Folks,
Given all that, remember these two rules:
Never ask a question for which you may not want the answer.
AND
For a bureaucrat, the only consistently safe answer is, "No."
Dave W
=========]-(§)-[==========
// \\
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On
Behalf Of Ed Burkhead
Sent: Sunday, 13 September, 2009 23:37 PM
To: 'William R. Bayne'; 'Ercoupers Tech Talk'
Subject: RE: [ercoupe-tech] 415-C/D - When it is an LSA and when it is not?
Well said, Bill.
Please let me adjust and amplify, riffing on your last couple of paragraphs
where you said:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That reasoning, unfortunately, validates a perception of the FAA as mostly
untrustworthy bureaucrats who prefer to rule the aviation community by
intimidation and fear rather than by way of competent and equitable
administration. It encourages intentional ambiguity in the drafting of FAA
Rules and Regulations so as to increase the discretionary power of the
agency and its individual representatives. True or not, I find such
possibilities so utterly and intensely repulsive as to oppose such almost
reflexively.
If it were up to me, I'd push for an official interpretation on FAA
letterhead from a representative of appropriate authority. I deem it "bad
for the fleet" as a whole when different FSDOs are free to differently
interpret and enforce applicable rules in their individual feifdoms. Such
violates the constitutional right of each and every one of us to equal
application of the law, and substitutes the rule of men for the rule of the
law.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
My thought pattern is this:
Time in the Army gives one experience in dealing with really big
organizations. One of the things that can be learned is that it takes a lot
of organization to get it to function at all.
Next is that, even so, in any enormous organization, the imperfections of
people, words, procedures, etc., make things sometimes just not work right.
Its usually not malignancy (but sometimes it is). The aphorism, When
trying to decide whether something is coming out badly due to ill will
versus incompetence, choose incompetence and youll almost always be right.
Thats not to say the FAA people are all that incompetent. But, what they
and the organization as a whole are being asked to do is detailed, picky,
layered, sometimes life-and-death critical and more.
Like the dancing bear, its amazing that the FAA (and the Army) does as well
as it does and can dance at all!
I dont for a second think the FAA intentionally wrote that regulation
ambiguously. But, have you ever tried to write an unambiguous, perfect set
of rules that enforces exactly what you want? I made a career of it for a
few years as a computer programmer. It sure aint that easy in a rigorous
programming language and I think its impossible in English.
In the good old days, the FSDO had engineering representatives who were
engineers! They could make evaluations based on aviation needs and reality.
As there arent enough of those engineers to go around, were making do with
the best the FAA can get and many (?most?) of them do pretty well, most of
the time.
I agree with you, Bill, that the dependence on local FSDO rulings is
inequitable and silly. Yet, we all worry about trying to centralize all
such decisions because it might get taken over by the legalistic,
bureaucratic jerks who are worried about career building and have little
personal involvement an love for aviation. And then wed get no good
rulings at all.
At least the FSDO people are close to local aviation.
At the higher levels, the FAA is generally unwilling to respond to
individuals or small groups. For now, we do have people working with the
FAA on our behalf, trying to get that FAA letterhead document which does
what wed like to see. There are people, it seems, in Coupe-air-space and
the FAA who think it may be possible to get this done. Do not bet big
amounts of money on this till after it is written and published.
Yes, a centralized, national, official document is what we want, as long as
it says what we want and not the opposite!
I hope weve made it clear to owners and potential owners where the risks
are in LSA-ambiguous aircraft. I hope itll shake out the way we want and
well all certainly do what we can to help that happen.
Ed
Ed Burkhead
http://edburkhead.com/Ercoupe/index.htm
ed -at- edbur???khead.yyy change -at- to @, remove the ??? and change
yyy to com
