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Excellent, Bill. To hear
the sweet voice of reason is so refreshing, in the stifling atmosphere of
'feeling' and 'fear' this last decade.
But, who said the FAA cares
about their mandate, or for that matter, their establishing legislation's
statement oif Intent at the top of the law... to promote aviation.
In the 1960s there were 800,000
pilots and GenAv built some 15,000 light planes. Now we have only abotu
600,000 pilots. This is 'promoting aviation'? Who gets punished for this
bad performance?
In the 50s and 60s irports were
busy, fun places until the early 70s. Now they have Security fences, and
everyone is afraid... mostly of Homeland Secrurity, which some liken to
the Gestapo... for those of us old enough to remember the Gestapo. We had
just done WWII to kill the Gestapo. After WWII the FAA had good old boys
seasoned by self-sacrifice of the common good, to care about others, at least as
much as about their own careers. N ot many of them left.
Then the GenAv market crashed
in the 1970s, killoing my little company. The lawyers and illogical courts
suppressed GenAv for about two decades, and the regulations started
a-building. Without new airplanes and pilots to work on the FAA lawyers
kept busy. Even though the law said no more regulations unless the
EVIDENCE OF SAFETY demanded it. Well, we got biennials anyway, ignorign
protests of no safety need. The military grabbed more and more
airspace, backed by pressures of the Cold War. The FAA inspectors of new
homebuilts got busier and busier as the workload for commercial aviation
increased, and FSDO personnel and funding got cut. Inspectors took longer
and longer to come around; With the last Administrations our jobs, manufacturing
and non-corporate gov't functions got 'outsourced' which means we now have to
pay not only FAA salaries, but pay a second FAA-approved 'representative'
hnundreds of dollars for an inspection. The new DAR, who himself also has
to comply with more and new FAA regualtions, has to pay for 'training', as
the outsourced FAA DAR inspectors are now being required to be
quasi-type-inspectors knowlegable not only about workmanship, but also about
each type of construction -- ignoring the meaning of the word "Experimental" for
our category of aircraft.
This Airworthiness
Inspection is the same kind of job any AI or &E does on every certified
aircraft every year. Why to we need separate Airworthiness inspectors for
Experimentals. We are the creators, the designers, an d only need our
workmanshipo checked. It's not hard to look ahead and see that soon
the Experimentals -- which have contributed the only fresh and improved
lightplane designs in the last 50 years -- Bede/Grumman/American , Cirrus,
and now the Lancair/Cessna composites... are beng regulated into
non-creation.
The FAA managers haven't
understood that each Experimenter is willing to risk his own money, his own
time, adn even risk his own life, to improve aviation for the People.
Instead of beign policed we shoujld b e rewarded, and helped, gradiously,
by the employers of the FAA. It seems like the FAA administrators are
fearful. Afraid. It's the 'feeling' of the times. They should suck
it up, and help us. Thank us.
We hope and pray a new
Administration will cut FAA regulation, which of course cannot be done without
cutting some of the 40,000 lawyers -- more than the number of pilots flying
airplanes at any one time -- out of the bureau, where they now justify their
existence by writing too many nifty but unjustified new rules.
That's what lawyers do... they
create precedent. I know. My grandfather, father, both brothers. one
son, three first cousins, and some miscellaneous nephews... are lawyers. I
love them all, and they're good guys. But that's LAW. The great
example of it is the Legislature. We have so many band-aid laws I
don't think anybody knows how many... if you count all the unrelated 'earmarks'
snuck into biklls. Instead of a new Legislature starting ouot by surveying
the body of ;laws and sifting out all the redundant ones, and then removing the
obsolete ones, befor making a single new one, they all run tino their houses
clutching a handfull of new bills, to pile on top of the mess.
We need a check and balance on
the LAW. It needs to bve gleaned, sifted, cut.
We have to be mature, adult,
and realize that Security/Risk needs to be balanced by Freedom to take risk, to
Improve things.
Perfectr security is --
jail.
We lack common sense in the
Legislature. Instead we have 'feeling', and posturing, and precedent, and
a lot of BS.
So.. sorry about that, this is
just alot of "Ain't it Awful", if we don't think of a way to clean ujp the body
of laws, cut back the Security, and reward those of us who risk our own money,
time and lives to try to improve things.
How about some reward, some
acclaim, for what we've done, in aviation, for all of us, for We, the
People?
How can we 'bell the
cat'?
Terrence
Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008
21:43
Subject: [LML] The FAA compromises public
safety
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We live in a society that is
centered on asphalt and concrete. Observe the world from a thousand feet
or so and notice that people spend the vast majority of their lives
close to or on roads.
Mentally strip away the cars,
buildings and other objects leaving only the people and you will see
that humans cover a very small fraction of the earth˘s surface, except
on asphalt and concrete. That is why when small airplanes fall out of
the sky they rarely kill people on the ground.
With a drivers license you can
drive a 25,000 lb
Winnebago on packed freeways at 75
mph, surrounded by
innocent people in vans, small cars and motorcycles. Have a medical
incapacitation and there is a very good chance you will kill several of
them.
Assume a pilot is about to embark
on a trip from LA to Oklahoma City, and unknown to him, he is going to have a massive fatal
stroke in the next 24 hours.
If he chooses to drive straight
through he will have the stroke while driving, with perhaps a 10% chance
of killing an innocent person.
If he fly˘s a
Lancair there is a 21% chance (5hrs/24hrs) he will be
flying when he has the stroke, and when the plane hits the ground
perhaps one chance in three hundred that an innocent
person will be killed, so one chance in 1,440 of an innocent
death.
If medical certification forces
him out of the cockpit, risk to the public increases
14,400%.
We could debate the appropriate
medical standards for driving a car, but the medical standards for
flying a light plane should be much lower than those for driving. Anyone
licensed to drive should be encouraged to fly a light plane in the
interest of public safety.
Medical certification for flying
light planes reduces public safety in contradiction to the FAA˘s
mandate, and should be eliminated.
Regards,
Bill Hannahan
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To their credit aeromedical in Oklahoma City used
statistical data to make the age 40 rule change based on the
average person less likely to have an incapacitating event in
their thirties. I can tell you the system often does work to
keep some people from flying who shouldnt be for those they
might bring along and those on the ground below. I would like to
see how they collected the data on those accidents on pilots
without their medical certificate. Accidents related to medical
issues are rare and we know how the data is collected on those
with medical certificates.
Thanks for the stats on the pilot group. Makes the point
for everyone to have the proper training while getting the
experience needed. Keep em coming. I wouldnt think of flying
without recurrent proficiency training.
Matt Miriani
AME
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