Thanks Terry: Agree we should all be expecting more than barely good
enough. I have seen some examples of examiners making up their own
stuff and it can make you crazy. The standards are a bit mushy, which
makes it more complicated, especially for someone who is new. I'm
sure
all of us that have been doing this for awhile has our own "hot
spots",
that is things I commonly see a weak points in the pilot population.
I'll share a few of mine and maybe some other folks can add to the
list.

#1 Poor energy management in the landing pattern- an over application
of "speed is your friend". I'd estimate that 2 out of 3 pilots I
check
for the first time would hit the fence at the far end of a small
field.
#2 Failure to create a plan for developing events. The simple lack of
recognition of a need for this is far too common.
#3 Poor general airmanship- especially is slow flight. Most pilots do
not know how to fly in the stall range. I include in this flying the
glider in a stalled or partially stalled condition.

The idea that the FAA sets minimum standards, and of course all
instructors will train to higher standards, sounds great in theory.
However in the real world, a large portion of the instructors teach
only what will actually be tested on the practical test. By debriefing
their students after flight tests, they have learned exactly what a
particular examiner will expect. This then allows them to train their
students
for a flight test with that specific examiner, rather than bothering to
train for a thorough test in accordance with the PTS.

A blatant example of this was recently evident when I did some acro
with a pilot who had just passed his Private Pilot Glider flight test.
During the first high tow I asked the pilot to turn the towplane toward
the airport. The pilot then told me he had NEVER done signals on tow
before.

A few other relevent questions about stalls, slips and spins, showed
that this pilot's knowledge base was quite deficient. However we
cannot blame the pilot for these shortcummings. He was trained by an
FAA certificated instructor and passed a flight test given by an FAA
Designated Examiner. Unfortunately for this pilot, his training was
done at an operaton known for shopping around for easy examiners.

M Eiler