Designated Check Pilot and FLYING contributor Jason Blair took to the internet last week with this line on his blog: Pilot certificates are not participation trophies. Well said, Mr. Blair, well said. The thought process behind the statement is that the high failure rate among private pilot candidates gives the impression that many are not trained to the minimum standards to obtain certification, rather that the training is more like “tick the boxes and follow the movements”.

The state of mind of the Participation Trophy

Participation trophies have become cultural. If you are of a certain age and participated in anything during your childhood and youth – be it athletics, battle of the bands, talk club, etc. – you probably know what it’s like to lose. Losing teaches a valuable life lesson: you can do your best but still fail. It’s part of life. You have learned from these failures. And when you passed and came home with that medal, ribbon, trophy, or school letter, you knew you had earned it. Competition teaches a person how to work for something.

Blair noted in his blog that practical single-engine private pilot aircraft land tests “are in the 50-60% range” and, as he notes, that’s a bad thing, because it’s likely that a weak base formation will eventually return. to bite at the airline level.

He is not the only ECD [designated pilot examiner] noting these statistics. One of the common topics of discussion when I am in the company of CFIs [certified flight instructors] from the National Association of Flight Instructors and the Society of Aviation and Flight Educators (many of whom are also DPEs), is that there are a large number of applicants for a private pilot checkride who show up unprepared, under-experienced (such as missing the required number of night take-offs and landings or checking preparation times) and often unaware of what is expected of them. Some did not see Airman Certificate Standards (ACS) until check-in day. They expect to pass the ride as a given.

Often, a sense of entitlement goes hand in hand with the participation trophy mindset. Every flight instructor has or will have a story to tell about the learner who insisted that the instructor allow him to participate in the check flight after meeting the experience requirements, even if, from the In the opinion of the CFI, the candidate did not possess the skills necessary to meet the minimum standards set out in the ACS.

Most instructors aren’t going to put themselves in a position to risk their integrity no matter how insistent the candidate is, but sometimes it does happen. A former colleague told me of a time when he was told to sign a client for his instrument rating or lose his job. The learner who needed a check flight owned a Cessna 182 and was threatening to take his maintenance business elsewhere if the CFI did not allow him to perform the flight. The CFI likely to recommend told the owner of the FBO that the candidate was not ready, explaining that he did not meet the standards for knowledge and flight skills. It didn’t matter to the FBO owner, who repeated the ultimatum. The CFI could not afford to lose his job, so he signed the plaintiff. The candidate failed the ride approximately 20 minutes after the start of the oral exam. The applicant was furious, saying he had not been sufficiently prepared. The CFI now had a failure on its case, and the DPE working internally at the FBO was unhappy that the applicant had been signed when it was obvious that he was not ready. The DPE, which had a weeks-long waiting list for screening appointments, pointed out that the four-hour block of time it had set aside for the candidate could have been used for someone else, someone who was ready to move on.

Checked candidates

The high failure rate among first-time private pilot applicants may also be caused in part by the “tick the box” mentality prevalent in some flight training environments. The business model is to get candidates through as quickly as possible. Sometimes it works well for both parties. Other times, the candidate’s weaknesses are not discovered until the checkride.

There was a particular DPE in my part of the world – we’ll call him Mack – that one of the CFIs in the school called 50-Percent Mack because that was the success rate of private pilots doing their control with him. Mack was a graduate of a military academy and according to unsuccessful applicants he was stern and intimidating. I should note that this was not my experience, nor that of my learners, who all took their checks with Mack. Full disclosure: I knew Mack before he was ECD – he had been one of my CFIs, from time to time, as I got most of my certificates and grades. To be fair, there were times when I wanted to push him off the plane. Other times I was glad he was there. And sure enough, when I became CFI, the few times things started to go wrong, I heard his words in my head as I remembered my training. I appreciated what I learned from him. Due to my history with Mack, I was responsible for preparing candidates for their checks.

The school was the busiest I have ever worked in. Check out the rides that have been going all year, sometimes two or three a day. Most CFIs spent six months to a year as instructors and then moved on to the airlines.

When candidates met the experience requirements set out in the FARs, the CFIs would sign them off and then move on to the next client. It was not uncommon to spend eight hours a day in the air. The attitude of some of the candidates was that they would show up at the checkpoint, pay their money, spend time with the ECD and come back with a certificate. Unfortunately, often this was not the case.

There was a distinct pattern for learners who failed: they had passed the knowledge test by rote and often had not learned to apply the material. Some did not understand why they were required to learn particular information for private pilot certification – one argued with me that he did not need to know aircraft systems because he did not was not a mechanic, and another had the mindset that passing the knowledge test was the end of the required study, saying, “My instructor told me I can research things.” It is a failure of both the CFI and the learner, because the CFI has a responsibility to ensure that the learner understands what is being taught, why it is important and how to apply it.

An applicant was using a VFR section that had been expired for more than seven years. He was on his third CFI – the first that gave him the section was two states away. CFI n° 2 and 3 had not noticed the obsolete section or the message “it must be up to date” had not been processed. As you might expect, some information was also outdated. His race simulation preparation turned into a lesson on the ground.

I informed the CFI who recommended the shortcomings of the candidate and we discussed how they could be corrected quickly. I gave the same list to the requester — there were 10 items on it. Here’s the scary part: the applicant told the CFI who recommended him that he had “passed” the ground portion of the simulated ride and was “ready to go.” A discussion with the applicant ensues – the aim of the verification simulation is to find the weak points before the DPE – and to consolidate them.

DPEs are not expected to teach during checks – they may lose their DPE position if they do. CFIs that perform mock rides do not have this limitation and training can take place. Most CFIs appreciate a second look at their work, provided it is done in a way that the candidate benefits from the experience.

Preparing for the control lap can be a task in itself. Applicants must contact the DPE before the control round and when the appointment is made, the DPE usually sends an action plan, which is basically a scenario that they give to the applicant for the control round. The scenario typically involves planning a cross-country flight and determining the aircraft’s performance, weight, and balance.

The applicant plans the flight and brings the completed navlog to the control tower. I must point this out, as one of my former colleagues had a private pilot candidate who showed up for a control lap without a completed paper navlog. The scenario involved the applicant and DPE taking a Cessna 150 over the mountains in winter. It wouldn’t be a smart decision – the plane would be at gross weight and fly over the mountains in the winter on one of our MVFR days when the freezing level was at 4,000 feet – would be foolish. The applicant knew this, and it convinced him that the reviewer was “joking” when he assigned the script to him to use, ergo, he didn’t complete the navlog. While the DPE applauded the candidate’s decision-making abilities, the candidate told him that he had to demonstrate his planning skills across the country and assigned him another destination on the spot.

The examiner graciously granted the applicant one hour to collect the paper navigation log and determine the performance of the aircraft. The candidate was unable to perform the task on command. He told the reviewer that he normally uses an app to do the planning and execution and can’t remember how else to do it. After about half an hour of struggling, he was handed a pink slip. After remedial training, he passed the check test, and there was great joy, not only because he had passed the check test and received his certificate, but also because he had earned it.