Personally I find the widespread adult illiteracy (UK and USA) to be one of the biggest struggles in life.
I think a lot of people who in decades past would have ended up doing manual work (much of which is now gone) have been thrust into IT-supported customer-facing jobs, and they can't cope.
But they need to keep their job, to pay the mortgage, food, etc.
They then hide behind the regs as they are written and make life difficult for everybody.
Rarely a truer word been spoken !
When I was living in Houston, a few of my friends were going for their instructor ratings. The Houston FSDO was particularly aggressive with checks. Most of the time, you can't fly with a DE for your initial flight instructor ticket, you have to fly with an FAA examiner. (In the US, most examiners are freelancers, designated to be examiners by the FAA, hence DE, and do the lions share of skills tests).
What the Houston FSDO did (and probably still does) is firstly insist you bring TWO airplanes (unless, I suppose, you have an F33A (aerobatic Beech Bonanza)) because the flight instructor skill test must be taken in a 'complex' aircraft (retractable gear, flaps plus controllable prop) and they also want you to demonstrate a spin. Most of the retract gear planes aren't approved for spins. When the FAA examiner shows up, he also shows up with three airworthiness inspectors who go over every inch of the planes you bring. And they will ground the aircraft if they find so much as a placard 10 degrees off level and prosecute you for not much more (especially if you flew it into wherever you were taking the test).
I remember watching one of my friends sweating and spending a whole week going over his aircraft with a fine toothcomb (he was going to do the test in his syndicate's Piper Arrow) and spending much time with the A&P going over every possibility. The only saving grace is the inspectors aren't allowed to open anything up, they can only inspect what they can see.
This sort of thing often lead to FSDO shopping. Same thing with 337 forms. Houston FSDO wouldn't approve any 337s.
This sort of thing often lead to FSDO shopping.
I think that despite stuff like the above, the FAA is still much better than EASA.
Inside EASA, it needs only a very small number of people to influence policy. Or to run a politically motivated private project... and if your EASA contact says NO you can't install 2 x GNSx30 (but 1 is OK) then it's the end of the road for you unless you throw €xxxx to an EASA 21 company.
In the FAA, this abuse isn't possible (also due to the power of the US AOPA lobby etc) so while you can get an FSDO with these characters, one can go to a different FSDO. For Europe, for example, the responsible FSDO (the NY IFU) doesn't do avionics 337s and they don't understand the technology anyway. So most avionics shops either stick to STCd items, or they get a DER to do an 8110 form and they send the 337 with that, straight to Oklahoma for filing. So you have a solution; a way forward.
Plus the FAA has a good guidance on Minor mods, which enables a lot more stuff to be done in a manner which can be defended by any intelligent A&P/IA.
Houston FSDO wouldn't approve any 337s.
That is completely outrageous, don't you think? All this tells one is that somebody has managed to set up a private empire in there.
And they will ground the aircraft if they find so much as a placard 10 degrees off level and prosecute you for not much more
What exactly do they prosecute one for?
If they ground the aircraft, you need to rectify whatever they don't like and they have to unground it.
BTW I think a DPE can do the initial CFI/CFII checkride, but the FAA has the right to substitute one of their own staff examiners. OTOH anybody in Europe doing a CFI or CFII will in reality go to the USA anyway.
Re FSDO shopping for Field Approvals - its common practice. A friend built (or more properly assembled over several years starting with components from several aircraft) a Globe Swift with so many mods it'd take an hour to describe them all. Everything from different engine, sticks versus yokes, modified wing, different canopy etc. The FSDO that signed them off was on the other side of the country but had previously done a similar aircraft for a friend of the owner.
A highly experienced pilot I know just got his instructor rating for the first time from the local FSDO. The check ride with the DPE was nothing like that described. Its a buddy system at all levels, or not as the case may be. Having instructor buddies does make it relatively simple and free to get BFRs done & signed off.
What exactly do they prosecute one for?
If you flew the aircraft to wherever you're taking the test, they prosecute you for flying an aircraft that wasn't airworthy. It's quite rare that an actual prosecution takes place, I think mostly because CFI applicants took the precaution of not flying to the checkride.
While it's true a DE can do an initial CFI checkride, in certain FSDOs (certainly true of the Houston FSDO when I lived there), they exercise their right to use an FAA examiner 100% of the time. Other FSDOs are different, hence the "FSDO shopping."
In practise it seemed like the Houston lot when I lived there were a bit like Jekyll and Hyde. Get the right officer and the right day and they could be really good. They were doing a lot of things to help GA owners and pilots, but at the same time they were subjecting anyone going for an initial CFI to a bit of an ordeal and the 337 thing was a long running issue.
(In all US checkrides you have to show the aircraft is airworthy. All of mine involved showing the DE that the documentation was in order, ADs had been complied with etc. as you're supposed to know all this stuff to act as PIC so it's entirely reasonable to be a subject of the checkride. However, a checkride with a DE never involved FAA inspectors crawling over the aircraft doing an incredibly pedantic inspection).
In all US checkrides you have to show the aircraft is airworthy
Very true, but it is a bit of a charade when the aircraft belongs to the school whose owner is also the DPE 
I can well imagine that for most private owners this could be a real gotcha, since probably 100% of planes are not 100% up to date when it comes to every possible placard.
Well, in my case my own aircraft went through it with a DE (my syndicate partner was a flight instructor, his very first student learned in our Cessna 140... I don't know who was more nervous on the student's first solo - my syndicate partner, the student, or me worrying about my plane getting pranged!), and in the case of a DE usually the check is practical and reasonable: if the student shows the logbooks and the DE can see the ADs have been done, and the weight and balance chart is present and up to date etc. etc. they aren't going to complain about a curled placard, especially if the plane you brought with you looks well looked after. Our C140 was very definitely not a shed, we kept her very shiny (half polished, half painted. You wouldn't believe how much work keeping the polished bits polished are in a humid environment). And all my checkrides with a DE - I was flying club aircraft, and the DE was always an independent - it was a non event since they didn't do unreasonably pedantic inspections.
The difference with the FAA inspectors is that at least the Houston FSDO ones had the reputation for grounding aircraft for a curled placard and could easily give the aircraft's owner a lot of grief over some trivial stuff that had no actual practical airworthiness implications.
Peter
Was the audit done at a company which is an FAA Part 145 Repair Station? Otherwise, how did the FAA know you were having an Annual done there?
It was at Marshall's. The FAA didn't know that the aircraft is in,they cameto check the company as a whole and were pleased to see my little Comanche on jacks. Ben
The FAA didn't know that the aircraft is in,they cameto check the company as a whole and were pleased to see my little Comanche on jacks
"Hi, I'm from the FAA and we're not happy till you're not happy" :-) That was the standing joke.
It was at Marshall's. The FAA didn't know that the aircraft is in,they cameto check the company as a whole and were pleased to see my little Comanche on jacks. Ben
According to their website Marshalls are a FAR145 company (as well as EASA145 and everything else possible under the sun).
This means they are going to get regularly hit by the FAA. Every FAA 145 Repair Station I know of in the UK gets inspected by the FAA fairly regularly. And some have been done for various stuff the inspector didn't like. It seems clear the inspections are far tighter than the UK CAA (EASA145) ones.
I know nothing of Marshalls (never used them myself) but the worst cases of nonexistent maintenance (a plane which has very visibly not seen a drop of grease in years if not decades), bodges, crap work, and downright dangerous stuff that I have seen (e.g. control linkages cutting into a cable harness) were done by "145" companies. So in a perverse way I am not suprised the FAA watches them.
The problem is that in a 145 company the approval is vested in the organisation, not in an individual A&P/IA whose goolies (and livehood) get chopped off if he signs for a bodge which turns out to be bad enough to have been obviously in place when he signed off the airframe. An IA can get banned for life and I know of cases in the UK.
