We've been without a POI for a year. The Nashville FSDO has been farming out all our CFI initials to the DPE's. I was one of the last to get my ride with the FAA. It was kinda nice that the guy I had was about to retire, so he wasn't trying to prove anything.

OK does it in a similar fashion. You call the FSDO and if the wait is longer than 30 days, then they give you the option to call a DPE, only difference is no waiver number system. Over the last year or so the wait seemed to hang around 3-6 weeks.

I cant speak for all fsdos but when I did my checkride I had to go out of district because my area did not have any available for the time I needed (i was a special case, got a letter of continuance for maintenance issues and then my fsdo inspector went on two weeks vacation and I was leaving the military and moving from the west to the east coast so they accomodated me by sending me out of district)

I was actually given a waiver number and a name and number to call for the checkride and as far as I knew there were two or three guys that had authorization to give the rides and the fsdo rotates one for each since they did not have any one who could do the rides at the fsdo. The way they made it sound is no one at all, not just available.

as for going out of district to get a dpe and not the fsdo it is next to impossible (but not impossible) They do not want people who live in texas to do all of their training and then fly to nevada because they can get a dpe so the end result of calling the XYZ states fsdo will be "here is the number to your local fsdo, give them a call and they can accomodate you" Trust me, I tried every state and district when it came down to me moving across country in one week and no checkride in sight just trying to get it done

Private Glider Checkride (11/05 in Boulder, CO) = $250
Private Airplane Checkride (7/06 in Santa Rosa, CA) = $350
Instrument Rating Checkride (8/07 in Santa Rosa, CA) = ???

I will let you know about my instrument checkride cost soon. I am taking my checkride within the next two weeks.

I agree that anything over $400 is rediculous!

Most Initials in S.FL are running $450 - my students are paying $350 and $400 for other rides. For what it's worth.

USMC,

It varies by FSDO. STL is the same way. In fact, 99% of the time you call and they just tell you to call a DPE. I was "lucky" and took it with a Fed. In the two months I waited between the oral and flight I spent as much as I would have for a DPE trying to stay current.

I had a guy tell me $800 for the CFI. I laughed and hung up on him without saying anything else. $400 is the going rate around here for a CFI initial. After that it's anywhere from $200-300.

Really, I think anything more than $200 is insane. Most do it off the books (you are paying cash) and most checkrides shouldn't be more than 4 hours with the exception of the CFI initial. I think $50 an hour is more than a fair rate when most of these people are doing it for extra cash.