"Robert M. Gary" wrote in
oups.com:


Judah wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote in
oups.com:

If the FAA finds out that the plane has not been properly maintained,
they are obviously going to take action to ensure that the problem gets
corrected. In reality, all the pilots who flew it in that condition may
have violated FAA regulations. However, as a CFI, you are not only
supposed to know how to determine if the plane was safe, you are also
supposed to be training pilots how to do the same. If, after being
chastised by the FAA, you STILL don't know what the problem was, or how
to have detected it, I would be concerned that you do not take
seriously your RESPONSIBILITY as a CFI to both your students and to the
FAA.

I guess that's me. I can't remember the last time I took an inspection
panel off and noticed a lose bell crank on the aileron assembly. I
can't remember the last time I checked the bolts that secure the seat
to the plane. I think you have a *very* optimistic view of the FSDO. In
this case, the FSDO had a beef with the FBO and wanted to scare CFIs
away.

-Robert, CFII

Maybe... FSDOs are run by people, and certainly not all people are
reasonable. There used to be a guy at the local FSDO who was clearly just a
ballbuster, and didn't really care about his job, about aviation, or about
his responsibilty to the public. Certainly there are others like him out
there, but I suspect that the FAA in general is not overrun with people
like him.

I also can't imagine that a FSDO inspector simply walked up to the plane
and randomly opened an inspection panel and found a loose bell crank. Could
it be that there was some other symptom that caused the inspector to draw
his attention there? Perhaps this symptom should have been noticed by a
pilot and especially a CFI?