Quote from Gary:
" So, the FAA stepped in, most likely at the request of the NTSB and designed a little extra safety measure and required at least an instructor's signoff for the tailwheel endorsement. "
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When one reads a statement like the above and it is from an American it means that the " instructor " must hold an instructors rating to do the training.
That is an FAA thing, in the rest of the world an instructors rating is only needed for doing pilots licenses, other training such as sea plane ratings, IFR ratings and type ratings can be done by pilots who have xxx amount of experience in the aircraft being used for the check out.
For decades I have tried to get an exemption from the FAA to do PBY type ratings in the USA to to avail because the bureaucracy is set in concrete....so what I do is I give the training to the pilots and bring them up to a high standard of flying skills on the on the PBY and then some designated FAA inspector does some flying with them and issues the type rating.
The FAA is the only agency on earth that still insists that I get a certified flight instructors rating to give this kind of instruction and I respond by telling them O.K. you have a deal as long as you will pay for the frontal lobotomy I will need to study and remember all the material you insist I must learn to get your certified flight instructors license, because in the final analysis all that stuff will be of no real advantage in teaching someone to fly a PBY.
Anyhow the real problem in todays world of aviation is finding someone that is truly competent to teach tail wheel flying and just because he / she holds a CFI license that means very little is far as the quality of instruction you will receive.
And before anyone gets the wrong impression...yes I at one time held a CFI, however once I no longer needed it I let it lapse.
Chuck E.
