FAA Administrator Steve Dickson says it will take about four years to rewrite regulations governing flight instruction in aircraft other than those in the standard category and until that’s done instructors will need extra paperwork. Speaking at the annual Meet the Administrator event at EAA AirVenture last Thursday, Dickson told the generally disappointed crowd that in the meantime instructors will need a letter of deviation authority to teach people to fly experimentals. If they want to teach on limited or primary category aircraft, they will need a written exemption. Dickson said he agreed the process is a “big documentation exercise, no doubt” but it is also a legal necessity. “I am not any happier about this situation than you are,” he said.
I never supported Mr Dickson’s appointment to the FAA. Now it looks like I was right, Mr Dickson is nothing more than another bureaucrat who has no love for GA. 4 years, talk about footdragging! I hope AOPA and other GA alphabet groups remember this when the time comes for a new administrator.
Well, they don’t call it the “Friendly Airline Agency” for nothing. If it takes four years to draft a relatively minor change to the regulations, I shudder to think how long it would take to formulate something really complex.
I think Dickson is doing a good job here. He understands the FAA bureaucracy which includes present rulemaking. And he went to Oshkosh publicly stating what that relationship of bureaucracy with legal liability has resulted in regarding this particular case to an audience wanting something entirely different. And he gave the bureaucratic solution that only a bureaucracy can provide. He is one of the few bureaucrats who at least in this case spoke honestly.
We just don’t like his bureaucratic answer. Do you think we will have a choice of his future bureaucratic replacement? And how will that change the bureaucratic process or the bureaucracy itself?
Be happy we have a LODA process as a work around with a specific date range of applicability. Yeah, more paperwork. But even that P-40 operation that got sanctioned to start this mess can qualify if they want. Besides, what would you think a bureaucracy will provide? Simplicity…ease of application…timely approvals? Or another layer of bureaucracy we must navigate to get the desired results? Dickson put his big boy pants on and told to us straight. Good for him.
Why does it take four years to re-write a poorly worded regulation? It took no time at all to negatively interpret a 60 year old rule and create an LODA program.
4 years to rewrite a poorly interpreted rule? What has the U.S. become?
“Paralysis by Analysis?”
We went from the U.S. first orbital flight (Vangard) in 1958 to John Glenn’s first orbital flight in 4 years (1962). WW I and the Civil War didn’t last 4 years. We won WW II in 4 years. To call those in the FAA defending this nonsense “clowns” is to disrespect clowns–at least CLOWNS KNOW THEY ARE CLOWNS.
Does ANYBODY really believe that getting permission (automatically granted) to deviate from a flawed directive ACTUALLY IMPROVES SAFETY?
The Inhofe/Graves bills introduced in Congress are the perfect answer–prohibit the FAA from enforcing their own flawed laws. Let’s add a rider to those bills–“remove the FAA Administrator for malfeasance”–perhaps those below his position will get the message.
The FAA needs to revamp flight training and proficiency requirements. It looks like pilots aren’t flying their planes, and when they ARE called upon to place their hands on the yoke/stick, they’re usually in a critical phase with low airspeed, low power settings and a small margin from a stall/spin. The twin Cessna fatal crash–just recently published with a probable cause–has me scratching my head. Who gets a business twin into a spin on a VMC approach profile? It’s even worse when these pilots stray into weather. Another twin Cessna; a turboprop, crashed after the pilot became spatially disoriented. That pilot was ATP rated, so figure he had lots of actual IFR and hood time logged. I won’t speculate on the OTHER twin Cessna that crashed in Monterey, but I won’t be surprised if that mishap is attributed to a pilot who needed more hood time and IMC flights with a safety pilot.
Four years to write what is in essence a clarification is unbelieveable and unacceptable. Are the FAA’s lawyers crafting the wording of the regulations, and are they paid by the hour? It’s always a bit of sick humor when somebody in a position of decision-maker, completely unaffected by the issue at hand, gives the old “This hurts me as much as it hurts you…” bleat.
The P-51 was designed and flown in 10 months. The Boeing 747 was designed and built in 28 months. Compare those monumental achievements to the current FAA process of changing a few written paragraphs at the expense of millions of dollars of tax payer money. The FAA is beyond idiocracy. It is its own banana repulic.
Politicians set up regulatory agencies. Once established, those agencies have dictatorial powers which are virtually impossible to hold accountable. That power needs checks on it. The sclerotic FAA needs to be totally revamped to include actual inputs and voting powers by stakeholders. Which stakeholders?
How about GA, manufacturers, airlines and the FAA itself? The FAA could have power of rule making, unless overridden by unanimity of the others. The rule making would have input from the stakeholders. This is just a possible reform, possibly other was exist to streamline and prevent absurdities like we are having with the FAA. The present LODA situation is absurd and unacceptable.
One kid gets caught chewing gum and the entire class gets punished. Considering the statement that a re-write will take 48 months: there are 41 months to go until the next inauguration. A curmudgeon may interpret Dickson’s statement as “…let the next FAA administrator worry take care of the LODA re-write…” The reality is that the aviation community will get used to the new rules, send paperwork off to the crumbling, overloaded FAA administrative infrastructure for eventual file and forget where I filed it sort of action.
I attended the ‘Meet the Administrator’ meeting at Airventure last Thursday. I was “loaded for bear” and ready to pounce on a subset issue of MOSAIC during audience comments but after listening to Dickson give everyone in the crowd multiple sessions of ‘oral gratification’ over LODA, et al, I decided I’d be wasting the audience’s time. We have a GA on life support needing an immediate heart transplant and he tells us we have to wait four years for it. Is he kidding? He did the same thing with MOSAIC, too! What Bravo Sierra !! There is no value added – translated, safety improvement (you know, FAA’s MAIN job) – in the aviation system by waiting four years for changes to LODA, as David Baker aptly opines above. The system was working just fine until the Florida operator decided to challenge them … and wound up hosing a system which WAS working fine for decades. Maybe THAT is the real message here … don’t challenge them or they’ll shove it up your … well, you know. As if GA and aviation in general didn’t have enough problems, now we have this new LODA thing. Thanks, Mr. Dickson.
As I listened to him spew, I kept thinking, “Doesn’t this guy realize he’s now the Head Chicken Choker?” He wants us to believe that we have to wait years for the “system” to rectify what HE could fix by calling his First Report staff in and giving them a hard direction ultimatum and a short term date certain to deliver same. REAL leaders lead both by example AND by issuing directions to their herds when a popup issue needs immediate attention. Charlatans and bureaucrats just flap their jaws and allow the status quo to run the show. If I were running the show, I’d have told the crowd that by this time at Airventure 2022, the LODA problem will be history and we’ll have MOSAIC language IN place to EXCEED the 2023 mandate date. I thought flight instructors were the first line of defense in the air safety equation? Maybe there’s something I don’t understand? WHY do we even have to be dealing with LODA at all??
It’s no wonder that a five year effort by the ARC – organized by FAA – to update FAR Part 23 completed in 2013, “Recommendations for increasing the safety of small general aviation airplanes certificated to 14 CFR part 23” was generally ignored and resulted ONLY in this thing we now call NORSEE. I guess that’s the best those high paid people could deliver? It’s no wonder that decades of intransigence on the subject of aeromedical reform had to forced upon them by Congressional action when a ‘perfect storm’ opportunity arose for Sen. Inhofe. It’s no wonder that MOSAIC – likewise – had to be forced upon them; they’re under Congressional mandate to deliver by 2023 … let’s just see if they make it. And now … they can’t even fix a minor administrative problem called LODA in less than four years and still another Congressional mandate is in the offing to DIRECT them to fix it NOW!
IMHO, the worst thing that ever happened was to roll FAA into the DOT umbrella. it’s time to break them apart again.
Lead, follow or get out of our way, Mr. Dickson! If you can’t do better than four years, it’s time for you to resign. YOU are the FAA PIC … start acting like you understand that.
As I think about it some more, LODA could be likened to a maintenance safety issue requiring issuance of an emergency AD. Skip the normal process and just issue a directive to – once and for all – will fix it. It’s NOT a major subject needing a full rulemaking process.
I requested a LODA to teach in an experimental. My student/owner requested one as well. We both got our letters in a little under a week. I was concermed when the rule came out as well, but it turns out it really isn’t a big deal. For instructors, the LODA grants approval to teach for compensation in ANY experimental. For owner/operators, its by tail.
I’m usually in on the whining, but my guess is most of the commenters on here either aren’t directly affected or haven’t actually just tried to get their letter and move on with life.
Not splitting hairs, Jim, but I remember that the highly successful P-51 gestation was shorter than that:
“The prototype NA-73X was rolled out in September 1940, just 102 days after the order had been placed; it first flew on 26 October 1940, 149 days into the contract, an uncommonly short development period, even during the war.”
We’re sorry that your car isn’t running right, Mr. Customer. We’ll fix it in four years. In the meantime, just don’t drive too fast and you won’t even notice that the engine is missing. You’ll get used to it. THAT is how we do business here at Acme Auto Sales.