Commercial Checkride

[Medicryan]

Anyone taken the commercial checkride with Dave Gardner in the Tampa area lately? Any advice/gouge would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ryan

 

[mcjohn]

Anyone taken the commercial checkride with Dave Gardner in the Tampa area lately? Any advice/gouge would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Ryan

Umm, what do you mean with the word GOUGE above?

Yep, I got ya covered. Wow. What are the chances you'd actually bump into someone here that's riden with him?

Anyway, I took my CFI with him so I guess I can only help a little.
I took the ride at KPIE in March '05. He's kind of a strange cat IMHO but a nice guy. I don't think he is a real tough examiner but quite particular on his expectations that you should be aware of in advance. For example: He expects endorsements from your instructor to be VERY specific and taylored to his liking. So specific in fact that his business card is a fold out of all the endorsements and the order he wants to see them laid out. This guy makes a good living giving exams (charged me $450). He is supposedly respected by the FSDO in Tampa but he bailed half way through my oral to go "finish up" someone else's ride and I just sat and waited a couple hours for him to finish. Then he disappeared again and returned another hour or two later stating that he was having to deal with somekind of problem with an airline he was running. I asked where in the world he had to go to deal with that and he said the office was upstairs. I was like WTF!
Earlier in the day he had told me he worked for Lockheed Martin.
Toward the end of the ride and coming close to a gear up landing and going around only on my own attention he said the ride was over so I landed, shut down, and just looked at him waiting for the answer on whether or not I passed.
He yelled, "Get me out of this dam plane. It's hot!" and I said, "I'd like to know if I passed." He said "Yeah, yeah, you passed now let me out of here!"
I think the FSDO lets him do CFI rides 'cause he focuses so heavily on the Fundamentals of Instruction. He seemed like the type that makes up his mind on whether or not you'll pass in the first 10 mins of meeting.

Hope all that helped, good luck!

 

[Mr Wu]

He had told me he worked for Lockheed Martin.

BWAAAAHHHAAAAAHHHHAAAAA, Lockheed Martin, that's a good one. Send your students to Dave so he gets to know you, then ask him about "Lockheed Martin."

 

[mcjohn]

BWAAAAHHHAAAAAHHHHAAAAA, Lockheed Martin, that's a good one. Send your students to Dave so he gets to know you, then ask him about "Lockheed Martin."

I don't get it.