Christopher Robert Kaplan DPE Checkride Gouges
Designated Pilot Examiner
Preparing for an FAA checkride with Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) Christopher Robert Kaplan? GougeHub has a first-hand Christopher Robert Kaplan checkride gouge report from a pilot who tested. Read oral exam questions, flight test patterns, and examiner insights.
↓ View 1 available gouge reportAs of this writing, only one report is on file for Christopher Robert Kaplan, from a PPL checkride at KCCB on March 5, 2024. The oral opened with airworthiness and the aircraft documents. He went through the logbooks closely and did not like how the annual and 100 hour inspections were labeled. He had to hunt for the word annual in tiny print on the last line of the 100 hour entry.
Organized logbook tabs helped here. He liked clear tabs so he could cross reference the flights required for the PPL ride. Once the flight was confirmed legal, he collected the $800 fee. He gave a clear explanation of the three possible outcomes: pass, discontinuance, and a letter of discontinuance.
The test started with the certificate and pilot privileges. The pilot reported that quick, confident answers move him along fast. About two minutes covered privileges and medicals because the answers came quickly. The first snag came on preventative maintenance and whether changing a tire is legal. A pause there opened a 15 to 20 minute talk on maintenance and theoretical situations.
Cross country planning was the hardest part of this oral. The pilot built checkpoints around GPS and VOR navigation. Kaplan pointed out in the ACS that PPL requires pilotage and dead reckoning. He let it go after hearing the CFI had reviewed the plan. Then he drilled hard on manual flight planning calculations.
The lesson is plain. Be ready to show your work by hand instead of leaning on ForeFlight. Know your maintenance rules cold so a simple question does not turn into a long detour. Bring tabbed, well organized logbooks and expect close reading of your inspection entries.
Analyzed across 113 site-wide Private Pilot checkrides in the GougeHub database, the same questions keep coming up. Here’s one of the 37 in the guide:
“Explain how you would read this METAR. (Examiner presents a sample METAR.)”
📋 Examiner Insight: A very common question — almost every examiner asks it.
⚠ Common Pitfall: They may ask you to decode the trailing digits of an AWOS group like T00640036. That’s tricky — it isn’t under METAR decoding in AIM 7-1-28. It lives in a separate section, AIM 7-1-10, Figure 7-1-9 (ASOS/AWOS Decode) — the only place you’ll find it.
All 37 questions, ranked by frequency, with Examiner Insights and Common Pitfalls from 113 real checkrides — written and reviewed by Andrew Gray, CFI-II.
Get the Private Pilot Oral Exam Guide — $14 →7-day money-back guarantee · Instant PDF download
Ratings & Checkride Types
- PPL (Private Pilot)
FAA Designee Information
FAA Oversight Office: Delegation And Resource Branch, Afg-970
Status: Active Designee
- Private Pilot Examiner: Airplane Single Engine Land, Airplane Multi-Engine Land
- Commercial & Instrument Rating Examiner: Airplane Single Engine Land, Airplane Multi-Engine Land
- ATPE: Airplane Multi-Engine Land
- Flight Instructor Examiner: Airplane Single Engine, Airplane Multi-Engine
- Flight Instructor Examiner — Instrument: Airplane Single Engine, Airplane Multi-Engine
- Flight Proficiency Examiner
- Military Competency Examiner
- Flight Instructor Rating Examiner
- Balloon Airman Examiner
Source: FAA Designee Management System · Verify on FAA.gov →
Transparency Disclaimer: This page summarizes patterns reported by applicants. It is not an endorsement, prediction, or guarantee of checkride outcome. Every checkride varies based on the applicant and circumstances.