However, as an former AF checkpilot in
west wing we did see some pilots that had trouble with landings and
some even required the checkpilot to grab the controls.

I'm always somewhat sceptical when I hear something like that. This
person is flying around NOW without an instructor. How is he not
bending the airplane? What's different about THIS flight that required
intervention? Is it more likely that the instructor simply
over-reacted? Or that by his presence as an instructor he encouraged
the pilot to proceed into a bad situation where the pilot would
otherwise have bailed out sooner?

I've got my own horror stories of flying first missions with AFSC
pilots. There was the one who almost ran out of gas on a night-IFR
flight. There was the one who needed help of a simple ILS. But
somehow, we're not having accidents on Angel Flights - even when there
is no flight check, no requirement for an instrument rating, nothing.
That tells me that something is not right. I don't believe it's
possible for an instructor to sit in the right seat and NOT affect a
low-time pilot's decisionmaking, to make him willing to push further
into a difficult situation than he would normally. That's not a bad
thing when you're doing training - but it's not conducive to this sort
of evaluation.

The idea is that
when a person shows up to receive an AF flight, they have no way to
determine the ability of the pilot other than the fact that he's
wearing an AF ID card on his shirt. The feeling was that if we were be
given that responsibility, we should ensure pilots were ok.

And I can see the logic in that - but in that case, nothing short of a
true proficiency check will do.

The rides
were NEVER intended to be an FAA checkride, a BFR, an IPC or any of the
horror stories I've heard. It was supposed to be just a quick check
around the pattern.

Which, IMO, is the worst possible solution. If you do nothing, you can
at least honestly say that all you know about the pilot is that he
meets legal requirements. If you do a proper proficiency check, then
you can do something to assure a minimum standard over and above the
FAR's. But if you do something less than a proper proficiency check,
what have you learned?

I actually don't have a problem with accepting any
PPL with miminum hours, my problem was AF asking me, as a CFI, to sign
an orientation paper stating that I found the applicant to have good
flying judgement based on a reading of his log book.

I would have a problem with that too. In fact, I wouldn't do it.

This is really why I think the most sensible thing is not to set any
requirements. There are public benefit flying organizations that
operate that way - get your private and you're in. The proof that this
is sufficient is they've been around a while, and they're not having
any more accidents than the groups that evaluate the pilots or set
minima. I see this as proof positive that what we have are procedures
for the purpose of procedures.

There are many things wrong with the FAA, but at least it does one
thing right - it waits for accidents before making rules. Others would
be well advised to follow a similar philosophy.

Michael