Greg Porter DPE Checkride Gouges
Designated Pilot Examiner • (Gregory Allen Porter)
Preparing for an FAA checkride with Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) Greg Porter? GougeHub has 2 first-hand Greg Porter checkride gouge reports from pilots who tested. Review oral exam questions, flight test patterns, and examiner insights for CFI and PPL checkrides.
↓ View 2 available gouge reportsTwo reports sit on file for Greg Porter, one for the private pilot ride and one for the CFI ride. The private report is short and direct. Greg wants you knowing the fundamentals cold. He focuses on Bravo entry clearance language and the specifics of your fuel system. Have the exact phrasing for a Bravo clearance ready, and know how your fuel flows.
The CFI ground ran about 2.5 hours and started with the Fundamentals of Instructing. He asked questions on Task E and kept it mostly a discussion about being professional. That review took about ten minutes. He named Task D and Task F as items he would observe throughout the ride, so he asked no direct questions on those.
For Task II he acted as a student who had already flown three or four lessons. The applicant adjusted the teaching to build on those past experiences. The first lesson was runway incursions, taught with a slideshow and airport diagrams plus Google Maps. Greg wanted only information important to runway incursions, not extra material on the slides. For taxi speeds he recommended the term parking lot speed, since a number can make students fixate.
One note worth carrying: bring FAA charts, not Jeppesen, because students use FAA charts. The next lesson covered the National Airspace System. Greg had the applicant teach only the skills listed under Section G. He skipped chart symbology, currency of publications, and airspace speed restrictions. A whiteboard table of controlled and uncontrolled airspaces with their requirements worked well.
The applicant used ForeFlight to show how to identify each airspace on a sectional. Greg liked the coverage of dimensions for Class airspace. He kept his critiques small and mentioned nothing major. Come in organized, teach to the point, and you stand on solid ground with him.
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:
“What documents must you have on your person to act as pilot in command?”
📋 Examiner Insight: A guaranteed question — know it cold.
⚠ Common Pitfall: While not required on your person, your logbook should be available to demonstrate recent experience and currency if questioned. Not all forms of ID are acceptable — reference 61.3 for the acceptable forms.
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
- CFI (Certified Flight Instructor)
- PPL (Private Pilot)
FAA Designee Information
FAA Oversight Office: Scottsdale FSDO
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
Source: FAA Designee Management System · Verify on FAA.gov →
Other DPEs in Arizona
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.