Eduardo Sosa DPE Checkride Gouges
Designated Pilot Examiner
Preparing for an FAA checkride with Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) Eduardo Sosa? GougeHub has a first-hand Eduardo Sosa 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 Eduardo Sosa, and it comes from a private pilot applicant. The picture it paints is a friendly one. He is described as an outstanding DPE who wants to give you a license. Every discontinuance the applicant had, he put them right back on the schedule and made it work.
His oral is brief but full of knowledge. He goes through everything, then only digs deeper if he sees something deficient. The oral ran 40 minutes at most and stayed under 20 questions. The applicant scored high on the written, so the pace stayed quick. The toughest question was to list the characteristics of a nose heavy and a tail heavy aircraft, so know your weight and balance well.
He makes sure you know your material first, then asks you to preflight. The one thing to burn into memory is the checklist. He is very adamant about safety in the cockpit and using a checklist for all phases of flight. Always use one, and be thorough about it.
He will not try to confuse you. Some questions may be worded awkwardly, so just ask him and he rewords it. The flight practical is as simple as it gets: fly the plane, do your maneuvers, and do not forget your clearing turns.
Expect an engine emergency in the air. The applicant had engine emergencies on both flights, each involving a large loss of RPM around 500 to 600 in a second. He let the student work it out and gave no assistance. Brief your first actions on the ground, then execute them cleanly to earn a brownie point. The applicant had three hiccups on the practical and still passed, so avoid egregious mistakes and you should pass first try.
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:
“Describe the different classes of airspace and their VFR weather minimums.”
⚠ Common Pitfall: Class D often reverts to Class G (or another class per the chart supplement) when the tower closes. The examiner may point to a spot and ask you to describe the airspace — Class G can be tricky, so know where it starts per the chart. Watch the floor of Class E: it can be the surface, 700 AGL, 1,200 AGL, or 14,500 MSL. And remember Class E is still controlled even though you needn’t talk to anyone VFR — there may be IFR traffic in 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.
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Ratings & Checkride Types
- PPL (Private Pilot)
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.