Earl Lawrence from EAA posted this to the Luscombe Yahoo Group. They have the same issues as do 'coupes with LSA. It is interesting to see how one must finesse to get ANYTHING done. The frontal assault seems not to work at all.
Herewith - Earl's Letter: "This is a good question and you have not seen an answer because the answer is; "Because that is the way it is." Of course there is more to the story and I will share my opinions as an individual who worked with the FAA on this rulemaking from 1994 until today. But, I must stress it is just that my opinion/perspective not necessarily the facts, not because there are not facts but because with many things in life there are many perspectives of the situation. First when looking at your question you need to remove yourself from any current realities or perspectives of the rule as it is today. You need to look at the rule from how it was proposed, or the "selling points" needed to get a new rule. Foremost in looking at this question, one must understand that the new rule has NOTHING (I cannot stress this enough) to do about a simpler pilot certificate. You read that correct. The proposal has nothing to do at all about a simpler pilot certificate or a no medical certificate. If one had proposed rulemaking on a simpler easier pilot certificate the FAA, the DOT, NTSB, and most pilot groups would have opposed the proposal (including pilot and instructor associations). There are many who still believe that there should not be a sport pilot certificate and everyone should get a private pilot certificate. Now do not get me wrong. EAA did see the potential of this new rule to get more people in the air, but if we have used that point at all, the SPLSA rule would have NEVER been considered. If you notice, during the years we worked on the proposed rule, there were lots of pictures of very open ultralights shown in magazine articles and other promotional materials. This was by design. The campaign to get the rule was about getting "these untrained and undocumented dangerous ultralight pilots out of the air." This was an argument that FAA, NTSB, DOT, Homeland Security and Congress was very interested in. The sport pilot rule was written to create a pilot certificate for ultralight pilots because they were unregulated at the time. If we had shown pictures of aircraft with closed cockpits, the powers that controlled the process would have said "that is a REAL airplane" and they need a "real" pilot certificate. So those of us who were trying to get the new rule passed spent time convincing the authorities that the new Sport Pilot was not going to be flying a "real" airplane, so that we could get the rule passed. Also, we needed to convince the government that this was NOT about a pilot certificate without a medical. We had to be able to show that a large number of current pilots were NOT going to drop their medical and fly as sport pilots as that would be "a reduction in safety" and FAA, DOT, NTSB would oppose such a move. The original proposal was for aircraft that were no more than 600 pounds, then over time the weight increased to 900, 1,232, and finally 1,320. The last change was literally in the dark of night by friends of EAA and sport aviation who understood that we really did want a alternative to the private pilot license, but we could not say that publicly or even to our fellow pilot associations as it would have been opposed. One has to understand that EAA had to work VERY hard to get the industry associations to not oppose the Sport pilot rule. Many of the traditionalists saw the rule as a threat and a step backward for aviation. So the argument all along was to create a pilot certificate and aircraft certification category to regulate the "illegal ultralights and pilots." _If the industry or many in government had understood our alternative reasons for the rule, the proposal would have been dead on delivery_. We have sport pilot today because we have good friends in the FAA, particularly the Administrators that oversaw this effort, and EAA could manage to keep industry from opposing the effort. We did this by campaigning on an "increase of safety and regulation for ultralights," not a reduction of safety for current pilots and aircraft. (note: To many in government Regulation and safety is one in the same) Because of these arguments and the need to separate this rulemaking effort from "reducing regulationsafety of current pilots and aircraft" and convincing everyone that this was an "increase of regulationsafety for ultralights," it was necessary to ensure that no large groups of existing aircraft would fall into the new category. The sport pilot certificate was sold on the basis that an "ultralight" pilot was going to use this certificate to fly an aircraft with no radios and no instruments, day VFR, in G airspace, carrying one passenger. So it was necessary to exclude as many current pilots and aircraft in order to get the regulation passed. (Blame it on politics, but that is the real world.) Regarding affordability, current pilots say that the new regulation did not result in any improvements in affordability. The facts are the new aircraft are less than half the cost of a comparative new (It is not fair to compare a 1950 aircraft with a 2007 aircraft) type certificated aircraft and the sport pilot certificate is less than half the cost of a private pilot certificate. So for the new person getting involved in aviation has become more accessible. The big problem today is access to a Light Sport Aircraft. EAA understands this, but we had to start somewhere. Every day more light sport aircraft are produced and sold, which means everyday there is more opportunity to own one. There are currently over 50 models of new light sport aircraft for sale. Used aircraft are starting to come up for sale at considerable lower cost than new aircraft. It is expected that Cessna will soon start to produce a light sport aircraft. Cessna pilot centers will start to have aircraft to train new sport pilots in, and like it was in the 1970's, these aircraft will be sold after a couple of years to the students at much reduced costs as used airplanes as the Centers must purchase new aircraft every two years. As you may noticed, this is all about the future. The rule was written about the future and not current pilots and aircraft. Again if that had been the proposal, there would be no new rule. For existing pilots, sport pilot does not offer a tremendous amount of benefit as they have already made the investment in training and possibly in an aircraft purchase. This is about the future and getting new pilots and new aircraft into the system. I hope this helps with understanding how we arrived at the current situation. Sincerely, Earl Lawrence EAA VP Industry and Regulatory Affairs"
