, I must question either the QNH setting, and then ask ATC again for the QNH, or question the serviceability of my altimeter if after having checked again with the ATC the error is still too large.
But if the error is within acceptable limits, I will have NO REASON to question my QNH setting.
The next opportunity I will have to check my altimeter setting will be my first check after take off, and then, if I wrote 1024 on first contact, I will correct it. If I wrote 1023, I wont.
So it will only be when the next ATC tells me a QNH, after changing from TWR to the information service, that I will have another opportunity to set the correct QNH.
I think that, in a VFR flight, there is no real safety issue in that case, and that a CPL applicant should not be failed.
You should not expect a pilot never to make mistakes, you should expect a pilot to have a method of work that will permit him to keep his mistakes within acceptable limits, and to correct them at the earliest opportunity.
Maybe I don't write a good English.
So I explain again my point for you:
If ATC tells me 1024 OF COURSE I set 1024.
BUT I might make a mistake and set 1023 instead of 1024. This could happen to you as well.
Then I (and you should too) check my altitude indication and compare with apron elevation.
If the difference is too large, I must question either the QNH setting, and then ask ATC again for the QNH, or question the serviceability of my altimeter if after having checked again with the ATC the error is still too large.
But if the error is within acceptable limits, I will have NO REASON to question my QNH setting.
The next opportunity I will have to check my altimeter setting will be my first check after take off, and then, if I wrote 1024 on first contact, I will correct it. If I wrote 1023, I wont.
So it will only be when the next ATC tells me a QNH, after changing from TWR to the information service, that I will have another opportunity to set the correct QNH.
I think that, in a VFR flight, there is no real safety issue in that case, and that a CPL applicant should not be failed.
You should not expect a pilot never to make mistakes, you should expect a pilot to have a method of work that will permit him to keep his mistakes within acceptable limits, and to correct them at the earliest opportunity.
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First if you set 1023 instead of 1024, that shows sloppy work and bad airmanship!
If the rules say, wrong QNH settings = Fail, than that is what it means! I guess it is up to the discretion of the examiner to see if you pick up on your mistake fast enough yourself. I would though think if you was flying around with the wrong QNH for over 20 minutes, he would not be happy with you, simply because you should have checked your altimeters QNH setting during this time (FREDA check).
Now there is no excuse that you have not spoken to the ATC, or they haven't told you an update. If you are flying from say Stapleford to Manston, and during this time you pay attention to other ATC traffic, and they suddenly give somebody a QNH of say 1025, for their region, you should be able to deduce from this background chatter on the radio, that you check and change your own QNH.
It is about being ahead of the game and following procedures.
When you go to flight school training, they teach you a set of procedures, that they know the examiners want to see on the tests, as this is a part of the CAA's examination standards!
The pressure altimeter is not going to be 100% reliable, however you would hope and think, that everybody could check first that it is set on the correct setting given by ATC, and not an own invented QNH based on apron elevation. Although this might be a more accurate QNH, is this the way your instructor have thought you, that you disregard ATC's/ATIS information, because you yourself think there is another and better way?
Where will you put the limit? If the QNH is 3mb of limits, but showing correct apron elevation, what would you use?
All make mistakes, however some mistakes are set out in the syllabus as being more serious than others.
I do not for the life of me, see any valid good reason for somebody to set the incorrect QNH with regards to your explanation here.
Why would you while on the ground, not have TIME to make sure your QNH is set correctly, but you will check it when airborne and adjust it??
What you says makes complete nonsense, there is no excuse for making this mistake, before take off the QNH is crosschecked several times, and NO it has NEVER happen to me, that I had incorrect QNH before take off.
QNH checked, altimeters within limits of each other if multiple altimeters, within limits of field elevation, situation over.
Listen to other traffic on radio during take off prep and taxi, and if any changes to QNH, I would change them automatically, without ATC needing to tell me, if in doubt, give them a quick call!
We all do mistakes from time to time, I fully agree, but this example you mention is not a good one!
When flying SEP, VFR you should normally do FREDA checks every 15 minutes, flying around on the wrong QNH just shows laziness or sloppiness in performance!
Your way of thinking on this matter is not logical from what your instructor should have thought you!
If the rules say, wrong QNH settings = Fail, than that is what it means! I guess it is up to the discretion of the examiner to see if you pick up on your mistake fast enough yourself. I would though think if you was flying around with the wrong QNH for over 20 minutes, he would not be happy with you, simply because you should have checked your altimeters QNH setting during this time (FREDA check).
Now there is no excuse that you have not spoken to the ATC, or they haven't told you an update. If you are flying from say Stapleford to Manston, and during this time you pay attention to other ATC traffic, and they suddenly give somebody a QNH of say 1025, for their region, you should be able to deduce from this background chatter on the radio, that you check and change your own QNH.
It is about being ahead of the game and following procedures.
When you go to flight school training, they teach you a set of procedures, that they know the examiners want to see on the tests, as this is a part of the CAA's examination standards!
The pressure altimeter is not going to be 100% reliable, however you would hope and think, that everybody could check first that it is set on the correct setting given by ATC, and not an own invented QNH based on apron elevation. Although this might be a more accurate QNH, is this the way your instructor have thought you, that you disregard ATC's/ATIS information, because you yourself think there is another and better way?
Where will you put the limit? If the QNH is 3mb of limits, but showing correct apron elevation, what would you use?
All make mistakes, however some mistakes are set out in the syllabus as being more serious than others.
I do not for the life of me, see any valid good reason for somebody to set the incorrect QNH with regards to your explanation here.
Why would you while on the ground, not have TIME to make sure your QNH is set correctly, but you will check it when airborne and adjust it??
What you says makes complete nonsense, there is no excuse for making this mistake, before take off the QNH is crosschecked several times, and NO it has NEVER happen to me, that I had incorrect QNH before take off.
QNH checked, altimeters within limits of each other if multiple altimeters, within limits of field elevation, situation over.
Listen to other traffic on radio during take off prep and taxi, and if any changes to QNH, I would change them automatically, without ATC needing to tell me, if in doubt, give them a quick call!
We all do mistakes from time to time, I fully agree, but this example you mention is not a good one!
When flying SEP, VFR you should normally do FREDA checks every 15 minutes, flying around on the wrong QNH just shows laziness or sloppiness in performance!
Your way of thinking on this matter is not logical from what your instructor should have thought you!
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The 1023 / 1024 QNH argument is something that can really only be settled by the people who were in the aircraft.
But I really really wish with the benefit of hindsight that me and my wife had had the balls to do what this guy is doing, and sue the examiner post flight test.
My wife is no softie (previous managerial experience in a huge company with 150 staff under her) and having spent quite a few years with her sitting next to me in the airline RHS I can personally vouch for the fact she's a damn good pilot. But back a few years ago when she sat her IR she was understandably nervous on flight test day because the examiner was a notably cranky old chauvinist who was renowned for making derogatory comments about woman pilots in the aero club bar.
On flight test day he called her a "silly girl" in the preflight brief, tore strips off her pretty much the entire flight and absolutely lost his rag on the go-round from the NPA, snatched control off her, informed her she'd failed, and he flew the aircraft back to the home airfield himself in stoney silence.
He started laying into her in the debrief as well, to cut a long story short, he reckoned she had messed up the go-round. She believed she had followed an ATC instruction. She was in tears by that stage but fortunately she was sticking to her guns and insisted they call up the tower and ask to play the tapes. No surprise, she was right and he was wrong - they had specifically told her to make an early turn onto a heading on the go-round, and he had missed hearing the call.
So once he was caught red handed, the old
very graciously agreed she hadn't failed - but he now insisted the test was "incomplete" because she hadn't flown a full go-round (even though HE was the one who had taken control) and so the following weekend she had to go back down there, pay another test fee and aircraft hire, fly all the way to the controlled airfield 45 minutes away, to do one circuit and go-round and fly all the way home again.
That whole episode cost her (us) another two or three thousand quid, for no reason other than the old wanted to act the big man and teach the girlie pilot a lesson. We talked and talked about it for a couple of weeks after that but decided it wasn't worth the aggro factor of making a formal complaint or court case - as several other old-boys-network types have pointed out already on this thread, pilot hiring is often done by one old-boy ringing up another old-boy, and shaking their cage can often do more harm than good to one's career prospects. That in itself, is just as wrong as the test result was - the fact that the old boys' network in this business can prevent people from making legitimate complaints and getting people's arses kicked when they really desperately deserve a good kicking.
There's no doubt the majority of CAA examiners are top drawer, fair and conscientious - but there are a couple of rotten apples, and they do essentially maintain their privileged position by virtue of the fact that the CAA is the most well protected, do-what-it-wants-with-no-comeback, old boy's network government department of them all.
But I really really wish with the benefit of hindsight that me and my wife had had the balls to do what this guy is doing, and sue the examiner post flight test.
My wife is no softie (previous managerial experience in a huge company with 150 staff under her) and having spent quite a few years with her sitting next to me in the airline RHS I can personally vouch for the fact she's a damn good pilot. But back a few years ago when she sat her IR she was understandably nervous on flight test day because the examiner was a notably cranky old chauvinist who was renowned for making derogatory comments about woman pilots in the aero club bar.
On flight test day he called her a "silly girl" in the preflight brief, tore strips off her pretty much the entire flight and absolutely lost his rag on the go-round from the NPA, snatched control off her, informed her she'd failed, and he flew the aircraft back to the home airfield himself in stoney silence.
He started laying into her in the debrief as well, to cut a long story short, he reckoned she had messed up the go-round. She believed she had followed an ATC instruction. She was in tears by that stage but fortunately she was sticking to her guns and insisted they call up the tower and ask to play the tapes. No surprise, she was right and he was wrong - they had specifically told her to make an early turn onto a heading on the go-round, and he had missed hearing the call.
So once he was caught red handed, the old
very graciously agreed she hadn't failed - but he now insisted the test was "incomplete" because she hadn't flown a full go-round (even though HE was the one who had taken control) and so the following weekend she had to go back down there, pay another test fee and aircraft hire, fly all the way to the controlled airfield 45 minutes away, to do one circuit and go-round and fly all the way home again.That whole episode cost her (us) another two or three thousand quid, for no reason other than the
old wanted to act the big man and teach the girlie pilot a lesson. We talked and talked about it for a couple of weeks after that but decided it wasn't worth the aggro factor of making a formal complaint or court case - as several other old-boys-network types have pointed out already on this thread, pilot hiring is often done by one old-boy ringing up another old-boy, and shaking their cage can often do more harm than good to one's career prospects. That in itself, is just as wrong as the test result was - the fact that the old boys' network in this business can prevent people from making legitimate complaints and getting people's arses kicked when they really desperately deserve a good kicking.There's no doubt the majority of CAA examiners are top drawer, fair and conscientious - but there are a couple of rotten apples, and they do essentially maintain their privileged position by virtue of the fact that the CAA is the most well protected, do-what-it-wants-with-no-comeback, old boy's network government department of them all.