Barry Brocato DPE Checkride Gouges

Barry Brocato examines CFII applicants out of First Flight at KSDM, with the flight portion working from Brown Field. One applicant described him as professional and relaxed for the whole ground portion. The oral started conversational and scenario based. He began with airworthiness of the aircraft and a check of endorsements before moving into systems and procedures.

The first big oral topic was the pitot static system. He wanted an in-depth explanation of how each instrument works. He then ran a lost comms scenario with no tricks in it. He wanted real life application, including emergency authority and transitioning into VFR conditions. He asked the applicant to teach both a precision and non-precision approach. The applicant chose the ILS and an RNAV LP and kept it simple, which Barry seemed to appreciate.

That discussion led into RAIM and WAAS and their limitations. He pulled out IFR low charts and quizzed chart symbology. The oral wrapped up with weather hazards and sources, with heavy emphasis on icing. Know your weather sources and be ready to talk icing in detail.

On the flight, ground could not give a practice approach, so they got a full IFR clearance. It was a clear VFR day, and Barry did not want to fly under an IFR plan or in IMC. The applicant cancelled and picked the clearance back up with SoCal Approach in the air. They flew a right downwind departure out of Brown Field and got an early frequency change.

They picked up a practice ILS into MYF quickly, which made for a high workload setup. Barry then failed the attitude indicator with a sticky note and had the applicant fly the ILS partial panel. He offered the choice to go missed, touch and go, or full stop. Only two reports are on file so far, and one of them is too sparse to add much.