Shawn Crump DPE Checkride Gouges

Oral Emphasis

The oral is heavily scenario-based, built around a cross-country flight plan (KNEW to KDTS in reports). Expect significant time on these areas:

• Commercial pilot privileges and limitations: He digs into nuanced scenarios — who owns the airplane, who's paying, whether you need additional documentation or operating certificates, and how an instrument rating factors in.
• Inoperative equipment and MEL-style reasoning: He'll present multiple inop items (landing light, oil temp gauge) and expect you to walk through the decision process of whether you can legally fly.
• Airspace — in depth: Along the planned route he covers Delta, Bravo, Charlie, TRSA, Mode C veil, MOAs, Restricted areas, and Special Flight Rules areas (Eglin). Know your visibility and cloud clearance requirements for each.
• Weather briefing: He wants to see how you actually brief weather, not just talk about it. Pilots reported walking through a ForeFlight briefing in real time. He asks about personal minimums, IFR conditions, and whether you'd actually make the flight.
• Aeromedical factors: Hypoxia, carbon monoxide poisoning from the cabin heater, decompression sickness ("the bends" — especially relevant if the scenario involves diving), and pressurization systems.
• Aircraft performance and systems: Short field performance calculations, flap types (know whether your 172 has Fowler flaps), slipping with flaps — and he wants you to reference the POH directly. He'll set up a scenario with closed runways, high temps, max weight, and no flaps to see if you can work the performance numbers.
• Engine systems: Purpose of the run-up, how magnetos work, and what it means when you get no mag drop.

Common Questions

Pilots reported these styles and themes repeatedly:

• Can you rent a specific aircraft at the flight school and fly it commercially? What if the owner has a personally-owned aircraft — can you fly that one for compensation instead? He layers conditions onto each scenario.
• He presents inoperative equipment one item at a time and asks whether you can still go, expecting you to explain your reasoning (not just yes or no).
• He asks you to talk through your waypoint and altitude selections on the cross-country and explain why you chose them.
• Can you land at a military airport? What about a joint-use military/public airport?
• What do you do with rowdy passengers? He's looking for a simple, professional answer.
• He sets up performance scenarios with constraints stacked against you — closed primary runways, hot day, max gross weight, no flaps — and asks if you can still make it work.

Examiner Style

Crump builds one continuous, evolving scenario rather than jumping between disconnected topics. The oral flows like a conversation — he starts with your commercial privileges, moves into the flight planning, and layers in weather, airspace, performance, and systems as they come up naturally along the route. Pilots described the pacing as thorough but logical. He expects you to know your POH and will ask for specific references rather than accepting vague answers. He appears to value practical decision-making and wants to see that you think like a working commercial pilot, not just a student reciting regulations.

What Surprised Pilots

• The depth of the airspace discussion along the route — he covers nearly every type of airspace and special use area, so know the entire route, not just departure and destination.
• He asks about decompression sickness ("the bends"), which many commercial candidates don't expect. This tied into the dive gear scenario.
• He wants a direct POH quote on slipping with flaps — a generic answer won't satisfy him.
• The equipment inop questions are layered and nuanced. He's not just testing whether you know the MEL process; he's testing whether you understand how commercial operations, aircraft ownership, and airworthiness interact.