Why are all CFI Initial Checkrides Conducted by FSDO?

I just had a student finish with the FSDO yesterday for an initial. I was very impressed with how reasonable the inspector was. He is very pleasant to work with and did an outstanding job of making my student comfortable. I'd do all my checkrides with the FSDO if they would let me.
 
Back in the day, at DCA we did CFI Initial in house.

Alot of times the Oral was alot harder than what the Orlando FSDO would give you. I know one CFI that had a 14 hour oral...she was pretty weak in alot of areas (I sat in on 4 hours worth)...in the month I took my CFI (May 04), I was the only one to pass the oral and the flight on the first attempt. (No bragging whatsoever, I got lucky and had a good day!)
 
When I first put in for my CFI initial, the form on the website said to give them 15 working days. So three weeks later on the 15th working day I hadn't heard anything so I gave them a call and they scheduled it for two weeks later. Two weeks later they called and canceled the night before saying that the weather would not be favorable. I got it rescheduled and would one more week. Finally the big day came..I got all my stuff together the night before. Keep in mind that it had been 6 weeks since I had initially put in to take this test. I wake up bright and early the morning of the test, eat a good breakfast, and head to the airport to get the airplane ready and fly to the place where I will be taking the test. So I get there and meet two inspectors, operations and airworthiness, and the operations inspector briefs me on what is going to happen as we start the test. The airworthiness inspector looks through the aircraft records..everything's cool..and heads outside to do a visual inspection. We take a break about an hour into the oral. The operations inspector goes outside, talks to the airworthiness inspector, comes back in and says "we have a problem." He goes over a list of things making the airplane unairworthy. It was things like...the TSO stamps on the seatbelts had faded serial numbers or were missing, the fuel filler caps weren't labeled, etc... I ended up having to get a special flight permit just to get home. I think they might have had a beef with the owner of the aircraft. But I don't think that should have affected my wanting to become a flight instructor. Oh and I forgot to mention that this particular airplane had gone down there two months prior for a CFI checkride and got sent home on a special flight permit. Apparently they didn't find all of this the first time. My question is this...I can understand minor things like this needing to be fixed, but why does it have to affect my CFI test and why can't they just take it up directly with the owner?
 
at1024 said:
When I first put in for my CFI initial, the form on the website said to give them 15 working days. So three weeks later on the 15th working day I hadn't heard anything so I gave them a call and they scheduled it for two weeks later. Two weeks later they called and canceled the night before saying that the weather would not be favorable. I got it rescheduled and would one more week. Finally the big day came..I got all my stuff together the night before. Keep in mind that it had been 6 weeks since I had initially put in to take this test. I wake up bright and early the morning of the test, eat a good breakfast, and head to the airport to get the airplane ready and fly to the place where I will be taking the test. So I get there and meet two inspectors, operations and airworthiness, and the operations inspector briefs me on what is going to happen as we start the test. The airworthiness inspector looks through the aircraft records..everything's cool..and heads outside to do a visual inspection. We take a break about an hour into the oral. The operations inspector goes outside, talks to the airworthiness inspector, comes back in and says "we have a problem." He goes over a list of things making the airplane unairworthy. It was things like...the TSO stamps on the seatbelts had faded serial numbers or were missing, the fuel filler caps weren't labeled, etc... I ended up having to get a special flight permit just to get home. I think they might have had a beef with the owner of the aircraft. But I don't think that should have affected my wanting to become a flight instructor. Oh and I forgot to mention that this particular airplane had gone down there two months prior for a CFI checkride and got sent home on a special flight permit. Apparently they didn't find all of this the first time. My question is this...I can understand minor things like this needing to be fixed, but why does it have to affect my CFI test and why can't they just take it up directly with the owner?
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That's actually pretty common. We quit doing CFI initials and just do CFII with the FSDO, because of that. Even with a 2008 G1000, they sometimes find problems.
 
If that is true, that is the biggest joke ever.
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You'll have to explain yourself.. OU does in fact do CFI initial in house, just did mine.. hardest thing I've ever done in my life. As stated earlier UND does too, and I'd bet Riddle probably does theirs in house as well.

Smart on the FSDO part.. they know the universities will turn out a lot of CFI's.. and they know they have been studying because we spent a large amount of class time learning all of this information. (year of hell if you ask me). and I bet the examiners (Our chief and assistant chief) had one hell of a class to go through to sign students off for their CFI.

What I have been doing the last 6 months is not a joke sir.. Thank You
 
Sisson2011 said:
You'll have to explain yourself.. OU does in fact do CFI initial in house, just did mine.. hardest thing I've ever done in my life. As stated earlier UND does too, and I'd bet Riddle probably does theirs in house as well.

Smart on the FSDO part.. they know the universities will turn out a lot of CFI's.. and they know they have been studying because we spent a large amount of class time learning all of this information. (year of hell if you ask me). and I bet the examiners (Our chief and assistant chief) had one hell of a class to go through to sign students off for their CFI.

What I have been doing the last 6 months is not a joke sir.. Thank You
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It is a joke because everyone should have to go w/ the FAA. Read below

Alchemy said:
The explanation I was given used the analogy of a copy machine:

The first time you copy a document it's pretty close in quality to the original. If you take that copy and copy it, it starts to get a little faded. If you take that 3rd copy and copy it, some of the text starts to break up. By the 10th or 15th time it's often barely ledgeable. The FAA wants to keep making "originals".

Maybe a load of crap, but I guess that's the way they look at it.
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Of course your cfi was the hardest checkride you have ever taken, IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE THAT WAY. You have just gone from being responsible for your passengers to being responsible for the student pilot and everything they may do. DE's are for the most part (99.9% of them) EASIER AND LESS THOUROUGH than the Fed's. If you don't believe me, then why does everyone want to get a DE instead of a fed? Just for fun, what is the initial failure rate when the checkride is done in house? I bet it is no where near the failure rate when done with FSDO. It should be the same checkride and it is not, that is why it is a joke.
 
I bet it is no where near the failure rate when done with FSDO. It should be the same checkride and it is not, that is why it is a joke.
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I would say that is not a fair judgment. One of the main reasons is because through a university there is a long ground course just for teaching the student everything they need to know and how to do it, around 10 hours a week for over 5+ months. People going into a FSDO lot of times do not get that rigorous training. However, there is a substantial fail rate, especially when compared to the other certificates.. but I'm sure if we put numbers to it, it would be far less than what the FSDO's fail rate is, for reasons previously mentioned.

We also don't get checked out with DE's. The only DE I have ever had was for my private, and that was before college.

The first time you copy a document it's pretty close in quality to the original. If you take that copy and copy it, it starts to get a little faded. If you take that 3rd copy and copy it, some of the text starts to break up. By the 10th or 15th time it's often barely ledgeable. The FAA wants to keep making "originals".
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Very true point. But the guys at the FSDO aren't the originals either. People have trained them as well. Because we are a university under part 141, there are a lot of rules and restrictions placed on the school on how they operate. I am sure that our two check pilots have been through more than I ever want to go through to be able to sign off students as CFI's.

Again I will say.. through OU, I have put out a TONE of work to get my CFI.. I do not feel it is easier because I went through a university, other than the fact that I had people pushing me to study for half a year.. so when the time came I knew my stuff. I think you are way off base, and I do not feel as if the way I got my CFI was a joke, and never will.
 
nosehair said:
To be blunt and to the point, it is common knowledge that (most)Designated Examiners do not give a check ride as complete and thorough as the FSDO. That's sad, but that is the case.

There was a time when DE's gave ALL checkrides, including CFI, and the FAA busted a bunch of DE's selling the CFI Certificate....'nuff said.
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Unfortunately this hasn't really changed. Very crooked system. "Unfair, unbalanced - you decide!" Unlimited capitalism at it's best. ;)
Yet - there are some flightschools refusing to hire CFI's who have not at least completed one CFI checkride with a FSDO. Now if the FSDO's would function........ ohhh well... 'nother story. :rolleyes:
 
I took my initial CFI checkride through a FSDO and didn't have any problems. It didn't last 8 hours either, there was a 3-4 hour oral then a 1-2 hour flight.

That said, the 1st FSDO I tried to take my ride at was a pain to schedule with, then turned me away for alleged airworthiness problems with my '78 C182RG (no reason why it shouldn't look every bit as good as that brand new citation X, accrding to the Fed). That guy was notorious. The 2nd FSDO was great, no problems.
 
From what I can tell the different FSDO's have their reputations. Some good, some...well...a little different.
 
at1024 said:
From what I can tell the different FSDO's have their reputations. Some good, some...well...a little different.
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I can honestly say that the Kansas City FSDO is a dream to work with. They have had there CFI Check ride scheduling problems, but each inspector is excellent and they give VERY fair check rides. While little issues pop up every once in a while between us and them, they are almost always solved with very civil conversation. The other great thing about this FSDO is that I can call our POI or the Asst Manager almost any time and get a ruling/interpretation.

Michael
 
Sisson2011 said:
I would say that is not a fair judgment. One of the main reasons is because through a university there is a long ground course just for teaching the student everything they need to know and how to do it, around 10 hours a week for over 5+ months. People going into a FSDO lot of times do not get that rigorous training. However, there is a substantial fail rate, especially when compared to the other certificates.. but I'm sure if we put numbers to it, it would be far less than what the FSDO's fail rate is, for reasons previously mentioned.

We also don't get checked out with DE's. The only DE I have ever had was for my private, and that was before college.
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I'm sure your training was tough, IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE! It is supposed to be the most comprehensive you have taken to date. The reason why using a DE is a joke is because you PAY the DE cash. The DE gets a rather sizable fee to do a checkride. The internal examination is even more a joke because you pay the school countless thousands of dollars. I realize the checkride may be difficult, but the examiner is not necessarily objective. When you take the ride w/ a fed, you pay him NOTHING. The fed is just doing his job giving you a checkride, it's not his lucrative side business. The fed is completely objective because he has no ties to you at all.

As a side note, I took my cfi ride w/ the OKC fsdo and it just happened to be at the norman airport with a fed that used to be a cp, or chief instructor at OU. As much as it pains me to say it as a poke, I think OU has a very nice looking program from what I saw. I just think everyone should have to take their initial ride w/ the FSDO to assure uniformity in the checkride across the country. I realize that different FSDO's have their reputations about being harder than others, and the fed I had said the OKC one fails 85% on their first attempt, I found him very fair.
 
Up at DWC, we have to do our CFI rides at the Portland FSDO but I'd have to say it was not nearly as bad as I expected.

The worst part was the scheduling. My CFI called in early December and they just said to call back in January and finally I got a date 3 weeks away. Then, the airworthiness examiner decided my stabilator was out of limits (it wasn't as he gave the choice of flying to my examiner and from what I hear if it was actually not airworthy he would have made the judgement himself) and the plane was grounded so I had to reschedule the flight and get a couple CFIs to come rescue me since I couldn't ferry the plane back.

Of course, it was still significantly more difficult than previous checkrides with the DE. I found that most issues during the oral were just the examiner wanting to hear things exactly the way he wanted them.
 
Here's what the deal is. Long time ago 141 flight schools did all their initials in house. Then the FAA came along and did their power trip thing and made it only through FSDO's. Well They quickly found out that there was no way they could handle the volume of rides especially at certain FSDO's so they decided to starting giving the privileges back to select schools. Now a days the large majority of big 141 schools or universities do it all in house again. For you certain people that call this unfair.. well im not even going to start because your the people that complain about everything in life and especially this industry and its not even worth arguing with certain people on this board.
 
FlySooner9 said:
Here's what the deal is. Long time ago 141 flight schools did all their initials in house. Then the FAA came along and did their power trip thing and made it only through FSDO's. Well They quickly found out that there was no way they could handle the volume of rides especially at certain FSDO's so they decided to starting giving the privileges back to select schools. Now a days the large majority of big 141 schools or universities do it all in house again. For you certain people that call this unfair.. well im not even going to start because your the people that complain about everything in life and especially this industry and its not even worth arguing with certain people on this board.
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We didn't have examining authority but the stage checks at my university flight program were much more challenging than any check ride I've ever taken. That includes the CFI initial at the Portland FSDO.
 
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