FSDO's and their varying intepretations...

Todd Pattist wrote
when two MEI's
take a 1-hour XC flight somewhere and each one comes back with a BFR
endorsement from the other, that's bull****, and we all know it.

And even this bull**** flight is not clearly a violation of
the FAR's.

OK, there's some grey area there. Sort of like that panel rebuild on
a logbook signature - every individual change could be considered
minor, so we'll consider the entire operation minor.

There's no clear requirement that I handle the
controls for more than 50% of the BFR flight time.. If the
instructor giving me a BFR wants to show me flight maneuvers
and then see me repeat them, he's free to do so. There's
no requirement as to how long the instructor can touch the
controls during my BFR, so this 50/50 one hour flight with
two cross-BFR's doesn't seem to me to be an unequivocal
violation of the FAR's

No, but it still totally fails to conform to the spirit of the
regulation. And that's why we have a FSDO deciding they're not going
to accept that. The guy who took an aerobatics course, however, is
just caught in the crossfire - he did conform to the spirit of the
regs.

Michael

(Michael) wrote:

when two MEI's
take a 1-hour XC flight somewhere and each one comes back with a BFR
endorsement from the other, that's bull****,

OK, there's some grey area there. snip
but it still totally fails to conform to the spirit of the
regulation.

Exactly. It's clearly a violation if they came back after a
half hour, but when each pilot clearly flew with a CFI for
an hour, and met all the explicit regs, I'd want the FSDO to
keep its "spirit of the rule" and regional interpretations
to itself.

Ther was a time when no BFR was required. It's still true
that I can get a BFR in a hot air balloon and then fly a
pressurized twin loaded with passengers. There will always
be "loopholes." If they are so big that they need to be
closed, then the rule should be changed to close them.
FSDO's shouldn't go around with their own local
interpretations of what the rule should be.


Todd Pattist
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Todd Pattist wrote
but it still totally fails to conform to the spirit of the
regulation.

Exactly. It's clearly a violation if they came back after a
half hour, but when each pilot clearly flew with a CFI for
an hour, and met all the explicit regs, I'd want the FSDO to
keep its "spirit of the rule" and regional interpretations
to itself.

Now recall what I said: There are plenty of people out there who try
to abuse the system and inspectors who try to curtail the abuse -
generally in a manner that is ineffective, illegal, and incompetent.
This is exactly the situation here.

I happen to agree with you - I also want to limit the authority of the
FSDO inspectors to enforcement of the explicit regs, and I want the
FSDO inspectors to keep their "spirit of the rule" and regional
interpretations to themselves. But what is the underlying assumption
here? Let's be honest about it - the FSDO inspectors are using their
best judgment. What we're saying is that their judgment is so poor
that we don't want them using it. Kind of a sad state of affairs,
isn't it?

Michael