#219 Nightmare Helicopter Check Ride with DPE Examiner Yelling at applicant

Have some fun. Can we have some fun during coffee with Kenny? Yes, we can. Because, you know, we're trying to be, you know, teach on this channel and, you know, give you good insight and information. And we're gonna have some. A few teaching moments in this one, but I'm also gonna giggle and laugh. I got this email this morning. Passenger health and other stupid DPE questions. When I first woke up. I normally try to ignore my phone for a little bit and, you know, have my first cup of coffee or two without getting involved in what's going on the Internet. And tomorrow, this morning, I looked at my phone as I'm waking up and I just kind of briefly read it and I thought, this. Somebody's gagging me on this, right? I waited till after I was up for a while and then I reread it. And I think it's legitimate. You know, at first I thought, okay, somebody's just messing with me here. I do think it's legitimate for the most part. And I'm not going to mention any names. And if anybody knows who this is, please don't use their names because I'm not out to bash anybody. First, let me say I think DPEs. I don't think I know DPEs in general are pretty darn professional people and all the ones I've worked with over the years. I've only got one nightmare dpe, and I don't think I even want to discuss it. It's happened a few years ago where we used a guy, you know, just let's go on to this guy's question so he says his title, passenger health, and other stupid DP questions. FYI, I scored an 86 in the commercial written exam. I'm 64 years old, 600 plus hours flying helicopters, 3000 hours in fixed wing. Awesome. That is awesome. You're out there doing it. 64 years old. I think that's awesome. That's incredible. I fly relief missions in my own helicopter, including flood relief, hurricanes, drowning victims, body recovery, delivered foods, water, meds, police, firemen, etc. I need my commercial so I can accept donations for relief efforts. That's awesome. I think that's great that you use your own aircraft and you're volunteering your time and you want to get your commercial so you can take that different direction. I think that's awesome. I was asked questions during my oral for commercial helicopter pods that have never been brought up before, and I was hoping for an explanation or a shoulder to cry on. I admit I was not prepared. I asked the examiner for three to four days so I could study. But he insisted on 48 hours and take the exam. But I said yes. Okay, so we all know from everything I've been preaching, you know, preparedness is everything. If you go in half assed and, you know, you're not prepared, it's not going to be good. Okay, so by his own admission, he wasn't really ready. All right, let's go on. Questions of concern. Number one, I was given medical symptoms of a passenger that I was expected to diagnose. I am not a doctor and I didn't stay at the Holiday Inn Express. I'm a first responder and first aid trained. I told the examiner I would call land, I would land and call 911, but wasn't good enough. But that wasn't good enough. I've searched the fars, called my CFI and posted questions to helicopter forums. How. Why does a commercial helicopter pilot have the responsibility to diagnose and treat medical condition in flight? Was this covered in your videos? The only thing that we would cover is the normal stuff like, you know, what do you have, what do you have a person do if they're hyperventilating or, you know, if they're going to get sick? We have the normal stuff that we learn about, you know, in the human part of it and what can happen to somebody in flight and hypoxia and all those things. So a limited amount of, you know, your passengers suffering from something, give them something to do, have them look out the window, open a fresh vent. There's some things to do. But not diagnosed and treat medical conditions in flight. No, that's impossible. So I don't know where, I don't know where he was going with that. And I don't, you know, I don't know the exact, you know, medical question he was going after, but that does sound a little bit off the wall there. Again, you got to know the basics of what to do to help someone so you can get him on the ground. Right. Number two, I was told I was flying with passengers and the rotor system loses rpm. The governor quit, rotor RPM was degrading. The question was, what happens when the collective is lowered? I told him the angle attack is lowered and that I would immediately roll on throttle, maintain the rotor RPM system. That wasn't the answer he was looking for. He wanted to know that the collective was connected to the correlator and lowering it would close the throttle. I said the throttle would remain open because I would be adding power. I also told him if rotor RPM is degrading in flight with passengers, the last thing I'd be concerned about is with the engine throttle correlator, passenger safety would come first, always come first. And the throttle engine corollary wouldn't even be on my mind or in my report to the faa. He was not happy and yelled, okay, you know, we're all taught RPM is going down, you lower collective and add throttle. So depending on the make and model, you know RPM is number one, Right. If it starts to degrade, you can try to bring it back. And if you can't, then you're going to have to auto rotate. Right. I don't know why he was digging into correlator and all that. Again, it depends on the aircraft you're flying. But okay, it's a legitimate question. But again, I wasn't there, so can't really fight this too much. But the examiner shouldn't have yelled, right? Of course, the examiner has a history of yelling at students. Okay, if he has a history of yelling at students, I don't know why he's still an examiner. Number one. I have been told by examiners that I know that the FAA has been working to weed out some of the examiners doing things that are improper. And I don't think it's very often. I really believe I'm going to say it again. I think DPEs and FA examiners, majority of the time they're very professional people. So hang on, because this gets even better. This is totally unacceptable and incompatible with any teaching standards or oral examiner standards. I wasn't about to sit there and have someone yell at me because I didn't understand the question or needed to look something up. I was told this is an open book exam. He got pissed off when I googled calibrated airspeed. Alright, so on this one, I mean, examiners shouldn't be yelling. No, they shouldn't be. Right? But I've never had a student Google something for an examiner, okay? And calibrated airspeed I think is one that a person should probably already know. And if you just in the moment said, oh man, I know it and I've studied it and I can look it up in the manual or whatever, but you know, that's one you probably really ought to know. Googling answers during a checkride I don't think is acceptable. So I get that the examiner might have been pissed on. That one still doesn't deserve. Of course, you know, yelling, acting like a crazy man. But hang on, it gets better. The exam was in the man's house. He is 80 years old. I was greeted at the door with five full sized Mongol dogs sticking their nose up my ass and in my crotch. And a goat. Yes, I said goat. One dog with oral hygiene issues insisted I play with him during the exam. Another one stared at me when I mentioned the staring to the examiner. He said, this is the dog I wouldn't leave you alone with. He protects my wife when I'm gone and he would fight to the death. Nice to know. I said. Why is he staring at me? I'm sorry. I find this funny. Sounds like a pretty unprofessional environment. And it's. You know, if this is all the way it really happened. I'm saying this examiner. It's probably time for retirement. There was zero room for me to set my books and materials on. His office was a hoarder's dream and I had to use the floor and my lap. It seemed inconvenient to him that I even used a chair. My request for space went unanswered as he tried to access my IACRA application. His wife came into the room and collected eight bottles of water. Varying levels of fullness and commented about his water bottles being something special. I literally thought I was in the twilight zone. It sounds like you're in the twilight zone. This is a horrible environment for a check ride. This is the worst I've ever heard. This is even worse than the nightmare examiner that we had one time again. Yeah, I mean this is a little crazy. Totally unprofessional. Nobody would ever want to go to a checkride ever and be dealing with all that and the dogs and no space place to put up. I mean, you need available space to put out your books and materials and layout charts and work with things that's unacceptable. I mean that's just. That's crazy. I admit I'm not your normal student. That could be intimidated. I get that. And I speak my mind. Good for you. Because I'm the same way. Right? And it gets a lot of us in trouble when we speak our mind. But you know what? I can't help it. That's who I am. I don't care about the four airspeeds in an airplane. I'm wanting to be a commercial helicopter pilot. I don't care about pressure altitude. Never have, never will. It's too inaccurate and only serves to start arguments. Hangar flying. The GPS will soon take over all the altitude reporting. Hello, ADS B. Why don't we make the switch now and stop with the 1900s? Technology. My first student ever couldn't figure pressure altitude and he got failed on his checkride. The reason you have to figure pressure altitude is a lot of these charts for the performance. You have to know the pressure altitude to interpret the chart. And if you're going to go do commercial operations, I mean, you have to know this as a private pilot as well. But you go doing commercial operations, let's say you're giving rides or doing whatever. FAA shows up, they're going to want to wait and balance. They're going to want to know that you work the performance charts for the day. So, you know, I understand what you're saying, but pressure altitude is one that you have to know regardless of who you are, because you have to have that to interpret the charts for your performance. The FAA is never going to let you get away with. I'm not figuring pressure out to. Because I don't want to. And that's just never going to work. And I'm just saying what's on my mind. Right. Evidently the examiner didn't like the answers and he. And I can just discontinue the exam. He said, I need to find another examiner. I totally agreed with him and literally walked out, being followed by the goat and three dogs back to my helicopter. Oh, my God. What are my options? Can I cancel the application in IACRA and start over? I found another examiner. Do I have to tell him about the first horror story or about the goat? And I mean, that's. I'm sorry that I'm laughing. I mean, come on. I would have to laugh to this. Right? I would just tell the examiner what happened the first time around. Because if this examiner is really. I mean, if that's the way this is going. Yeah. I mean, and you know, an examiner can be reported just like a pilot can be reported or anybody can be reported. So. Wow. I don't know what to say other than I want to have a little bit of fun with that and teach a little bit. That is the worst helicopter truck ride horror story I've ever heard. And I've heard a few, but the, the animals and the. No place to put your stuff and working on your lap and on the floor. That's definitely uncalled for. An examiner would need to, you know, be a professional, as you, the applicant would need to be a professional. I'll say one more time, I think this is a very, very, very rare situation that you've got examiner out there in this environment. And why would it be going on? I don't know. But I, I would say, you know, it's pretty obvious he's about done anyway. But yeah, I wouldn't even if that's the attitude he has, you know, and he's already got the reputation for yelling at people. I wouldn't be, I wouldn't even go to him in the first place because there's no reason for it. And with a dpe, you're paying that dpe, you're paying him for his time. There's no reason for him to treat you like that and yell at you. You as the applicant, need to show up prepared, know everything to a standard, and like it or not, what the FAA says we need to know is what we need to know. And what's in the pts that will soon become the acs, you know, the things that they want us to know, it's the things we got to know. So doesn't do any good to argue. You're never gonna get anywhere arguing with an examiner. It just ain't gonna happen. So I think, oh, for Fox sake, or for Fox sake was the good cup for today. It is on there, isn't it? Yeah. Oh, for Fox sake. What a. What a horror story. Got any horror stories in there? Put them down below. We'd love to hear about them again. You know, we're always trying to teach and I taught a little bit today, but I just had to share this one because I just got a kick out of reading it. And I hope that he continues on, gets this other examiner. I just fess up to what happened. I would tell the examiner exactly what happened. I wouldn't worry about it, I wouldn't hide from it because if that's the way the guy's acting, it's unacceptable. So I just. You got another examiner lined up, tell him the truth. Just lay it out in the line, say, hey, here's what I need to do. And then I'd hit the books and I'd know the pressure, altitude and the calibrated airspeed and I wouldn't Google ants. I wouldn't be trying to google anything during a checkride. If you're gonna look anything up during a checkride, it needs to come from a manual, an FAA approved manual on the table. Something that you, that would, that you took with you for the test. I've never told anybody to Google answers and I could understand an examiner getting, you know, a little upset over that one. Alright, please give us a thumbs up on the video and just favor like and subscribe. When you subscribe, click that little bell. Be notified of the Daily video. Try to do some more fun stuff coming up along with the teaching. We do this every day. Coffee with Kenny I am Kenny Keller, Creator Helicopter Land Ground School approaching. Eight years that we've been online with private, commercial, instrument and CFI courses. They're all down available below helicopterground.com you can go down there and check them all out. Find out the details. We have test flights, free test flights for 24 hours and we have a 30 day money back, no hassle guarantee. So the burden is on us to provide you the value. Put your comments down below. Let's hear some more fun stories and we'll see you in day 220. Peace out.