Originally Posted by
Horatio Leafblower
I suggest that the professional indemnity insurance now required of ATOs/Flight Examiners will be the end of industry testing officers.
It will start with regional airports, and only the big schools will be able to maintain the insurance.
It has started already - to get an IPC from our base in Scone we have to go to Inverell, Sydney, Coffs or Port Macquarie to get to the "nearest" qualified ATO.
There's nobody in Tamworth that can do it - BAe/CAE keep to themselves and the CASA FOIs don't do it any more.
CASA won't let me upgrade my rating to do IPCs because despite being a Chief Pilot for most of the last 20 years, assessing and grading and coaching instrument flying for the 40+ pilots that I have employed, I haven't had enough experience teaching Bloggs how to do ADF intercepts.
...minimum 500 hours of IFR instructional experience to qualify to be assessed as a IFR testing officer. Tossers.
The minimum FER IR testing experience requirements are only listed on the application form and are something a paper pusher has plucked out of a part of their body they spend most of the day resting on. CASR 61.1310 does not list any minimum hours requirement. Your experience as chief pilot checking pilots is equal to the experience requirements acceptable as a CAO 82.0 check pilot. If I was you I’d explore the provision in their form under section F as an alternative level of experience.
https://www.casa.gov.au/file/185216/...token=sE5Tdzec
The lack of assessable Flight Examiners is a real threat to the Australian Aviation industry. Most, if not all, FER holders are associated with a flight training organisation of some sort. This does not meet the intent of ICAO guidelines, it fosters potential conflicts of interest. Examiners are supposed to be independent of training providers and allocated randomly by the CASA flight testing office.