FSDO's and their varying intepretations...

"Justin Maas" wrote in message .. .
The
FSDO down there allowed the course to substitute a BFR, even though the
instructors weren't CFIs.

How could this work? Don't the regs state that the BFR must be
signed off by a CFI? I don't know how they could get around that one.
Intepretation by a FSDO is one thing, but I don't think they can tell
you it's OK to ignore a reg.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

Robert Moore wrote:

When I checked-out as a type-rated B-727 co-pilot at PanAm,
I had been a flight instructor for many years and I can just
imagine what would have happened if I had turned to the captain
and said "Cap'n, I'll be giving you instruction during this
flight so that I can log it as PIC". Sure! :-)

Considering I've never had the good fortune to check out in
a B-727, it's not surprising our perspectives are slightly
different, but this doesn't quite seem like the scenario of
"riding with a friend" I had in mind. :-)

Todd Pattist
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(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****, and we all know it.

And even this bull**** flight is not clearly a violation of
the FAR's. 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
Todd Pattist
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On 10 Jul 2003 11:07:38 -0700, Robert M. Gary wrote:

I never log time as instruction given unless I'm actually giving
instruction. If I'm riding with a friend, I'm not going to call (or
log) that as instruction.

I've heard cases of the FAA going after the instructor when there is
an accident, even when the instructor wasn't giving instruction.

Morris

Robert Moore wrote in message When I checked-out as a type-rated B-727
co-pilot at PanAm,
I had been a flight instructor for many years and I can just
imagine what would have happened if I had turned to the captain
and said "Cap'n, I'll be giving you instruction during this
flight so that I can log it as PIC". Sure! :-)

Logging PIC and acting as PIC aren't quite the same thing according to the
regs. I knew a type-rated SIC who logged half of the time as PIC, the half
where he was manipulating the controls.

D.

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

(journeyman) wrote in message ru.com...

I've heard cases of the FAA going after the instructor when there is
an accident, even when the instructor wasn't giving instruction.

That's true, although most of those cases have been proven to be
"wives tales" but it certainly has happened. However, it doesn't have
anything to do with logging PIC.

(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

Gently extracted from the mind of Robert M. Gary;


I took an unusual attitudes course in Phoenix about a year ago. The
FSDO down there allowed the course to substitute a BFR, even though the
instructors weren't CFIs. Up here in NY, however, I was told that wouldn't
"fly."

Very odd. How could they consider that a BFR? If the guys were not
CFIs it couldn't be part of a wings program or a regular BFR. FAR
61.56 seems pretty clear to me. I'd be real curious under what part
of 61.56 they considered that a flight review.

Another example is the Orlando FSDO.
In a good move, they told flight schools that having two MEIs fly an x-c
and sign each other off is wrong and no way to log time.

What is the purpose of the MEIs signing each other off? They can still
both log PIC. One of them acts as an MEI giving instruction (allowing
him to log PIC 61.51(e)(3)), another is the sole manipulator of the
controls (allowing him to log PIC 61.51(e)(1)(i)). Sounds like these
guys didn't understand the FARs well enought to know how to do this.

Actually, two MEIs got busted for doing just this a few years ago. They bought
an Apache and flew x-countries @ 1.3 * tach time switching seats every leg.
The guy in the left seat wore a hood. All seemingly perfectly legal.

Every psuedo judge thought that this was illegal.

-ash
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