A Reddit thread on r/flying inviting pilots to share the most unusual or unexpectedly worded comments they've received on a Notice of Disapproval (the FAA form a Designated Pilot Examiner issues when an applicant fails a checkride) touches on a niche but universally relatable corner of the pilot experience. While the original poster explicitly excludes routine boilerplate like "unsatisfactory steep turns" or "unstable approach," the underlying interest is in the human element of the checkride process — the moments where an examiner's written feedback goes beyond checklist language and reveals something more candid, blunt, or even accusatory about the applicant's performance or judgment. The thread functions less as hard news and more as a crowdsourced oral history of an experience nearly every certificated pilot has lived through or fears living through.
For working pilots and flight instructors, this topic carries real professional weight despite its informal framing. The Notice of Disapproval is not just a pass/fail marker; it becomes a permanent part of an airman's training record and is often the first thing a chief pilot, insurance underwriter, or hiring committee asks about when reviewing a candidate's history. How an examiner phrases a bust — whether it's framed as a technical deficiency ("failed to maintain altitude within PTS/ACS tolerances") versus something more pointed about decision-making or attitude — can shape how future evaluators and employers interpret the event. CFIs in particular pay close attention to these anecdotes because they often expose specific areas where ACS standards are being applied more strictly than trainees expect, or where an examiner's personal pet peeves (sterile cockpit violations, checklist discipline, radio phraseology, or aeronautical decision-making around weather and fuel) turn into failure points that don't always show up in standard training syllabi.
The broader trend this thread reflects is the aviation community's growing appetite for informal, peer-to-peer knowledge-sharing about the practical realities of certification and evaluation — a space traditionally dominated by dry regulatory text and formal training materials. Forums like r/flying, PilotWorkshops discussions, and DPE-focused Facebook groups have increasingly become de facto repositories of tribal knowledge about how individual examiners think, what triggers a disapproval, and how the ACS is applied in practice versus in theory. This matters industry-wide as the pilot shortage and accelerated ab initio programs push more low-time applicants through checkrides faster, sometimes with less seasoning in judgment-heavy areas like risk management and single-pilot resource management — precisely the areas where a DPE's off-script comment often lands hardest.
Finally, the topic underscores an enduring tension in the practical test process: examiners are tasked with applying an objective, standardized rubric (the ACS) while also exercising subjective judgment about airmanship, judgment, and safety culture that doesn't always fit neatly into checkbox language. When a DPE's comment surprises or stings an applicant, it often signals a moment where that subjective judgment broke through the standardized form — a reminder to pilots at every level, from student pilots to ATP candidates, that checkride performance is evaluated not just against maneuver tolerances, but against a holistic assessment of whether the applicant demonstrated the judgment expected of someone who will soon carry that certificate into real-world flying, often with passengers or cargo depending on their decisions.