Takeoff/Landing same direction?

Willie wrote:
Here is a question for you DPE's and Instructors to weigh in on.

the DPE instructed the student to cross the
IP and as he did so he instructed the student to open the dive brakes
(SGS-233) fully and then announced to the student "Stuck Spoilers".


I say the check ride went wrong right there. In my opinion the
airbrake stuck open emergency should only be introduced at the time the
student/applicant conducts the airbrake check. I teach the airbrake
check to happen on down wind at which time the runway is selected and
the landing should be assured with any amount of airbrake. If you use
"IP" to mean the point at which the 45 deg to downwind leg begins that
is far too early to introduce a simulated stuck open airbrake failure.

The is no requirement to land on the same runway you took off from with
or without an emergency. The only requirement with an control failure
is to get down safe.

Andy (CFI not DPE)

kirk.stant wrote:


The point is, many "casual" pilots really do not understand all this.
So the discussion (BS session, of course) goes: " well, he busted
because he landed in the opposite direction that he took off from..."
accompanied by nodding of heads by some of the local pilots (both
experienced and inexperienced).

I gotta know - how long do you have to fly that day before you are
allowed to land in the opposite direction from your takeoff? It's hard
to imagine anyone becoming a glider pilot without landing in the
opposite direction a few times shortly after takeoff. Perhaps too many
adult beverages preceded the discussion, or is it still reaallly hot out
there in Arizona and some pilots hats aren't big enough?

--
Note: email address new as of 9/4/2006
Change "netto" to "net" to email me directly

Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA

"Transponders in Sailplanes" on the Soaring Safety Foundation website
www.soaringsafety.org/prevention/articles.html

"A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation" at www.motorglider.org

At 21:12 11 September 2006, Bill Daniels wrote:
Spoilers are a primary flight control and stuck-open
spoilers
is a full fledged emergency requiring decisive action.
FAR 91.3b allows any reasonable deviation from the
regs
needed to achieve a safe landing.
Bill Daniels

What reference materials are you using that list
spoilers as a primary flight control?

M Eiler

Eric Greenwell wrote:

I gotta know - how long do you have to fly that day before you are
allowed to land in the opposite direction from your takeoff? It's hard
to imagine anyone becoming a glider pilot without landing in the
opposite direction a few times shortly after takeoff. Perhaps too many
adult beverages preceded the discussion, or is it still reaallly hot out
there in Arizona and some pilots hats aren't big enough?

Erik,

I think we have our conversations garbled, but anyway - When I was
flying out of Turf, we usually took off on 23 due to prevailing winds.
If returning late in the day, landing on 23 could be challenging due to
looking directly into the setting sun, through dust, etc and it was
common to land on 5 (or even 14, which was a better runway anyway).

Time between landing and takeoff could be six hours (XC to the Grand
Canyon) or sixteen minutes (last commercial acro ride of the day).

BTW - big hats are uncool looking and incredibly unsafe in the air -
they block a huge part of the sky. Need to wear those goofy european
gliding hats...plus they make the groupies giggle...

If you reread the thread, you will catch which side of the argument I'm
on, BTW ;).

Ok, your turn again!

Kirk
66

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?

Colin

T o d d P a t t i s t wrote:
"Bill Daniels" bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:

But, to address the situation of stuck-open spoilers, I would exercise my
authority under FAR 91.3(b) and "land the damn aircraft the safest way I
could" regardless of landing direction. Spoilers are a primary flight
control and stuck-open spoilers is a full fledged emergency requiring
decisive action. FAR 91.3b allows any reasonable deviation from the regs
needed to achieve a safe landing. This is not to suggest any FARs were
broken.

1. As you point out, he didn't need to break any FARs to
land downwind - no FAR prohibited it.

2. The spoilers were not in fact stuck and there was no true
emergency. He didn't get the right to deviate from the FARs
in the pretend emergency.

3. I agree he had the right to land in whatever way he felt
was safe.

--
T o d d P a t t i s t - "WH" Ventus C
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)

Sadly sometimes simulations go wrong
http://tinyurl.com/fdmqr

Frank Whiteley

Martin Eiler wrote:
First you should understand that in order for any examiner
or instructor to be knowledgeable enough to fairly
form an educated opinion as to the appropriateness...yada,..

You seem to have some pretty big issues yourself, Marty. I didn't read
any of what you did. And you wrote 300 words and still didn't give an
answer!

He was told that somebody failed because they landed opposite to the
direction they took off in when presented with a non-normal landing. He
asked if there was some rule that covered this.

I don't need to know if he's an instructor, or red-haired or if the test
was on a wet Wednesday to give a simple answer.

No. There is no such rule. The DPE made it up IF that is what he said.

See, Marty, it's easy. Just answer the question.

GC


the applicant and the examiner would
have both had to agree to sit down separately with
you and give you a complete debrief of the flight test.
Hopefully you would have obtained their permission
to post some of this information on RAS for a public
review.

However by the overall tone of your post and the omission
of any reference to the area of operation and task
the examiner listed on the applicants disapproval notice
and a vague reference to some possible FAR violation,
some of us might have the impression that you have
little first hand information regarding this flight
test, and maybe even a bit of bias in general against
this Examiner.

Prior to giving our educated opinions, I’m sure at
least some of us would like far more information.
Maybe even some basics like, are you an instructor
or perhaps even this applicants instructor? Are you
a family member, friend or even acquaintance of the
applicant? Did you debrief
the applicant and or examiner shortly after the test?
Did you witness the flight in question? Prior to
this test did you have any negative attitude toward
this examiner or examiners in general?

Unfortunately your original post is so vague that it
is impossible to be sure of the actual landing path
as planned and as eventually executed. Clearly describing
the landing in detail would leave far less room for
conjecture. When you say IP, at some locations this
means the point where you start your 45 entry to down
wind, while at other
locations they mean the point where you turn from the
45 onto the down wind.

So that is why you need to be quite specific, such
as describing an entry as: the applicant was 1/3 of
a mile East of mid field over the IP facing West and
about to turn right for the standard left down wind
pattern for runway 18, which was currently the active
runway considering the winds were from 170 degrees
at 8 knots gusting to 12.
At this point the examiner instructed the applicant
to open the dive brakes fully and then announced to
the applicant “Spoilers are now stuck full open”.
Also don’t forget to include other issues such as other
traffic on the ground and in the air. Get the idea
here?

If you are willing to put the effort into it, I’m sure
some examiners and instructors will give you an informed
opinion. However if you’re just looking for some rants
about examiners failing applicants unjustifiably, then
you can probably just sit back and relax.

M Eiler
DPE gliders


At 14:06 11 September 2006, Willie wrote:
Here is a question for you DPE's and Instructors to
weigh in on.

A student pilot on his checkride, was not passed for
his private for

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?

Colin
================================================== =========

That is easy.

ZERO CHANCE.

The applicant passes or fails based upon the PTS. Otherwise the DPE
would not be a DPE very long.

Terry

Martin Eiler wrote:
At 21:12 11 September 2006, Bill Daniels wrote:
Spoilers are a primary flight control and stuck-open
spoilers
is a full fledged emergency requiring decisive action.
FAR 91.3b allows any reasonable deviation from the
regs
needed to achieve a safe landing.
Bill Daniels

What reference materials are you using that list
spoilers as a primary flight control?

M Eiler

He seems to me to be using commonsense. I've found it to be a very good
reference.

You DO have issues, don't you. Are you a DPE?

GC

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