COLIN LAMB wrote:
I have been told that if a DPE passes 100% of his examinees the first time
through he will have a lot of explaining to do to the FAA when it is time to
renew - and that came from the FAA.

Wonder how much this played in the decision to flunk the examinee?

That depends on whether you ask a DPE - or someone who isn't.

I actually know an examiner who has something like a 95% pass rate.
There are various reasons for this - but the main one is that he is
known in the CFI community, and instructors generally know better than
to send him someone who is marginal - meaning he will pass if he has a
good day. The particular DPE has an uncanny knack for finding the
applicant's weak area - and setting him up to fail because of it, and
CFI's know to send the marginal ones to someone else, who might miss
the weak area and pass the student. On the flip side, he also doesn't
make up his own rules or standards, doesn't throw curveballs, doesn't
make private pilot applicants go through five hour orals, and does his
level best to put the applicant at ease - including telling jokes. So
as long as the student is merely nervous rather than weak, and knows
his stuff to a level appropriate to the certificate/rating sought,
there's no issue sending him to this DPE. I send him my students
whenever possible, and I've never had a bust with him - ALL of my busts
have come from sending the student to a different, unknown examiner
when this one was not, for whatever reason, available. He has a core
group of FBO's and independents who send him students that should pass,
and he stays busy passing them.

I've seen him bust students - and in every case, it was because the
student did something really wrong (slammed the airplane into the
ground flat to make a touchdown point, failed to shut down the
operating engine with an engine failure on the takeoff roll in a twin,
failed to divert properly, started descent to MDA well short of the
FAF, could not turn to a heading of 320 in a glider, even
approximately, because 320 wasn't marked on the compass, that sort of
thing) and usually the instructor's at fault for not training the
student properly in the first place.

But one of the reasons he is not always available is because he is
PERPETUALLY in trouble with the FSDO - because of his pass rate. They
take every possible opportunity to investigate him - and always suspend
his DPE while they do. Every time it comes out the same - turns out
that he is not at fault, and his DPE is reinstated - but it is a huge
hassle and damages his business. The DPE's who maintain the
FAA-recommended 85% pass rate don't get hassled that way and make more
money.

The reality is that most people go to their checkrides prepared - the
days of sending a student for the checkride just because he has the
minimum hours are mostly gone - and busting 15% means a DPE has to bust
some people for minor or imagined infractions to keep his pass rate
down and stay out of trouble with the FAA. That's especially true in
glider instruction, where the instructors tend to be more experienced
and the incremental cost of additional training flights tends to be
lower. Those DPE's who have the strength of character to stand up to
the FAA and do what's right get in trouble for it. The ones who don't
make their 15% fail rate.

That's the reality. Many DPE's will tell you different, because it's
not a terribly palatable reality.

Michael
CFI-ASME-IA-G, ATP, A&P, and other good alphabet soup