William McDonald DPE Checkride Gouges
Designated Pilot Examiner • (William Robert McDonald)
Preparing for an FAA checkride with Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) William McDonald? GougeHub has 2 first-hand William McDonald checkride gouge reports from pilots who tested. Review oral exam questions, flight test patterns, and examiner insights for PPL checkrides.
↓ View 2 available gouge reportsWilliam McDonald is easy to work with and quick to respond by text or call. He travels from Las Vegas, so retakes can land a couple weeks apart. One CFI reported a weather discontinuance, and Will flew to San Diego from Vegas just to finish the flight. He went back the same day with no extra charge, and he kept a good attitude through the whole thing.
The oral runs relaxed and conversational. He does not rush your answers, and he wants you to take time to think or look something up. Rather than hunting for acronyms like PAVE, he simply follows the ACS. He does expect you to know the acronyms, but one applicant only had to spell out PARE. If you know an answer cold, good, but he stresses looking it up when you are unsure.
The two areas he focused on most were weather and aerodynamics of flight. The tricky questions covered remarks on METARs, troughs and ridges, and speed limits. He encourages using an EFB and ForeFlight, since the checkride should show what you normally fly with and how.
The flight stayed just as relaxed. It started with a soft field takeoff, then following the cross country flight plan to verify time between points. After that came maneuvers in any order you wished, set up however you wanted. The flight finished with a soft field landing, a touch and go short field takeoff, a short field landing, a slip, then a go around.
He makes clear he wants ACS standards, not perfection, so fix a mistake quickly and move on. One applicant lost a little altitude setting up slow flight, corrected it fast, and Will thought nothing of it. Afterward he asks what you felt you could have done better. Two reports are on file for him as of this writing.
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 weather briefing did you get for today’s flight, and how did you get it?”
⚠ Common Pitfall: ForeFlight and other EFBs can count as a standard brief, but they must meet 91.103. See AC 91-92 for what belongs in a standard brief. ForeFlight keeps a record of your briefing for 120 days — not required, but useful to prove you were briefed if it’s ever questioned.
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)
FAA Designee Information
FAA Oversight Office: Wichita FSDO
Status: Active Designee
- Commercial & Instrument Rating Examiner: Airplane Single Engine Land, Airplane Multi-Engine Land
- Private Pilot Examiner: Airplane Multi-Engine Land, Airplane Single Engine Land
- ATPE: Airplane Multi-Engine Land
- Flight Instructor Examiner: Airplane Multi-Engine
Source: FAA Designee Management System · Verify on FAA.gov →
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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.