Errrm... JAR FCL requires that to revalidate a C of E or T a pilot has to have satisfied 2 out of 3 criteria within the last 12 months of the last certificate, 12 Hrs of which 6 PIC (?), a flight with an instructor of at least one hour duration signed off in the logbook, a flight with an examiner. The last 13 month C of E under the old system will be signed off Jan 2000. Therefore, next year you could be asked to fly one of these instructor flights. You will then sign the relevant entry in their logbook to say that the flight was carried out to a satisfactory standard (should that be the case) or you don't sign if it isn't. If that is the case they either do the instruction you require or fly with an examiner (or they go to a different instructor
).
Some, but not all of the checkrides I've done have shown that PFL's, in particular, are very rusty. Indeed I normally try to treat it as a revision exercise because of the standard. Some didn't even seem to have ever fully stalled an aircraft and held it there.
If the checkride is now going to become a regulatory requirement for the C of E renewal surely that puts the instructor in the firing line if there's a subsequent accident down to poor skills. Having thought about the standards, you could just use the PPL skill test requirements but....how many PPL's, some with minimal experience since their last C of E/T, are going to match those standards.
In the GA magazines there was even some talk of instructors having to have some insurance against litigious third-parties. Now I'm not suggesting that we all rush off to phone direct line. There's a lot of noise and words about JAR and the PPL but not too much detail for those charged with implementing it.
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0 to 2000ft in 10 minutes
[This message has been edited by climbs like a dog (edited 07 October 1999).]