South County DAR
Agree with Kevin,
Both my 9A and an RV-6 from my EAA chapter were inspected and given the green light to fly on the same day at Frazier Lake Airpark just down the road from you. The San Jose FSDO was great and the process was painless and free. Simply call them and set up a date for them to look things over, and send them the paper work to prepare in advance. For a test area both Don Carr (beautiful RV-6) and I bought charts and highlighted the area that we would like. I was told that if the airways were X'ed ouy from within the test area that we would get a much larger test area so that is exactly what I did. The FSDO is very serious about keeping you away from other traffic while testing. The test area I received was from Los Banos to Harris Ranch, over to the Big Sur Coast, up the coast to just north of Santa Cruz and back to Los Banos. I was given Hollister as an alternate airport to land at for fuel or pattern work since the home field was grass. When the desire to just cruise and burn up some of the hours occurred the ride around the edges took about an two hours to cover at least. Not that is doesn't happen, but I haven't heard of the DAR's being this generous with a test area. Maybe they are more conservative to not step on the toes of the FAA and abuse their powers, but the test areas I've read about given from the DAR's always seems tighter than what we received. The FAA inspectors showed up in their suits and spent most of their time looking at the FWF. There was no crawling around inside of the airplane and looking at everything so if you desire this a DAR is a much better choice! Lastly, check with San Jose EAA chapter 62's vice president Brian Del Porto who is a tech counceler and possably a DAR. If he isn't he can steer you in the right direction. I think he knows just about everybody.
Best of luck,
