Steve Campbell DPE Checkride Gouges
Designated Pilot Examiner • (Stephen Vincent Campbell)
Preparing for an FAA checkride with Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) Steve Campbell? GougeHub has 7 first-hand Steve Campbell checkride gouge reports from pilots who tested. Review oral exam questions, flight test patterns, and examiner insights for CPL, IFR, and PPL checkrides.
↓ View 7 available gouge reportsSteve Campbell tests out of Danbury (KDXR) and bases his oral on a real cross country flight plan. Private rides ran KDXR to KRUT, instrument rides used routes like KDXR to KEEN, and commercial rides covered KDXR to KLCI, KLEB, and KEEN. He pays close attention to admin before flying. He takes cash only, around $1,550 with a travel fee in one case, and reviews your logbook line by line. He looks for written training and endorsement evidence, including a CFI sign off to take the written test. One applicant had a missing middle name on a medical, and Steve simply wrote a note in IACRA.
The oral leans heavily on weather and planning. Expect fog types like advection and radiation, structural ice and which type is most dangerous, thunderstorm formation, prognostic charts, isobars, NOTAMs, and TFRs. Commercial applicants did live weight and balance and density altitude math, then recalculated takeoff distance over a 50 foot obstacle on a hot day. He also asks about commercial privileges, Part 119 exceptions, and inoperative equipment under 91.213.
Systems come up across all ratings. He asks how each six pack instrument is powered, the pitot static system, the electrical system, constant speed props, and gear indication failures on downwind. Instrument applicants got currency, IPC requirements, gyroscopic instruments, and deicing boots.
The flight matches the ratings. Private rides included soft or short field takeoffs, foggles work, and unusual attitudes. Commercial rides added steep turns, lazy eights, eights on pylons, power on and off stalls, accelerated stalls, and simulated engine fire to forced landing. Instrument rides used OXC heavily: ILS 36, LOC 36 partial panel, RNAV 18 circle to 36, holds, and missed approaches.
Two consistent notes: he runs late, sometimes well past start time, and busy controllers may push you to nearby airports like Sky Acres. Be ready to fly elsewhere.
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:
“When does your medical certificate expire, and what class do you hold?”
📋 Examiner Insight: A guaranteed question — and examiners have been digging into BasicMed lately, so know that too.
⚠ Common Pitfall: First- and second-class certificates do not lapse into a third-class certificate — their privileges lapse to second and then third class. A first-class certificate that is 59 calendar months old is still a first-class certificate, but its privileges have stepped down to third class, which is valid for private-pilot use.
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
- CPL (Commercial Pilot)
- IFR (Instrument Rating)
- PPL (Private Pilot)
Other DPEs in New York
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.