Janeen Adrion Kochan

Verified pilot · PPL · Dec 2014

Never again wanted ATP standards for a PPL checkride was upset that I was unfamiliar with a prop governor system

Verified pilot · Jan 2018

Janeen is a real professional. Her exams are performed per the ACS, and if you meet those standards, you will earn your certificate. She does things by the book, how an examiner aught to. No tricks, no "gotchas", just a fair assessment as to weather or not you meet the standard. She is friendly, and makes sure the applicant is at ease as soon as you walk into her office. She encourages the use of EFB's for flight panning, as long as you can explain how the EFB is coming up with the flight plan numbers.

Verified pilot · CPL · Discontinued · Jul 2018

Janeen is a very nice person but it’s extremely unfair at some point. I went for my CSE checkride, passed 2h40 min oral and discontinued because of weather. One week later went again I was the second checkride of 3 and we didn’t even get to start plane because she failed about thing I didn’t have the control off such as not having a fire extinguisher on board which is optional equipment, and then she started asking random questions AFTER ORAL PASSED SATISFACTORY to fail me on something stupid which she did... my preflight was 1 hour and the next checkride with other student was 10 min, She wanted to fail me yes or yes, if she was tired just discontinue that’s it NEVER go again.

Verified pilot · IR · Did not pass · Aug 2019

I gave her 2 stars instead of 1 because she did show up and seemed nice. However DO NOT do your instrument check ride with her. First, she is extremely difficult to reach and does not return phone calls in a timely manner. Second, she was late to the check ride. My experience with her was totally bizarre. She spent considerable time reviewing documents (1 hour). There was clearly a communication barrier from the start regarding simulated cross country Vs real world scenario. EG I refiled flight plans based on changes in fuel, time and weather and she was very displeased. We never made it off the ground.....Everything went sideways after she wanted to know how ForeFlight pulled its data sets. She asked less than 20 questions and determined that I did not have the knowledge required to continue. Huge waste of my time - as a researcher you would think she would understand the importance of “construct validity” and “power.” It is not possible to accurately assess a students knowledge with such few questions. Based on my experience, it is likely that she has little to no understand of error, validity and power in research and evaluation. I am not impressed by her skills as an examiner for this reason. If I had fairly failed, then I would have still given her 5 stars. Don’t waste your time, there are plenty of other DPEs that will at least give your your money’s worth. Do not use her unless you don’t own an iPad and still use paper charts and plates. She is flies around an antique airplanes and wants you to “love” systems that are either no longer in use or are being phased out. If you older, (60+), and dreaming of flying your DC3 then she is your go-to examiner! Never again.....never ever ever .....

Verified pilot · PPL · Passed · Oct 2019

So posting this after a few years after wanting to return to Janeen. I was going to her with sort of a negative stance after reading a review on her posted back in 2014. When I arrived we met at her office and she reviewed the aircraft paper work for a little, I was flying a C162 LSA. She maybe had one or two questions about stuff in the airplane and I did my best to answer. The Oral lasted a little over an hour and I was very surprised, even told my instructor I was ready for more questions and had an attitude of (I know so much please let me tell you everything I know). We went to the airplane did a preflight hoped in and took off. After take of she told me she forgot something and we need to go back on the ground. I proceed to tell her ok I will fly a pattern and we will and again. After she told me a lot of people freak out and don't know what to do so she said to fly the pattern and do a short field landing. Wasn't the best landing but it was enough. We took off again did a few stalls some steep turns and then she told me to find Lakeland. Without using GPS I could still use my Foreflight map on my ipad though. After struggling for about 5-8 min I finally found it and she told me to fly back to the airport. I proceed to fly back to Winter Haven after failing to input the direct to function on the Garmin (D ent, ent) we landed taxied back and she said "Congrats, shook my hand and we went inside to fill out paper work". She told me she was going to fail but I was able to find the airport essentially in the last minute. She also mentioned I knew how to fly the airplane and essentially solve a problem and adapt to the situation at hand. At the end of the day I had a good experience and I believe it helped that I had done very well during the oral portion.