Are FAA Examiners as Terrible as I'm Told

elitehelipilot

elitehelipilot

Just another CFI
So here is the deal, being the starving flight student I am paying for my checkrides through DPE's is a bit oppressive to my budget. Seriously I had no idea I could do my checkrides for FREE with the FAA. When I told my instructor this is the route I wanted to go he made it sound as if it was a bad idea because the FAA examiners are ruthless.

Does anyone care to weigh in on that? Any FAA examiners here?
 
elitehelipilot said:
Does anyone care to weigh in on that? Any FAA examiners here?
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Everyone that I have personally dealt with at the FAA has been awesome. That's only a handful of folks though, and I've never done a checkride with an FAA examiner.

That said, they are busy and there is a good chance they will end up referring you to a DPE anyway.
 
Good luck with that. If you were to ask the south FL FSDO to do that, they'd probably laugh and then hang up. They are WAY too busy to do private pilot checkrides, as are pretty much all of them I wold assume.
 
You should meet the standards, if you do you should not have any problems.
Read the PTS make sure you know everything in there and you are good to go.
They are by the book, no tricks and stuff... And they are free!

Usually it is the instructor that will hesitate to send a student with the FAA, more because they doubt them selves and they are afraid to get a failure on their record. Specially when it comes to new instructors who are trying to get a gold seal.
 
Johnny Beau Bekkestad said:
Usually it is the instructor that will hesitate to send a student with the FAA, more because they doubt them selves and they are afraid to get a failure on their record. Specially when it comes to new instructors who are trying to get a gold seal.
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With a DPE, presumably you using the same one and have a good idea of what to expect. I think that's a lot of it too.
 
elitehelipilot said:
So here is the deal, being the starving flight student I am paying for my checkrides through DPE's is a bit oppressive to my budget. Seriously I had no idea I could do my checkrides for FREE with the FAA. When I told my instructor this is the route I wanted to go he made it sound as if it was a bad idea because the FAA examiners are ruthless.

Does anyone care to weigh in on that? Any FAA examiners here?
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The answer varies with the individual. The overwhelming majority in both groups are fine, but as in any collection of humans, there are going to be some who are at lot less than fine.

Let me add one detail. The people who work for the FAA are called "inspectors". The people who are contractors designated by the FAA are "examiners." In the PTS it will explain that within the PTS, the term "examiners" is used to encompass both groups.

As others have stated, your chance of getting an FAA inspector to do your check is mighty thin. However, the worst they can tell you is "no." I think your best chance of getting a "yes" would be to find out what inspector works with that school and talk to him or her. Propose the idea that since they come out there frequently that they might want to see the quality of the product being produced by the school. If you offer to come to the FSDO to do the oral, that might also help sell it. You will also need to offer to be flexible.

One other thing is that all too often CFIs have "favorite" DPE's (examiners) who they use because they prepare their students for the nuances of that examiner. They will tend to discourage you from using a different examiner and that is even more true for the idea of using an inspector.

Good luck no matter what path you may take.
 
Yeah, our FSDO is not CFII rated yet, but should be by the time I want to check out, and it sounds like he is in a place to do check rides and has done them before. I didn't know "failures" were reflected onto the CFI also, thought just the student. That's interesting to learn.
 
I've done my initial CFI and several 135 rides with Feds. Even had a Fed give me a pass when a company check airman wanted to bust me. He ended up being dequaled as a check airman after that ride. I love Feds. The more Feds the better.
 
And they aren't likely to bust you at the end of the end of the month when money gets tight and they have a boat payment to make. Just sayin'
 
I've taken one ride with the fed, because there were no DPE's for the rating. It was very simple, just like any of the other 8 DPE given rides I've ever taken.
 
elitehelipilot said:
So here is the deal, being the starving flight student I am paying for my checkrides through DPE's is a bit oppressive to my budget. Seriously I had no idea I could do my checkrides for FREE with the FAA. When I told my instructor this is the route I wanted to go he made it sound as if it was a bad idea because the FAA examiners are ruthless.

Does anyone care to weigh in on that?
Click to expand...

The FAA inspector I did my CFI Initial ride with was really great, I really enjoyed the experience.

However, dont get your heart too set on saving money by flying with the FAA. The whole reason they delegate to DPE's is so the FAA inspectors don't have to waste their time giving routine check rides for new certificates (other than the CFI Initial ride, 135 rides, etc).

I've asked the Spokane FSDO before if they'd do a non-CFI Initial checkride and they said "Nope, go use a DPE".

If I'm not mistaken, you are also in the Spokane FSDO region.
 
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rframe said:
The FAA inspector I did my CFI Initial ride with was really great, I really enjoyed the experience.

However, dont get your heart too set on saving money by flying with the FAA. The whole reason they delegate to DPE's is so the FAA inspectors don't have to waste their time giving routine check rides for new certificates (other than the CFI Initial ride, 135 rides, etc).

I've asked the Spokane FSDO before if they'd do a non-CFI Initial checkride and they said "Nope, go use a DPE".

If I'm not mistaken, you are also in the Spokane FSDO region.
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Yeah I had a great experience doing my CFI initial at the Spokane FSDO too. The worst part about it was that they took 4 weeks to schedule it, then after repeated calls from me and the chief pilot at our school trying to schedule it they wanted to do it all of a sudden next day and I hadn't flown in almost a month.

Apparently all the DPEs were on vacation, or unavailable or something else, and I wasn't aware at the time of using a DPE for my CFI initial which given the amount of time I had to wait I might have considered using. In the end though the examiner was fair and even though it ended up costing a little more it turned out just fine. Who did you have for your initial Rframe?
 
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