Get hold of Jim Casper. He’s close to CCR (Concord), but will go anywhere. While I did my IFR in a 172, and now own an 7a, he flies a 6a out of a club in CCR. He’s worked with a fellow 14a owner. Superb CFII.
His contact info is:
Seven zero seven 853 one four 14
ghost94590 at gmail dot com
I am not in California but am a CFI-I who recently trained a student in his RV-6 for his instrument rating in the KC area. The key was the personal relationship that the instructor has with the DPEs in the area. In addition to it being experimental, most of the RVs have some non-standard equipment (that is the way that we are) that need to be discussed with the DPE before the checkride. I called the DPE early on in the training and explained the situation and asked his advice on how to prepare the student. I think that if I had waited until the checkride that the advice or agreement to do the ride may have been different. There was a delay from scheduling and doing the checkride due to weather and the schedules of the DPE and student. If that happens, do not stop practicing! My student is happily flying all over the country now IFR.
Good luck.
John
... and the DPE is not really in the inspection business.
Oh they are now. The FSDO (at least in Oakland) has directed the DPEs to be more 'mindful' of discrepancies with the planes coming in for checkrides. This has led to a high amount of refused checkrides and multiple visits by our FSDO over the last 6 months. My club has had checkride applicants refused a checkride for items like small dings (even though the same DPE has given MANY checkrides in the same plane with the same small dent for the last 3 years), a missing cowl screw on a 172 (because those never fall out) and even because 'the signature on your 40 year old airworthiness certificate is too faded'.
So then the student leaves... pissed off. The DPE is telling them the plane is unairworthy, telling the FSDO who then comes out and follows up on the .5" wide, non critical dent some FOD did to the leading edge of the horizontal stab. We now have to get our A&P crew to sign off on every single little thing.
Thank you very much! Just to confirm Jim is a DPE or a CFI that may help with locating a DPE?
Johnny,
It’s ironic, but my glass RV7A is way easier to fly instruments than any rental I’ve had.
The scans are VERY different, conditioning with steam gauges does not lead an easy transition to glass.
my 2 cents, worth only as much as you paid for it. YMMV
2. The biggest differences I see are not specifically steam-glass, but rather gps moving map vs none. If I fail the gps during an IPC, give the pilot a few vectors, then ask for a random hold, the guy who learned without gps can do it. If I ask him to point towards the airport, and about how far away it is (in minutes), he can point to it and estimate the time. If I do the same thing with someone who learned with a moving map, it’s chaos. The hold might be anywhere; he has no idea where the airport is. Fortunately gps failures are fairly rare, but when it happens, it isn’t pretty.
It's tough. I did it a few years ago in my -7, and half of the DPEs around the Bay Area wouldn't do experimental, the other half wouldn't do tailwheel. I did mine with Richard Batchelder out of CCR, not sure if he does experimentals still. If I were to do it again, I'd seriously consider renting a Cessna for a few hours.