DPE SF Bay Area, California

[johnnyjr]

My CFI has started to reach out to local DPEs to schedule my checkride.  He has not found one that is comfortable completing a check ride in a CT, non of them have flown one and I think that is driving some reservation.

Does anyone have any information on DPEs in the SF Bay Area or Northern California?  Willing to travel if needed, hoping not to have to go too far.

 

Thank You,

Johnny

[Andrew Lane]

I did my private pilot check ride (in my CTLS) in San Diego with Barry Brocato. He’s also a pilot for American Airlines so perhaps his day job may take him up there. If not, it’s a beautiful 4hr flight down here to San Diego. If you come down, let’s get a picture of our birds together! His email is: barry767@cox.net

[johnnyjr]

Thank you Andrew.  I'll keep Barry on the list, have some feelers out locally as well.  A trip to SD would be great!  If I do end up down that way, for checkride or just a casual flight I'll get a hold of you.

 

[coppercity]

Hi Johnny,

 

You can try one of our DPE's Steve Brimmer, he occasionally travels to Ca. to do rides.  He is at 830-719-6123

[johnnyjr]

Thank you Eric, added Steve to my list as well.

Question for anyone in the know - Does a DPE need to have time in the CT in order to perform the checkride?

[Andrew Lane]

There is no legal requirement for a DPE to have already had time in a CT. The DPE may decline to do a checkout in any aircraft they aren’t comfortable with. 

[Tom Baker]

Unfortunately the CT like many other LSA are looked at by people in mainstream aviation as ultralights. And the damn sure don't want anything to do with ultralights. Once they get a chance to fly one and realize that they are real viable airplanes they are okay with them. I once had a DPE who flew charter into my airport. I talked him into doing a flight review for me in my CT. He spent more time flying the airplane than I did, and he came away with a whole different opinion on the airplane.

[coppercity]

Most DPE's if interested in performing a checkride in a CT will likely want to get a flight or two for familiarity.  We have made it a point to reach out to DPE's in the area and offer up free transition training in our CT just to broaden the base of available DPE's for CT students.  

[Kjohns]

Who do you end up using if I may ask?

[johnnyjr]

On 9/24/2019 at 4:43 AM, Andrew Lane said:

I did my private pilot check ride (in my CTLS) in San Diego with Barry Brocato. He’s also a pilot for American Airlines so perhaps his day job may take him up there. If not, it’s a beautiful 4hr flight down here to San Diego. If you come down, let’s get a picture of our birds together! His email is: barry767@cox.net

Spoke with Barry today, local options have slimmed down to just 2, 1 is busy with a corp jet job till August and the other has a failure rate I'm not interested in testing.  Barry sounds like a great guy and remembered you by name as soon as I mentioned the CT.  Planning to schedule for late March, sounds like a trip to SoCal is closer than I thought.