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Old 02-19-2019, 09:22 AM
  #5  
JohnBurke
Disinterested Third Party
 
Joined APC: Jun 2012
Posts: 5,926
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Originally Posted by rickair7777 View Post
Just found out they're still in business, but the old man apparently was encouraged to stop doing checkrides.
That's not at all surprising.

I did a ride with him many years ago. I showed up the day before and was supposed to be getting instruction, for which I'd paid. The instructor was watching a football game and threw a manual at me and said to come back tomorrow prepared. I showed up in the cold and dark AM the next day, to find nobody around, the airplane locked. Sheble eventually showed up, told me to get in his car, because he wanted to go home and feed his cat. The chat on the way to the house, in his car, was the oral. Much of it had nothing to do with aviation.

In the airplane, we did three fast approaches into McCarran (gear up, not configured, just fly down the approach fast, such that the airplane flew about the same with or without the power pulled back on one engine. We flew to Needles; no maneuvering, and landed at Bullhead City, where he spent several hours conducting company business while I waited. Then we flew to Needles, flew an approach, and landed. I sat on the ground while he conducted checkrides in the airplane, for other people, and late, at the end of the day, he landed and told me to fly him home. On the way he asked if I wanted to wear a hood. Also if I wanted to do any maneuvers. We cut an engine, also did a steep turn and a couple other things, and landed at Henderson.

My "checkride" amounted to chauffeuring him around to conduct his business and waiting on him while he gave revenue checkrides...during my checkride. A checkride that came with no prep or training, though I'd paid for it.

On the ground, he gave a canned speech about "time building," and suggested that new pilots should falsify their logbooks to get the time needed to get a job. If their moral compass bothered them, he said, then the pilot could simply not log time later on, to make it "balance out." I wasn't in need of his advance, hours, or trouble with the FAA, so smiled, took my signoff, and went my way.

That his practices may have caught up with him is absolutely no surprise to me. Back in the day, all the "ditch" pilots went to him for their ATP, and he had a roaring trade in certificates and ratings, land and sea.

Very much a certificate mill.
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