What’s the definition of a “Joy Ride”?
As I understand it, some of these warbird companies were providing joy-rides under the guise of flight-instruction (in the FAA’s view). Whereas the flight school’s view was that it was providing flight instruction that happened to be a lot of fun.
For example, check out “Warbird Adventures” (is that the name of a school? Or an amusement park?)
www.warbirdadventures.com
The language on that site certainly sounds thrilling, doesn’t it? But does that make it TOO much fun to be instruction? If so, why? Walt Disney famously said “laughter is no enemy of learning.”
So it boils down to what’s the definition of a “joy ride” or, for that matter, “flight instruction”? If a CFI goes up with a thrill-seeker, er, student pilot and ‘demonstrates’ loops, rolls and wing-overs, does that constitute instruction? Or a joy-ride? Maybe the student has to manipulate the controls. If so, for how long? During what phases of flight?
The devil is in the details, and the court followed these to the bitter end.