inspection of FAA examiners, ahhhhhh, long

Mr. Eiler (I hope I have this right) had
asked about some of my conversations with some examiners and about
their supervision in an old post.

Someone had mentioned as well (maybe it was Mr. Eiler)
that one examiner hadn't had an exam check in 13 years, and
another examiner had a 100% pass rate for many years with
no inspections/sit ons on the test.

I may be misrepresenting this from my recollection, but in any case,
I found at least one reference for the conversations I'd had
with examiners, and they seem consistent:

Order 8710-7 Sport Pilot Examiner Handbook

Chapter 4-2

All examiners must be inspected once a year for renewal. Inspections
must include at least one visit every year by a Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) Aviation Safety Inspector (ASI).

The following circumstances may cause the need for further
inspections of an examiner during the year.

(1) High activity examiners (...over 50 tests in a quarter)
(2) A examiner's practical test passing rate exceeds 90 percent.
(3) ...certification file errors exceed 5 times in 12 months
(4) an examiner is the subject of a valid complaint
(5) an examiner is involved in an accident, incident, or violation
of the regulations.

***********

So what is an "inspection?" I don't know if this is sitting in
on a test, or testing the examiner as if he was testing a student,
etc. Maybe either one.

Anyway, I also found page 5-16 interesting, where it
directs the examiner to advise the applicant that...

Perfection is not the standard.


I have found that examiners overall do a good job
following the standard, and allowing the tolerances
in the PTS, combined with good judgement, to apply a
fair test. I have also found when prepping applicants that
in almost all cases, the applicant either "gets it" or
"doesn't get it." I haven't seen many in-betweeners.

As far as my knowlege of examiners getting extra inspections,
I'm not aware of any that happened from "valid complaints,"
or from "file errors" but I am aware of (from readings but
not personal experience) added examiner inspections
for the other reasons.

The few times I have actually participated in ASI inspections
with an examiner were what I thought were routine yearly
inspections, but as Mr. Eiler pointed out, they may have
been to do an added checkup on the examiner or recommending
CFI. I do know of one examiner who gets inspected quite often
(several times a year) because he does hundreds of tests a year
AND he is an examiner for initial CFI applicants. But in
his case I haven't heard of any kind of problem, it's
just closer supervision by the FAA because he is so busy.

As far as glider examiners go, I have heard enough anectdotal stories
about non-PTS references being used and combining emergency
procedures with the standards for normal procedures, to
think that there is small but noticable variance in
examiner standardization for gliders. This appears to
be the case for at least half a dozen glider examiners.

I'd absolutely love to see an "glider examiner only" meeting
with DPEs and ASIs, perhaps at the next SSA convention, to
talk about standardization. Should slips to landing be
combined with normal landing tasks? What is the expectation
and tolerances for simulated off-field landings? How
sophisticated should the oral questioning be for weather or
ballast, etc? How many emergencies (no spoilers, no brakes,
no skid use on icy runway) can be combined and still
fail the applicant if he doesn't stop in x number of feet?
How broadly can the "other
references" be interpreted, excluding or including
certain common/obscure gliding or military references?

I think US soaring as a whole can benefit from a tighter
dialogue between the geographically widespread glider
examiners and ASIs. As a maybe glider SPE myself
(yeah, I know, in title only, since I'd be recommending
any initial glider SPs get the Private Glider instead)
I would love to get these answers from the glider DPE and
ASI community as a whole instead of just one glider ASI
at the SP examiner course.

Anyway, Santa will get my wish list early. Of course, if I only
had one wish, it would be for all the children of the world to
hold hands and sing in peace and harmony.

Cheers!

Mark

P.S. If I had two wishes, the first one would be the thing
with the kids, and my second wish would be for a big bag of
money. OK, ok, that's a Sat. Night Live skit, so I'll stop now...

--

------------+
Mark J. Boyd