Congratulations to H. Paul Shuch, EAA 1017932, who was appointed as a designated pilot examiner by the FAA on April 30, 2018!
Paul is the founder and chief flight instructor at AvSport, a sport aviation flight school at Lock Haven, Pennsylvania’s Piper Memorial Airport. AvSport specializes in training students for the sport pilot certificate, embodying the spirit of the Piper Cub era of fun flying on the Cub’s home airport.
Recently, the school ran began experiencing trouble finding someone to give flight students their checkride. While there were other flight examiners in the area, there was a shortage of light sport examiners to ensure Paul’s students could get their certificates.
Within a year, Paul completed the necessary training to become the DPE his school needed. To avoid any conflicts of interest that could arise from examining students he trained, Paul recruited adjunct flight instructors to take over training at the flight school.
“I didn’t set out to become an examiner,” Paul said. “I was just trying to fill a need for my flight students.”
Have you reached a milestone recently? Passed a checkride, given your first or hundredth Young Eagle flight, flown your homebuilt for the first time? Tell us about it at editorial@eaa.org.