Examiners testing their own students

[Cylinder Head]

I have probably been asleep and missed a discussion on this already but from 8th April 2015, it would appear that:


"The requirement is to be amended so that an examiner may test a student to whom they have given up to 25% of the instruction for the licence, rating or certificate."


Thanks to Flight Training News, I picked up the detail, see section 2.11 of IN-2014/188 that says FCL1005(a) is to be amended. Hurrah, whilst there are good arguments for independent examiners, this means that flying schools may once again be able to part finance post-holders' salaries from examination income rather than have income going out of the school. About time too! CH

[Spunk]

Well, the money stays inside the school, quality stays outside. I see a further decrease in the quality of training.
Examiners being prejudiced against the proband and/or examiners under the influence of their paycheck writer is definetly the wrong way to increse flight safety.

[Hughes500]

Spunk what tosh you talk ! It now means that as an examiner ( in a small company) I can check the progress of a student and how well my instructors are instructing. On the old system we were allowed to do 10% of the tuition which meant checking a student before 1 st solo and before 1st solo xc nav exercise plus anything else such as EOL's to the ground which are sadly not part of the syllabus and you will find most junior instructors are incapable of doing.
We are obviously not allowed to examine the student on his skills test if we have given more than this so what is the problem ?

[Spunk]

@Hughes500
I still disagree. To me it makes a difference whether it's just one or two stage checks or 25 % of 45 hours (11:25 hours).
I know that you are a true professional Hughes500 and I assume that you are without bias on your skill tests but believe me: there are/will be those who are not.

[jayteeto]

Hughes, I know where he is coming from. In a well run organisation like yours, everything is fine and dandy. However there are people out there who will manipulate the system. That said, commercial companies have their own examiners for renewals and initial issues of type ratings. Can't see any difference from that, it's not like any of them sharp pencil statistics..................

[cattletruck]

I was examined by one of my instructors, a well known industry stalwart, it sure wasn't a gravy train to a PPL ticket by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I was so sure he was going to bust my b@lls that I resigned myself to just enjoying the experience regardless of the outcome.

And yes, he had me drive that sh!tty r22 at its limits throughout most of the test . I don't want to give the plot away but it really was a great way to bring out one's adaptability at flying on the "limit". I was technically still under supervision but always a gnats d!ck away from failing.

I'm not someone who likes to live in denial and to this day I really appreciate the extensive level of training I'd reached just to get the basic level of PPL.

Compare that to my plank test where I was examined by the then CAA by an official "Examiner of Airmen". He asked me to do a short-field landing and stick it on the runway heading numbers. I turned around and asked him "at the top or at the bottom". The look on his face and the fact that he didn't answer my question gave the game away of how low a standard of student comes through the testing gates. I planted it right in the middle.