CFI Checkrides

Depends. If they can schedule you w/i 30 days and they are willing to
(I didn't have brakes on the right seat so the FAA wouldn't do it) they
assign a DE. You CANNOT choose your DE though for the inital CFI
checkride. After the inital you can pick your favorite DE.

"Robert M. Gary" <rmg1@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1105319864.477235.207790@c13g2000cwb. o...
> Depends. If they can schedule you w/i 30 days and they are willing to
> (I didn't have brakes on the right seat so the FAA wouldn't do it) they
> assign a DE. You CANNOT choose your DE though for the inital CFI
> checkride. After the inital you can pick your favorite DE.
>

Careful with absolutes when dealing with FSDOs. I got to choose mine.

DE's with CFI authority tend to protect that a lot. Its a "cool"
authority to have.

> It is my understanding the CFI checkrides are conducted by an
'actual' FAA
> official and can't be done with a designated examiner? Is this
correct?

As with all FSDO-related questions, the answer is "It depends on your
FSDO."

All I can really tell you about is the Houston FSDO. Here's how it
works here:

All initial CFI rides must be taken with an FAA Inspector. No
exceptions. Doesn't matter how long it takes, either - if you think
the Houston FSDO is going to let you fly with a DE just because they
can't get you an inspector in 30 days, dream on. Usually they will get
to you in 30 days though.

All initial CFI rides are done by a crew of three - one from ops and
two from airworthiness. The guy from ops starts your oral. The guys
from airworthiness go over your plane (mostly logbooks - they don't
know too much about actual airplanes). The ride ends when the plane
gets grounded. If you have the temerity to question their decision
(such as - that placard is perfectly legible, there's only a slight
curl at the corner) you get written up for flying an unairworthy
airplane. This is where most of the failure rate comes from.

The Houston FSDO does very few initial CFI checkrides. Most of the
locals go to Colorado to a school that has in-house authority.

I actually took my initial CFI ride locally - but not with a Houston
FSDO inspector. I took it in a glider, and the FSDO did not have a
glider-qualified examiner on staff at the time. Thus they had to ship
one in from another FSDO. The FAA has no travel budget, so the only
way for him to get there was to fly the jump seat on an airliner and
line check the crew. I chose a location well away from a major hub, so
he would have to take a commuter flight with no room for any additional
staff. People in the FSDO are either ops or maintenance, never both -
so that meant nobody could come with him to ground the glider. On top
of that the glider was nearly new.

I really would not worry about the CFI ride if I were you. There isn't
much to it. People make a big deal out of it, but really the hardest
part is jumping through the FAA hoops. Truly if you have even minimal
flying skills, can halfway teach, and have read the FAA publications
and can recall what's in them, you will breeze right trhrough the ride.
The hard part is getting an aircraft the FAA won't ground.

Michael

Well, hopefully this will get posted. My news server decided that it
does not like my IP address and will not let me in, so I am having to
post using Google.

The flying club that I was in down there had 3 172's and 3 152's and it
was kind of a know rule that you did not spin the 172's as they were
also for pleasure/x-country flights for the club members and the 152's
were for training only. So you did not spin the 172's because they did
not like having the gyros tumbles in the planes that brought in more
money for the risk of having them go down for maintanence.


Scott D.

CJ. I am one in the same. I am just having to go thru google to post
instead of using Agent which is my newreader client of choice because
of an IP issue with the new server, so I have a different header and
signature.

Scott D.