On Aug 20, 8:01 am, "Gattman" wrote:
"Robert M. Gary" wrote in oglegroups.com...

If you know that you want to end up with both the CFII and the CFI
(ASEL for instance) then getting the CFII first is probably not a bad
idea because instead of one really hard checkride (the initial CFI)
and then a really easy checkride (the CFII add-on), you have to medium
hard checkrides (CFII initial (including all the FOI), then just the
CFI(ASEL for instance) add on. However, if you get the CFII and quite
w/o getting the CFI-ASEL/AMEL/etc then you have an almost worthless
rating.

Great information. Thanks for this thread, folks...

So, realistically a lot of CFIs are low-time commercial pilots trying to
build hours, which means they can't possibly have a whole lot of instrument
time. For a guy like me who got his instrument shortly before his
commercial, but--having been jamming on the commercial in VFR--hasn't logged
much actual IMC, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to take the
CFII and then try to impart that wisdom on pilots who might conceivably have
two or three times more flight experience than I.

I think you are assuming that all a CFII does is tell stores of
previous experiences. In fact you'll find that most of the really high
time CFIIs have either very little time flying spam cans in the soup
or never left the safety of the training environment.
In truth CFII's impart much more than stores. Even a very high time
instrument pilot can get very good instruction from a lower time CFII.
How long since that high time pilot shot a non-precision approach, how
long since he's done a hold with on nav radio not working, etc.

-Robert, CFII