FAA IACRA

kevin47881

kevin47881

Final Approach
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Sep 6, 2005
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Middle Tennessee
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Time to fly!
If this belongs in a different category, feel free to move it.

"What is IACRA? If you’ve ever
applied for a certificate or rating,
chances are pretty good that you did it
using the good, old, United States
Federal Aviation Administration Standard
Form 8710. Love it or hate it, it’s
a pretty familiar document to most of
us. While the 8710 has been around
in one form or another for many
decades, its time has come to rest in
peace. That’s where IACRA comes in."

http://www.faasafety.gov/iacra/
 
They are just about to force the DPEs to use it. The local DPE says, "so am I supposed to bring a laptop and a printer to the field....I'll refuse to use it until I no longer can".

He has a point. It's about a klugy as the AMCS (Civil Aeromedical) database. Oh well!
 
Maybe it's just me but it sure does not function correctly in Safari. I have to use Firefox. And even then, it doesn't look quite right sometimes - but I can get it to work.

I used IACRA myself when I applied for my multi rating. It took far, far longer to complete the form online than if I would have just filled out the PDF file and printed it out.

Yes IACRA checks for errors..... that's cool... but overall IMO it is extremely slow, cumbersome, and just not user-friendly. I had to teach my boss (the DPE) how to use it.

If they're going to force everyone to use it then they better make it compatible with everyone's operating system (current ones anyway).

I have a student taking a checkride tomorrow morning. I'm going to complete the IACRA stuff right now. I'll time it!
 
That was my thought as well Kate. It took me longer to upload and read just one of the .pdf forms than it did for me to complete the paper 8710. :(
 
Used IACRA for my three checkrides, and other than it having a hiccup for my Commercial ride (wouldn't accept the DPE's electronic signature for about three hours) it's always worked fine...once you figure out it's little quirks!

Really I can't understand why everyone is so unhappy with it. I mean, it WAS designed by the government afterall. You expect it to work right all the time? :D

At our FBO, we have one DPE who uses IACRA exclusively. The other (who refuses to use IACRA) carries a vintage Smith Corona.

FWIW,


Mike
 
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I dunno, I must be in the minority, but I actually liked IACRA. The first time was obnoxious and cumbersome, but from then on it made life a lot easier, and the whole process faster I thought. Maybe that's just me.
 
I wish the FAA would stop sending me letters about it -- I know how to use it already. I think the local DPE is far from it though -- he still uses an old fashioned typewriter, circa 1970.

I look at it as a digital 8710-1. Not much else to it.
 
It's my understanding IACRA is not entirely user-friendly to DPEs. If a DPE receives a letter for a single-shot practical test in a particular aircraft, that aircraft won't be listed under his name in IACRA. What is he supposed to do when he is forced to use it? This means making things much simpler than they are.

My instrument rating was submitted on IACRA. It came back in seven weeks. My commercial was on paper. It took only five weeks. Wouldn't it stand to reason the IACRA application would have returned the certificate in a considerably shorter time than paper?
 
skyflyer8 said:
I have a student taking a checkride tomorrow morning. I'm going to complete the IACRA stuff right now. I'll time it!
Click to expand...

Ok, 1/2 hour or so for us to do the online form.

First I tried Firefox on my Mac which proved to work before. Well, not this time. Had to switch to a PC.

"USA" is way down toward the bottom of the drop-down country lists, and not in some other intelligent place, like say, at the BEGINNING.

I could not find "Cessna 172" as a choice of aircraft no matter how I tried typing it in... finally I typed just "Cessna," scrolled down the list to find I must tell it "CE-172-P" for example. Alrighty then, I thought it was called a C172, but whatever.

Fast forward to the part where I need to log in as the recommending instructor and electronically sign / submit the form.

Right after I log in it tells me that I can't exercise this role right now --- SHOOT --- I forgot that while doing my CFI renewal online last month, I was cautioned that IACRA might not work for me for a while. If I remember correctly, I would have had to renew maybe 3 months prior to CFI expiration in order for my info to be processed on time to use IACRA. Grrr. This is what I get for waiting till my expiration month to renew.

So after all this messing around, it took me only 10 minutes to fill out the PDF paper version of the 8710 and print it out.
 
KennyFlys said:
Wouldn't it stand to reason the IACRA application would have returned the certificate in a considerably shorter time than paper?
Click to expand...

Nah, someone at the FAA end is busy clicking 5,000 buttons, turning off their popup blocker, switching browsers, scrolling through menus, and logging back in when the session times out. :p
 
EdFred said:
Quoted for the benefit of Mike and Kent. :D
Click to expand...

Just further proof that the FAA is dumb. So what? :goofy:

I haven't run into a site that is truly PC-only in a loooooooong time. There's only one site I use that I have to switch over to FireFox and that's *if* I need to upload files to aircraftclubs.com - In Safari 3.x it throws some error about including the MIME-type in the form or something. Funny, it didn't do that in previous versions of Safari, but oh well.
 
I have a customer that has an IE only interface for their inventory management (which is the only way I know whether they need product or not). Actually coded to only let you use IE. Not sure why, but that's what they have.
 
bbchien said:
They are just about to force the DPEs to use it. The local DPE says, "so am I supposed to bring a laptop and a printer to the field....I'll refuse to use it until I no longer can".
Click to expand...
One DPE I know shows up with a whole roller bag full of stuff to be able to use it. In any event, DPE's will either go with the flow or stop giving practical tests. My personal experience is that once an instructor learns how to use it, it is merely time consuming and annoying, not difficult. They key to making it work is that the IACRA-fluent instructor sits down side-by-side with the applicant to fill out the form online, and that they have all the necessary logbook times computed in advance so they don't get timed out while adding up the numbers.
 
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skyflyer8 said:
Right after I log in it tells me that I can't exercise this role right now --- SHOOT --- I forgot that while doing my CFI renewal online last month, I was cautioned that IACRA might not work for me for a while. If I remember correctly, I would have had to renew maybe 3 months prior to CFI expiration in order for my info to be processed on time to use IACRA. Grrr. This is what I get for waiting till my expiration month to renew.
Click to expand...

This happened for my PPL checkride in North Carolina. My instructor's CFI was renewed a few weeks before my checkride, and so I was told that I had to use the manual form because IACRA would not recognize my CFI.

It sounds like I got lucky!
 
EdFred said:
I have a customer that has an IE only interface for their inventory management (which is the only way I know whether they need product or not). Actually coded to only let you use IE. Not sure why, but that's what they have.
Click to expand...


If you're using Firefox, use "UserAgent switcher" It masquerade as whatever you tell it to be.


--Carlos V.
 
No April fool -- the IACRA web site crashed over the weekend and is still not up and running. All you get when you go to the site is:

Integrated Airman Certification and/or Rating Application
IACRA

IACRA will resume operation on the afternoon of Wednesday April 2, 2008.


Page Last Updated: April 1, 2008
Click to expand...

And yet we are supposed to rely solely on this system sooner or later. Great...
 
My IR trainee is up for a ride tomorrow at noon -- and the paper 8710 is filled out and signed.
 
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