lbell

They aren't paying for it, as they are just giving you an "advance" of your sign on bonus. So if you don't have the $$$ and would have to stop all your flying, then sign the contract & do it. If you have the funds, a3md want to go work for a different Regional (say one that isn't offering this program), then use your own funds, and pay yourself back, when you get hired & get that sign on bonus.

Macchi30

What regionals do that?

Also, I did my initial CFI for less than $1,500 (including DPE fee). I worked part time helping out at a “Part 141” (we were really just Part 61 that happened to have a part 141 cert, and used an online ground school). Anyways. I worked part time there, so I got a discount on airplane rental, and I made friends with the instructors there. So, they’d give me free instruction, and go do maneuvers with me for free. I just had to pay for the plane. As far as the ground stuff went. I’d just show up at the school and practice on the white board. When instructors would come back from flights, I’d ask if they could critique my lessons. It took me about 2 months though.

I wish I had stayed and did this same thing with my CFII. But I believed if I went to a school in Florida, I could get it done quick and cheap. I went to Epic for their fast track CFII course. But in reality, I spent WAY more than I did at my old school, and it still, took me 1.5 months. Way more stress too. It wasn’t worth it.

Captainfit

Mesa offers a program where they take money from your bonus, and give it to you for your CFI. I believe PSA does as well.

Da40Pilot

I paid about $10k for all 3.

nate5ks

Wow, what FSDOs were doing this?

JamesNoBrakes

There are plenty of horror stories out there. Also DPEs doing 8hr and longer orals, absolute craziness. It may be that some examiners, FAA and DPE, don't need to be doing CFI checks, because they are poor examiners. You have to be your own advocate and realize what is required for the check. I believe the standards only have you teach one subject, the other subjects your instructional and functional knowledge is evaluated. No one can sit there and ask every question about every subject, if we did, a private pilot oral would also take 8+ hours. Even in flight, no one is going to point out all the relevant points about a maneuver while performing it. When it comes to the oral and flight, certain subjects are chosen and evaluated. It shouldn't be a multi-day torture affair. It might be a challenging check, but you should know the standards front and back and if it starts wandering off, you need to stop the check, get "ill", whatever you have to do. Don't complete anything, don't sign anything, ask to speak to the DPE manager or FAA manager and tell them the story. Checkrides don't have hour "limits" persay, but some of the stuff I know has gone on is just unacceptable. I had a student get one of those 8 hour orals once and as the first day "concluded", I spoke to their manager and said they either need to pass the person or fail them. There was an attitude for a time, hopefully many years behind now, that examiners in general should just "fail" the applicant the first time. This was not started by the FAA or DPEs, but at some point it become "culture" for some of them and that culture was passed on. This of course is a ridiculous way of thinking and it violates all sorts of rules of teaching and fundamentals of instruction. It *may* have been a strategy at one point for DPEs to not have to have the FAA watch their checks ever, as in their pass-rate wasn't "perfect" when they were arbitrarily "failing" people. FAA guidance states that if someone has a perfect pass rate, we may need to watch some checks and just assure that the standards are being maintained, but it in no way means that the DPE is doing something wrong. At some point, this may have been misinterpreted. Of course, there were some legitimately bad DPEs that were passing everyone, but that's what the observations would usually turn up. If nothing was amiss, we moved on.

Most of these are very small % of the total, but that is some background on where/why it may happen.

Cruz5350

Are some FSDO’s still like this? Back when I took my CFII as my initial I had two 8 hour orals that ended in failures... I haven’t heard of this happening in a long time though and mine were from 2008.