Stealth Pilot wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
The PDF document of the committee's final report is he

http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/gen_av/u...ilt/media/ARC_
FINAL_2008_report.pdf

thanks for posting this Jim.

as a interested non american can I pass some comments.

you americans have gone off on a tangent.

I'd agree that the U.S. government has gone off on a tangent on amateur
built aircraft, but the tangent actually took place quite a few decades
ago. This is just continuing fallout from an attempt to claim back some
freedom.

safe amateur construction is about the resulting aircraft being
structurally adequate for flight and having flight dynamics such that
the pilot can actually fly the aircraft.

Actually, I believe it was appeals for more safety that effectively
outlawed flight of amateur built aircraft for several decades in most of
the U.S. back in the 1920s. Don't know what the history was like in your
country - maybe you guys lucked out or kept your government at bay
somehow.

I think that historically, mixing "government" with appeals to "safety"
yields patronizing tyranny in any part of the universe. So I now think it
is better to argue for freedom to make mistakes than argue for safety!

the 50 or 51% rule is a total irrelevance. it has no direct
correlation with safety or structural adequacy.

True - but the exception that was finally carved out of the previous
oppressive U.S. state and CAA/(later FAA) regulations uses the phrase
"major portion" and that has yielded the 51% interpretation.

in fact forcing a builder to do a poorer job than an expert who might
assist is plain stupid in safety terms.

Let's not go there again! :-) Some of us want our freedoms, not
protection from ourselves! Else, what is the point of life?

the worry that people will bypass the certified manufacturing system
is just a stupid imposition of wills argument. why the hell are you
seeking to stifle enterprise? the actual requirement is that people
put structurally adequate aircraft into the air. how they do it is
only relevant if you are a jealous little dweeb.

By "you" I assume you mean "your government". I don't disagree with the
general thrust of your points. I'm all for keeping civilized thuggery (my
own term for "government") to a minimum.

why the worry about this? for heavens sake Cessna is about to market
the Dreamcatcher, an aircraft made in the sweatshops of china.
you havent worried about that and yet you support the stupid argument
that people can only build in the manner prescribed by a 1930's safety
approach.

I think this whole issue came up because the FAA has to periodically
justify their budget requests. The problem could have been dealt with in
other ways, but their proposed rule changes would have allowed an
expansion of their duties. Since "eternal vigilance is the price of
freedom," our own alphabet soup of private organizations had to deal with
this encroachment on this particular liberty.

The fight, alas, will never complete.

if you dont frame your legislation in terms of the structural adequacy
of the final aircraft you've missed the point entirely.
the 51% rule is a crock, a legal convenience used by a judge in a
determination, why you've made this into a religion is beyond thinking
people.

I don't agree with that line of argument. That is because there is a
class of machines known as ultralights where U.S. citizens don't have to
prove anything about either the safety of the aircraft or the pilots. It
is a good freedom, though very tiny and circumscribed. I'd rather the
ultralight safety record be improved by self-serving actions of its
participants so that it can act as argument _against_ the need for
civilized patronizing thuggery (i.e. more government regs.)

sorry but you guys have missed the boat entirely with this thinking.
hopefully it wont take the rest of the century before you realise.

There is a lot of civilized organized thuggery and many patrons who
benefit from it, so it may take more than a century to roll any of it
back. :-(