Myths and Complaints About Designated Pilot Examiners Discussed

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As someone who has been acting as a DPE for a significant period of time and still currently provide CFI services to clients, I hear all kinds of assumptions and myths about DPEs.

After recently encountering a few of these myths, I thought I’d try to help explain the job that DPEs do and the services we provide to the aviation training community. There are many myths and misconceptions about why DPEs do some of the things they do, and I think it is important to help dispell them.

While I don’t claim to speak for all DPEs, I wouldn’t be surprised if many examiners would agree with my observations on the following.

Examiners Charge too Much, Need to Charge Less, or Should Provide Practical Tests for Free

Yes, we actually get told that examiners should do this for free, should not charge any more than a flight instructor charges per hour, or that the FAA should have a capped national price level.

Ok, “free” is just a silly recommendation. As an examiner, I can come back and say, “then why don’t flight training providers provide their aircraft for free?” Their answer is that they are in business to make money. The same is true of examiners. We work hard to gain the skill and experience to become examiners, keep our qualifications current, and provide the service. Charging for that service is a business endeavor. If examiners couldn’t expect reasonable compensation, why should they do the job?

I personally wouldn’t bother to go through all of the work and take on the liability that comes with being an examiner for free. Continue reading →

Government Shutdown Effects on FAA Testing/Training

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UPDATE 2:30pm 1/22/18 – A short term funding extension has been passed so tomorrow things should be back up and running. As long as no other shutdowns develop, it should be back to normal operatons.

Deja Vu all over again. I wrote almost the same thing in 2013. So, it made figuring out the effects easy(ish) again.

We all are hoping that the government shutdown will be over soon, but in the meantime, a few effects that will be felt during any continued government shutdown on airman testing, training, or certification: Continue reading →

Local Airport Conditions Information (and a Lack Therof) During Winter Operations

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While we all may be starting to wish Old Man Winter will take his leave of us soon, we still have a couple months of operating our aircraft, and Wings of Mercy trips during the colder season. This season brings with it challenges for pilots in obtaining current information about runway conditions that can be important to our decisions of what taxiways, runways, or even airports may be the best to use for some of our flights.

NOTAMs are the primary official delivery mechanism for current information such as closures of things like runways, taxiways, or even airports, but many times these are not issued for very “temporary” conditions. Which means a pilot may not be able to find critical information for flight operations through official sources. Certainly, check those NOTAMs, but in some cases, at smaller airports that may have less staffing infrastructures and official reporting practices especially, a well-placed phone call prior to a departure when any questions exist can be well worth the time.

Not all airports are all that good about getting current NOTAMs out for changing conditions. In many cases, airports are plowed, operated, and/or managed by the local municipality who has little interaction or even interest with day-to-day flight operations. Local road crews just plow the runway as a part of their normal route. Sometimes, this is right after the storm, sometimes, it can be days. Knowing what current conditions really are may mean doing a little more research than a pre-flight briefing. Continue reading →

CFI Staffing Availability for Flight Training Providers in Consideration of Certification Trends and Compensation Practices

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Flight training as a business has been going through changes in the past few years. In some respects, it is growing up and becoming a more stable, more mature business offering training for students seeking career pilot employment. These changes are consolidating where training takes place and include fundamental changes in the approach that must be taken to successfully provide career focused training. With these changes there has been a shift away from a traditionally smaller footprint, local airport, business model to one that is focused an economically successful model while continuing to provide output of pilots needed to meet industry pilot hiring needs.

As flight training for career focused pilots funnels more would be professional pilots to academy, collegiate and university, and large footprint training providers, this change allows businesses to actively take advantage of economies of scale in training with respects to overhead, assets utilized in training, and securing of adequate staff to provide the training services.

A realistic evaluation of the flight training business will recognize that the historic methodology of providing training at small scale training providers with minimal flight instructor staff and limited aircraft resources is not able to meet the current modern demand of output for career pilots. Lack of standardization in training, lack of available funding for pilot trainees, and lack of full time instructors to provide training result in training delays and cost increases for customers seeking training. These and other detracting considerations often drive customers seeking professional pilot careers to overlook any convenience that might be gained by training close to home with many smaller scale training providers. Many of these customers now seek training from larger scale training providers, even if it means travelling to the training.

In addition to efficiencies and conveniences provided to customers by larger footprint training providers, many of these providers also have developed strong partnerships with airlines and other professional pilot employing companies. These hiring relationships are developed as employers seek to fill professional pilot positions and develop recruitment relationships with the training providers that are putting out the largest number of certified pilots who may be employable. Doing this allows potential employers to maximize their hiring efforts by recruiting pilots from training providers who are putting out large numbers of applicants (hundreds and in some cases thousands per year) instead of having to visit multiple smaller training providers who are putting out only a few pilots per year, which can increase the human resource cost of recruitment.

As the customer base for training becomes more savvy, these hiring relationships are seen as reasons to seek training from particular training providers and the market of customers further funnels from local small scale training providers to larger providers. Some of these providers have national scale training operations. Continue reading →