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Clyde Shelton ATP gouge

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Yeh I know him

He is Known as "Let it slide clide" in my area. All Atp send's a lot
of their students to him. He is located in ALB. A real old guy. You have nothing to worry about. Just show up.

N
 
I agree that the "clyde ryde" is great!!
I did my multi commercial training at LZU and flew out to alabama for the checkride with clyde. I didn't know what to expect and I dressed appropriatly for the checkride....shirt and tie....when I got out of my car and met the instructor he started laughing and said something like "dude, its clyde man..." (He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt!!)
If I remember right, the weather wasnt good their but we went anyway. We had to file an IFR flight plan to get out of the area and above an overcast layer, the tops were 3000 ft AGL. We did all of the manuevers above the layer and the last thing we did was the emergency descent! As we went plunging into the layer below, clyde informed ATC that we were ready for the approaches. It turnes out that we were not far away from the NDB and while still in an emergency descent now in actual IMC we passed over the NDB and turned outbound to do the full approach!!! Thankfully we were level when it came time to do the procedure turn. I forgot if that was the end of the ride or if we went missed for another approach.
but I do remember that he was actually proffessional in the way he conducted himself, regardless of his "santa clause passing out ratings" reputation! He is definately not out to maintain a certain pass/fail ratio.
 
I don't think I'd brag about going out of my way to take an auto-pass checkride....
 
I am glad that we can all browse thru this forum and share experiences with each other without being harrassed by ignorant comments. WAS I BRAGGING?
 
I took a Commercial Single ride with Clyde a few years ago. He was far more interested in what you DID know than what you DIDN'T. This surprised me immensely; his demeanor differs completely from that of any other examiner I've had thus far.
He has little written quizzes which are little more than pull-outs from the AOPA pilot and such, on topics such as runway and taxiway markings and VFR wx mins. This would be the only 'oddity', but it's all basic stuff.
It's not one 'in the bag', (all DE's are audited if they don't bust a certain percentage of applicants) and you may get unlucky and have a supervised ride. However, if you bust a ride with him, you have noone and nothing to blame but yourself.
 
no such thing

there is no such thing as an auto-pass check-ride, and there is nothing wrong with trying to get a little g-2 for the ride. i call it "flight planning." i met a guy today that said he failed clyde's commercial ME ride. always makes me nervous to meet a guy who has failed an examiner that i plan to use, but then he told me what had happened. like an earlier post stated, he earned his failure. by all accounts, i've heard clyde is a fair guy. another excellent DE is Jerry Rassmussen at TYS.
 
Clyde...

I have used Clyde several times as both a student and instructor (I am an ex-ALLATP guy). He is one of the best guys and most knowledgeable pilots around. True, very few actually failed his rides, but I always found them to be great experiences. The ones that needed to fail, did. Clyde is a retired NASA guy and has a ton of great information to offer. Pay attention when you go there!!
 
ECex suggested Jerry Rassmussen at TYS. I took a comm/MEL with him after the other guy in Knoxville retired. He had no idea what the practical test standards for that checkride were. He smoked all through the oral (what there was of it) and lit one standing on the wing after the flight test. He omitted a couple required elements but decided to pull both of my engines on my engine-out ILS. He seemed unprepared for how fast an Apache sinks with both engines pulled back. I passed of course but I was sure that short of actually crashing, the $250 cash was all I really needed to get the rating. There were several other things that went on that day that made me glad to get back in my airplane and get the heck out of there. For months I expected to get a call from the FAA telling my that the DE was an imposter and they wanted my rating back. I don't think he does the ATP anyway.
Just my personal experience two cents worth.
 
don't slam smokin jerry like that

i think i was sitting in the fbo the day you took that ride with the Razz-a-mat-azz. as i recall he thought you were a very qualified applicant, but wasn't too fond of the apache, or maybe it was the other way around. i can assure you that jer is well aware of the pts standards for whatever rating you were applying for. you are correct that he isn't currently giving the atp practical, but he says he can. the only catch is that a guy from the FSDO will have to ride along on the first one. probably Jim Matthews. Jim also gives check-rides @ tys, and they are FREE!!! as for jerry pulling both engines on you, good for him. i have always found him to very concerned that a pilot has a proper respect for a multi-engine airplane, and 2 out can happen. jerry hands out a A/C called "give yourself a way out," or something like that. among other things, it has a table that shows % power loss for light twins in a SE situation. for example, a pa-34 looses something like 80-82% of it's power if one engine fails. anyway, jerry r. is a great DE and far from an imposter.
 

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