Cecil,
I knew you and I had a lot of things in common. :-)

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
Student Mooney Owner

Cecil Chapman wrote:

Jon, you are NOT alone at all. In fact, from conversations with some other
pilots, I'm certain we could assemble a sizeable club of individuals who
didn't pass their Instrument on the first try.
So, if it's any relief to you; you are NOT alone in not having passed the
IFR checkride the first time. GRIN

I passed on the THIRD time. The first checkride I mussed it on my hold,
then immediately after (while still kicking myself for messing up the hold)
I messed up on the ILS approach (which was weird because I was looking
forward to 'showing it off' since I had done so well before). The second
time I passed everything I had missed before but then messed up when asked
to do a hold at an arbitrarily selected intersection -- not a regular 'hold'
intersection with a leg described by an airway. It then occurred to me,
short of drawing it on the enroute chart, that I had NO method of
'picturing' the arbitrary hold (that is a hold withOUT at least one victor
airway as a leg). Thankfully, when this happened I was doing it on the sim
and after the D.E. left for an hour or so, while I got a quick method of
determining the entry for any hold from an available CFII (without having a
drawing or an actual airway as a leg of the hold). The D.E. came back an
hour or so later (filling out the dreaded no-pass slip for the second time
((but different issue))) retested me and I did fine and got my pass slip, on
my THIRD try argh

So, I accumulated two of the dreaded no-pass slips and passed my Instrument
Checkride on the third. So, passing was more of a 'relief' at that point
than a joyous celebration (which came a week later g). The D.E. was
nothing but nice as possible and told me after I finally got the pass that
in his opinion the Instrument Checkride was easily among the hardest.