Thanks JP. Would FAA Inspectorate insist on having a Check Pilot under assessment conduct a check on a real candidate (ie. Pilot out of proficiency) with FAA Inspector sitting in row 1 observing?
I don’t definitively know the answer. My guess is no. In fact they’d probably insist that it wasn’t . Here’s why - If the flight had been successful, how could the Chief Pilot, and now Check Airmen sign off the student ? At the time of the check, the Chief Pilot wasn’t qualified to assess the student. He wasn’t a Check Airmen until they landed and an FOI signed him off. On the other hand; given the dynamics of a small company, and humans being human. I’m not shocked that it occurred.
The logical choice for the person in the left seat was the FOI. That negates the ‘qualified pilot is too easy’ excuse, and is the safest choice (on paper). Using a real student in the left seat sounds more like an experiment, or an attempt to throw randomness into what should be a well defined process of assessment.
I
assume that the FOIs justification was thus - he’d assess them both at the same time. He was qualified to assess both the inductee pilot, and the Chief Pilot for their new qualifications. As someone mentioned earlier, this would have halved the cost to the company.