If they want to ride they'll have to call my company and schedule it, just showing up is too big of a disruption in my opinion.
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The FAA does not need to schedule a ramp check or to schedule to ride the jump seat. Denying access is not a good idea unless there are extenuating circumstances such as a written policy in your operations manual.
http://www.ntsb.gov/alj/O_n_O/docs/Aviation/3487.pdf
http://www.ntsb.gov/alj/O_n_O/docs/Aviation/4766.pdf
Now if you are in a hurry and need to keep a schedule, let the inspector know. If the inspector insists on slowing you down, I'd be polite and play along. Take down his information and pass it on to your management, but don't blow off the inspector. It's a good way to get unneeded attention. Going forward in a career, if you are terminated from a job for being late due to a ramp check most prospective employees will understand what you did. If you have to talk about enforcement action for blowing off a safety inspector during an interview, however, things will most likely not go well.
A couple of random thoughts.
1. None of us knows the condition of the seat belt in question.
2. Just about all of us would agree that if the description of the OP is accurate the Safety Inspector was pretty crass. Leading by intimidation and threats is pretty boorish and uncalled for. Even if the seat belt in question was severely worn a better approach would be to point it out to the pilot and recommend he write it up, placard the seat as unusable, and have maintenance inspect it (most seat belt manufacturers do have inspection standards for their seat belts that can be used to determine if they are functional). Still, you have to deal with both types of FAA Safety Inspectors. The good ones- the ones who have a wide variety of experience, have been there, done that, and know what you are going through. If they find things they are normally pretty gentle about it and really have your safety and welfare foremost. Then there are the... interesting ones. Fortunately, I've only run into one of the latter in my flying career. But if you happen to run into one of them, tread lightly and be polite. Getting into a pissing contest may give you momentary satisfaction, but you will probably lose in the long run. If you are polite and have your ducks in a row, however, the inspector also has a boss who probably will not tolerate bullies. A 709 ride for a frayed seatbelt? If that is all there is I think the FSDO manager will have something to say about it.
3. Part of the reason I list NTSB legal decisions is to show past FAA enforcements for certain areas. Many times people will post things without actually checking to see what the FAA's legal opinion is- either from their legal decisions or enforcement actions. In this thread, for example, saying a pilot is not responsible for determining an aircraft's airworthiness; or trying to deny the FAA access to an aircraft during a ramp inspection or cockpit check. I can state my opinion on such matters, but really it's just the opinion of another dude on the internet and it matters about as much as my opinion on the price of tea in China. What matters is what the FAA has said/written in the past. Some things they come down on pretty hard- airworthiness, for example. Other areas... well, they
can get you, but they probably won't spend the time/effort. There are only so many inspectors in an office and only so many hours in a 5 day work week.
And a few times where I was hoping a particular airframe had shed a wing in the night...
