Club Management Issue

"Richard Kaplan" wrote in message
s.com...

Another justification is that when a pilot is "holding out" or is
receiving
compensation, history shows that such a pilot is more likely to fly in
more
inclement weather. Under those circumstances, it seems reasonable to
hold
the airplane to a higher maintenance standard and to hold the pilot to a
higher standard ratings and experience.

I don't think that "Mark" has been accused of "holding out". It's
not likely to be a very profitable venture either, waiting around at
an airport on the off chance that someone might need to go out and
rescue an airplane....

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 16:02:01 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

No, I don't think we need Ms. Cleo :-). Nor do I think that the owners are
"negligent". The owners are doing the "minimally required maitenance". If
they wanted to know whether the alternator was on its last legs, it is
pretty easy to check the bearings and the brushes wear predictably.

OK, so there's a document somewhere which tells me how many hours life
my alternator has from last time the brushes were replaced? I don't
know (is there a handy list of everything covered in an annual
somewhere?) - are the brushes and bearings routinely checked at 100hr
or annual inspections? I know that there's a wear indicator on my
vacuum pumps which I'll have swapped out with new at around 80% wear
indicated.

Basically my point of view is that if I am responsible for deciding what to
replace and when, then I am responsible for the outcomes. If I choose to
save money by not doing something and that decision results in a failure,
then I should be financially responsible.

Personally, I believe the owners are responsible for the cost of
getting the aircraft itself fixed. Unless caused by the renter,
that's generally how it works - even with cars. That having been
said, if I was renting it and was unwilling/unable to wait until a
mechanic fixed it (course, I don't understand why they had to fly a
mechanic in - was there no repair facility at/near the airport the
aircraft landed at?) I'd expect to foot my own rentacar bills and
hotel bills to get back home. It's up to them to get the aircraft
back to the line once it's fixed. So, basically in this case I
believe that if the pilot couldn't wait until the next morning to have
an A&P look at it, he's on his own for rentacar, hotel etc (same as he
should have been if it was a weather issue). The owners are on the
hook for getting a pilot out there to fetch it, and paying for the
repair, which is the difference from weather abandoned - the
abandoning pilot should pay for retrieval if they weren't waiting if
it's weather-induced.

Mike
MU-2


"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 02:48:25 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

I agree that there are infant mortality failures that can't be predicted
and
the manufacturer is responsible for those. The owners could have replace
the alternator the day before but didn't. They are the ones making the
maitenance decisions so they need to live with the consequences.

This is where I must have missed something in the original poster's
set of facts. If the owners are doing minimally the FAA required
maintenance on the aircraft and the alternator was showing no sign of
problems when the pilot took off with it, how is the failure
automatically a result of the owner's negligence, which appears to be
your position? Are you somehow going to know to replace an apparently
perfectly good alternator the day before it shows signs of problems
and subsequently breaks down? There is no indication here that the
alternator was squawked prior to this flight. There is nothing in the
record that shows whether or not at the onset of the flight there was
an alternator light on in the aircraft, or whether or not the
voltmeter was showing normal things during the runup checks. I assume
that the pilot wouldn't take the aircraft out if it the light was on
or the voltmeter was showing wrong, right? It would not be airworthy.
So, are you expecting the owners to call Ms. Cleo and find out it's
going to break and then arrange to have it replaced before the pilot
picked up the aircraft? Until something is uncovered during
maintenance (there is no mention of lax maintenance here) or during
runup and then squawked (at which point the flight should not have
left the originating airport) the owner has no way of knowing to
replace something. I include in routine maintenance those things with
wear-lives that have listed hours-to-replace/rebuild even though they
might not be showing anything wrong at the time they're
replaced/rebuilt.

I'm just saying that if the owners had deferred fixing a known issue
with the alternator then yes, definitely negligence and not only their
issue, but they should be picking up 100% of all costs including food,
lodging, and rental cars - but if they did the required maintenance,
with no known issues deferred (and there is no evidence in this set of
facts to contend otherwise), I am having problems seeing how anyone
could contrive owner negligence into this scenario.


Mike
MU-2




"Peter Clark" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 23:33:45 GMT, "Mike Rapoport"
wrote:

I guess that I see it differently.

The owners are responsible for maitenance and they should be
responsible
when lack of maitenance causes a problem. It is their call whether to
replace things to insure better reliability.

Maybe I missed it but who said that the owners shirked any required
maintenance, or were lax in their maintenance here? Things break. I
lost an alternator control unit in a 2003 Skyhawk SP which was
delivered in December and only had 75 hours total time. How could
that possibly be due to bad/non maintenance?

"Tony Cox" wrote:

Regulating any
payments that may be made is a protectionist issue, not a
safety one.

No, it's a commercial vs. non-commercial issue.

I think you're too hung up on 'commercial' part. The only
issue that *should* matter is whether unsuspecting members
of the public who just want to get somewhere are not exposed
to excessive risk.

But the private pilot is allowed to take up unsuspecting
members of the public, so we've already decided it's ok for
him to fly such passengers. The next question is how many
such passengers, and that's where the commercial line is
drawn

This is the rational behind pt 135 operation,
or at least it should be. People 'in the know' -- those who have
completed pilot training or who have been around aircraft as
mechanics -- are well aware of the risks.

Agreed.

If you don't accept
this, then we might as well dispense with the private/commercial
certificate distinction completely.

Just because "Mark" wants $100 or even $5000 has no
effect on the risks that his passengers take - risks which they
are aware of in any case.

But it does impact how many such passengers are exposed to
that risk.

That's why I say it's not a safety
issue -- unlike the general air taxi case where this is clearly
an incentive to recruit 'unknowledgeable' passengers who
(arguably) ought to have their risks 'bounded' more tightly
by regulation.

Now my libertarian leanings say that perhaps we should
allow anyone to fly anywhere with a private pilot, as long
as they sign a waiver first. This, I suppose, could be argued
in a different thread. But this is _not_ what I'm arguing
here. These 'customers' know the risks, and if it wasn't for
the fact that their damn plane had broken down they'd be
taking those risks themselves. So the money is irrelevant
because it has no effect whatsoever on risk, perceived or
actual.

Agreed. I have the same libertarian leanings and agree that
the A&P and CFI know the risks. I'd have no real problem
allowing the payment of money, but you then have to
recognize that someone might set up a money making business
transporting such pilots. It's not that I object to such a
business, but I'm inclined to think that we should draw the
line somewhere between private. commercial and ATP.

I think the private pilot rules should do two things:

1) The passengers should understand the risk.
2) the pilot should not be engaged in a commercial business,
so he shouldn't attempt to draw in "customers" and he
shouldn't be allowed to profit.

What are you, as socialist? What do you care if he
makes a buck?

I don't. I do care if he transports large numbers of
passengers. When he starts transporting large numbers, the
rules are justified in requiring better equipment and more
training.

His 'customers' know the risks - they
fly as (at least) private pilots all the time (I don't know
an A&P who isn't now or hasn't ever been a pilot).
He's not attempting to 'draw in' the general public, and
any 'profit' he makes is none of your business.

I don't care if he makes a profit. I just think we should
ease the rules on private pilots. If we are going to have
rules that require better training/equipment, I think
"profit" is a reasonable place to draw the line. It ensures
that there's money there to pay for better
training/equipment.

Unless, of course, you're running an air taxi business which
thinks it is loosing out. But as I said before, that is a
_protectionist_ issue which shouldn't have anything to do
with the FAA.

I don't worry about the air taxi operator. I worry about
the imposition of excessively restrictive rules on the
private pilot.

Todd Pattist
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)
___
Make a commitment to learn something from every flight.
Share what you learn.

"Tony Cox" wrote:

This is a hypothetical discussion, so what the FAA does or
doesn't want really isn't the issue. My point is that the
requirements for pilot qualification and maintenance should
be based on risk and the perception thereof by the participants,
and not upon other factors.

I generally agree, but you're arguing for an all or nothing
approach. If a private pilot can pay for the flight and
take his grandma sight seeing, why not others who pay him?
You have to look not only at risk per flight/passsenger, but
also at the total effect of your rule. If it's all or
nothing, either you let the private pilot fly only solo or
you let him fly commercially and impose the higher risk on
larger numbers of passengers. It's reasonable to restrict
the totals as we do now by some limit. I just think the
limit is currently more restrictive than is justified.

This is correlated with, but certainly not exclusively based upon,
whether the operation is considered 'commercial' or not. In fact,
the existing FARs already make exception for 'commercial' operations
which occur with (presumably) informed consent of the participants
- flight instruction, which doesn't need to be pt. 135.

It seems quite reasonable to me that "Mark", flying a pilot and A&P
out to a help a stricken plane ought not be hampered by the FARs
either. If he wants to charge money, so be it. I'd not attempt to
regulate his reimbursement any more than I'd try to tell a CFI what
to charge. It seems that too many people accept that 'commercial
intent' should be the deciding factor, but don't really appreciate
that what the rules should be doing (and what they for the most
part do) is arbitrate risk.

They control risk in two ways. One is by requiring certain
training levels. The other is by limiting the number of
operations by prohibiting certain commercial activities that
would result in large numbers of operations. The problem
IMHO is that too many non-comercial activities are
prohibited.

Todd Pattist
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)
___
Make a commitment to learn something from every flight.
Share what you learn.

The problem with contingency fees is not that they are a bad idea, it is
that they are abused. They are still necessary to assure equal protection.

The Bar does not live up to its high calling to police its own. Instead, it
handcuffs itself as if it had no care or concern for the good of anything or
anyone other than lawyers. Lawyers should be held to a higher standard, and
their licenses more easily revoked. If the Bars are going to maintain a
monopoly, they should be forced to do a better job. Unfortunately, all the
legislatures and courts are full of Bar members, so don't hold your breath.

Our judges are no longer empowered to be judges. They are too hamstrung by
the legislature (who are rightly upset due to judicial activism). In my
opinion, a good judge should have more power to tell a lawyer to take his
ridiculous motions and suits and stick them where they belong.
Unfotunately, that is no longer the case in this country. Due to the
system's inability to weed out or remove bad judges, the whole thing has
gone haywire.

What we really need to figure out is how to get better judges and get rid of
the bad ones.




"Doug Carter" wrote in message
...
Dan Thompson wrote:
Now, how are you going to pay your lawyer in that lawsuit? Job
prospects
for quadraplegics are pretty dismal.

First, your presuming I'm broke to begin with and that my
income stops with the accident. Neither is necessarily
true. The argument for "increasing access to the courts"
is commonly used to rationalize contingency fees. Does
this increase in suits result in a net-net greater good
for society? I don't think so.

While, on one hand contingency allows someone with little
money to file a suit and possible receive a huge award, on
the other, *someone else* is paying that award whether it
is reasonable or not. How can a jury determine the
"appropriate" punitive damage amount? These costs are
passed on to society. Does society in the U.S. benefit
more from this trade off than in Japan or England?

I'm not an expert on this but I think the crimes of
"maintenance" and "champerty" went back to biblical times.
Contingency seems to be the combination of these two.
If not eliminated perhaps Contingency should be limited to
"maintenance" by allowing the lawyer to recover his costs
from the spoils but not profit from them (champerty). A
slippery slope to be on though...

And that's great you like the loser pays theory. What if you lose?
What if
the product wasn't defective after all? How are you (the loser) going
to
pay? What if, at the end, you can't pay?

I think you more eloquently state my argument than me.
Clearly, as done in much of the rest of the world, the
prospective plaintiff had to consider a potential down
side as well as a possible up side then a better balance
would be achieved.

Should you be required to prove you could pay if you lost, before you
even were allowed to file a lawsuit?

Interesting question. In most states you have to prove
you have insurance or deep pockets to license a car
because you are creating a potential liability by putting
that car on the road. When you file a suit you create a
potential liability as well.

But, my position depends on more personal responsibility
that most Americans have the stomach for so I doubt things
will change. Fewer and fewer companies will make risky
products (like vacuum pumps) and your daughter may not
have access to a doctor to deliver her child.

"Todd Pattist" wrote in message
...
"Tony Cox" wrote:

I think you're too hung up on 'commercial' part. The only
issue that *should* matter is whether unsuspecting members
of the public who just want to get somewhere are not exposed
to excessive risk.

But the private pilot is allowed to take up unsuspecting
members of the public, so we've already decided it's ok for
him to fly such passengers.

Well, there is a distinction. Passengers who go for a ride with
a private pilot almost always know him/her & are under no
doubt as to his/her 'amateur' status. People who go to an
air taxi operation expect (and ought to receive) professional
treatment.

The next question is how many
such passengers, and that's where the commercial line is
drawn

I've taken over 30 different people for rides in the last year. I'll
bet there are some air-taxi operations servicing perhaps
only one or two businesses which fall short of that. So I don't
think 'how many' really has much bearing on the issue.



Now my libertarian leanings say that perhaps we should
allow anyone to fly anywhere with a private pilot, as long
as they sign a waiver first. This, I suppose, could be argued
in a different thread. But this is _not_ what I'm arguing
here. These 'customers' know the risks, and if it wasn't for
the fact that their damn plane had broken down they'd be
taking those risks themselves. So the money is irrelevant
because it has no effect whatsoever on risk, perceived or
actual.

Agreed. I have the same libertarian leanings and agree that
the A&P and CFI know the risks. I'd have no real problem
allowing the payment of money, but you then have to
recognize that someone might set up a money making business
transporting such pilots.

Indeed. But in "Mark"'s case, I'm hard pressed to see how
he could make much money out of this. After all, who'd pay to
fly with a private pilot when they can fly themselves?

Still, crafting a FAR for this would need care to exclude the
cowboys. (And I *do* think it would be worthwhile, since helping
someone go get a plane is a fine 'professional' courtesy that ought
to be permitted. Don't forget that even if "Mark" didn't get
reimbursed, he's still not going with a 'common purpose' and so
he's still illegal).

I don't care if he makes a profit. I just think we should
ease the rules on private pilots.

I think we're actually in agreement.

If we are going to have
rules that require better training/equipment, I think
"profit" is a reasonable place to draw the line.

I'd consider it a reasonable default. But the 'profit' motive
does already get modified for flight instruction, so I don't
really see that it is a tremndous leap if it gets modified in
"Mark"'s case too.

It ensures
that there's money there to pay for better
training/equipment.

That's a good one. 'Ensures', eh? Any 135 operators
care to comment?

I agree. My point was only that the FAA does not seem to consider private
pilots and part 91 aircraft to be competent/safe enough for the general
public. The regulations were written to reflect this.

Mike
MU-2


"Tony Cox" wrote in message
ink.net...
"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
nk.net...
A private pilot has at least 40hrs of experience and has passed a
minimal
checkride. The FAA does not want pilots with these minimal
qualifications
flying the public around. Part 91 maitenance standards are minimal too.
The FAA does not want the paying public flying around in these aircraft.



This is a hypothetical discussion, so what the FAA does or
doesn't want really isn't the issue. My point is that the
requirements for pilot qualification and maintenance should
be based on risk and the perception thereof by the participants,
and not upon other factors.

This is correlated with, but certainly not exclusively based upon,
whether the operation is considered 'commercial' or not. In fact,
the existing FARs already make exception for 'commercial' operations
which occur with (presumably) informed consent of the participants
- flight instruction, which doesn't need to be pt. 135.

It seems quite reasonable to me that "Mark", flying a pilot and A&P
out to a help a stricken plane ought not be hampered by the FARs
either. If he wants to charge money, so be it. I'd not attempt to
regulate his reimbursement any more than I'd try to tell a CFI what
to charge. It seems that too many people accept that 'commercial
intent' should be the deciding factor, but don't really appreciate
that what the rules should be doing (and what they for the most
part do) is arbitrate risk.

--
Dr. Tony Cox
Citrus Controls Inc.
e-mail:
http://CitrusControls.com/



"Geoffrey Barnes" wrote in message
ink.net...

{tc says}
Unless, of course, you're running an air taxi business which
thinks it is loosing out. But as I said before, that is a
_protectionist_ issue which shouldn't have anything to do
with the FAA.

Dude wrote:
The problem with contingency fees is not that they are a bad idea, it is
that they are abused. They are still necessary to assure equal protection.

Ok, how about this, keep contingency fees but consider
excluding punitive damages from the fee calculation *and*
most importantly, impose "loser pays."

What good for the goose is good for the gander...if a
lawyer expects to profit from 1/3 of the spoils when he
wins then he should pay 1/3 of the other sides costs if he
loses.

The point is to build a natural check into what is now a
run-a-way system not to preclude the really injured from
recourse.

The Bar does not live up to its high calling to police its own.

I agree. There seems to be no incentive for them to do so.

"Tony Cox" wrote:

I think we're actually in agreement.

So do I. Now if we could just convince the FAA :-)

Todd Pattist
(Remove DONTSPAMME from address to email reply.)
___
Make a commitment to learn something from every flight.
Share what you learn.

"Doug Carter" wrote in message


Ok, how about this, keep contingency fees but consider
excluding punitive damages from the fee calculation *and*
most importantly, impose "loser pays."


What about "winner does not receive punitive damages"? Contingency is still
there, the truly wronged are made as right as money can make them, the "bad
guys" are still punished, but the courts are not treated as the lottery they
sometimes seem to be. The punitive awards in this scenario would go to a)
the general fund; b) a designated "victims' fund"; or c) some other "public
fund" that benefits society at large.

I'm not so upset about the idea of contingency as much as I am about a jury
awarding $40M to somebody too stupid to realize the coffee is hot.

--
John T
http://tknowlogy.com/TknoFlyer
http://www.pocketgear.com/products_s...veloperid=4415
____________________