When I was there last summer, they had the ATL location, JAX, and I think PHX or LAS I dont know on the west coast. It seemed to us, that the JAX CFI instructor basically only signed off the guys he knew would pass(we had a couple of guys from RIC spend two weeks down there with no sign off, and just told to go home, and these were good pilots too, one was my roommate, felt so bad for him). But then ATL pretty much paid an a CFI extra to sign us all off. Which I found amusing, because every RIC that went to ATL passed, but in JAX they wouldnt give them a signoff. More or less it was because the guy cherished his pass/fail rating.
I dont know about the Tampa thing, is that something new? JAX and ATL would do the CFI training, then contact the florida FSDO, and we would all get DPE's, I had Bill Blougher down at FLL, my buddy had pinkston(and he is OLD, my buddy thought he might die on the flight). Blougher was cool, flower print shirt, basically said over and over, dont drink the ATP koolaid, and he was right, now that I am out of the enviroment. Hence me on here showing folks there are other options than ATP, or other fast paced pilot mill.
