Larry Dighera wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 20:03:10 -0400, "Blueskies"
wrote in
:

(c) Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above
the surface, except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In
those cases, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet
to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.

Note "Structure" here. The bridge is a structure, and unless it was
over 500' above the water, the pilot was in violation.

That's a reasonable interpretation. So it may be within FAA
regulations to fly under high bridges.

We had a local pilot land at a sandbar down at a the river. While he was
there the wind shifted 180 deg. So he had to take off in the other
direction. This required him to fly under a bridge. (Pretty high bridge). A
Sherriff's Deputy saw this and he was met at the airport by another deputy.
He as he was pushing the plane into the hanger the deputy was talking about
giving him a ticket. Our hero just asked, "For what?" The deputy mumbled and
left.

A week or so later our hero gets a call from the FSDO and was asked about
the flight. The first words out of his mouth were, "I was taking off..." The
FAA guy said thank you for your time and try next time to not upset the
local peace officers.

The moral to the story is that at least around here that little part about
"except during take-off and landing" seems to pull some weight with the FAA.