Originally Posted by
JohnBurke
I had a conversation one morning at ABQ with a pilot involved with the flight check, regarding ramp checks and inspectors. He said that there was a great deal of animosity between standards and flight check, and that he felt he got ramp checked more often than anyone, and that the standards inspectors were often trying to find ways to go after the flight check pilots. I found that quite interesting.
There are two thoughts to that idea.
One is that we get ramped more often because we are easy targets and they know that we are squared away with the paperwork and such rather than what they might find with some of the more shady operators out there - so in essence we are a *safe* ramp check.
The second is that a lot of ASI try to get on with Flight Check and if turned away they develop a *vengence* attitude towards Flight Check and end up with one o those attitudes that you have run across and shared in your stories.
I was ramped on our line right here in OKC quite some time ago by our very own POI. I'd put that instance squarely in the first category. I've not run across the second instance in my time here and can only relate 'experinces' of the guys who have been doing this job for 20-23 years plus.
It seems that the organziation is hiring more from the FSDOs of late than at others times in the past. I mentioned the two new hires in my office and I understand that there might be another one coming.
I'll say that if an ASI wasn't familiar with our operations requirements and some of the FAR waivers that we operate under that some of the flying that we do looks like we are 'flathatting'; but that applies to the general public too. I was checking obstructions on a VGSI in the course of commissioining a PAPI out in west central TX one time and the lone airplane on CTAF came up and wanted to know if what we were doing was "legal" because he felt that we were "buzzing the field" over and over for no reason