"Who was your DAR? Was his whole inspection only 4 hours?"
I wish my DAR had been that thorough
when I had my ES inspected. The guy I had was a total joke. He
showed up, asked to see my paperwork, did about a five minute walkaround
during which he stuck his head in the door for a quick peek at my panel, then
went to a desk where he filled out his forms, gave me my airworthiness
certificate and operating limitations, collected a $400 check for his
services and left. When I offered to show him my builder's log and photo
album, both of which which I'd taken great pains to put together, he
wasn't interested. I got the feeling I was keeping him from a tee time or
something. I don't think he was there for more than half an hour
total.
One of the guys in the builder assist
shop where I was at the time knew the DAR and he'd told him that he
could tell within a few minutes if a plane was airworthy or not. Since my
plane was built at a shop he knew about and who's work he was familiar with, I
guess he didn't feel it necessary to do a thorough inspection. I was very
tempted to lodge a complaint with the local FSDO, which in retrospect, I
probably should have done.
Thankfully, when Orin came to do my
first flight about a week later, he spent several hours over two different days
going over EVERYTHING from nose to tail with me, pointing out several things
that needed tweaking in the process. Only when he was done did I feel
fully confident that the plane was ready to fly.
In contrast to my inspector, I've
heard of some DARs that go way overboard, going so far as to check control
travel down to a tenth of a degree and nitpicking over some incredibly obtuse
items. Jeff's sounds like a pretty good one to me, somewhere in the middle
- thorough without being obsessive. Wish I'd had him myself!
Skip Slater