DC-ATE, I agree, a bee or a sparrow is prefferable to an FAA guy in the jump seat. Several times I couldn't do the safest thing because the FAA guy was watching so had to obey the letter of the law. One time in a 737 descending to 8,000 ft the controller said expedite through 9,000, opposite direction traffic at 10,000. Because of the FAA guy I deployed the speedbrakes leveling at 10 to 250 knots to avoid a violation. Only the FAA adminstrator can authorize more than 250 below 10 is what I told the FAA guy quoting their regulations. I was VMC so made sure it wasn't going to require an emergency violation of FAR's. Any other day I would have complied.