Disneyland claims to be the Happiest Place on Earth, but as a pilot, I feel the title transferrs EAA’s AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin for one week a year. If you’ve never been, then you need to commit to coming here next year. Everyone I talk with agrees, words and photos cannot convey how wonderful the AirVenture … Read more
I’ve often said that pilots will need to become even more active in the future in protecting their flying privileges from the increasing number of threats. Here’s an opportunity for you to help do that. If you live in California, your help is urgently needed to contact your legislators on July 1 and July 2 before their recess. Please ask them to vote for AB 1140(amended).
California AB 48 levied large state fees, increasing costs to flight schools and flight instructors and goes into effect in August 2010. This will raise the cost for pilots to get flight instruction, and effectively put many instructors and flight schools out of business. In early June, I emailed you asking you to contact legislators and/or attend a public hearing in Sacramento on June 7. AOPA and dozens of flight schools and flight instructors showed up and testified. However the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) said that they would still be implementing the regulations. Since new bills cannot be introduced until January 2011, efforts by AOPA, NATA and flight schools turned to finding an existing bill that could be amended with provisions delaying the new fees for a year, pending further legislative hearings.
Last week, the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee held a confirmation hearing on the nomination of John Pistole to be the new Transportation Security Administration (TSA) administrator. The most interesting revelation from a General Aviation point of view was one Senator’s acknowledgment of the effectiveness of pilots in lobbying Congress.
I'd like to thank everyone who either wrote to Sacramento or attended the meeting on Monday to provide the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education with comments regarding new regulations and fees for the flight instruction industry. Clearly there was an impact, as the Bureau seemed surprised by the flurry of comments generated over the past … Read more
California A.B. 48 was signed into law giving the BPE, part of the California Consumer Protection Agency, authority to levy new fees on flight schools. The bureau appears to be taking the broadest possible interpretation of the law and proposes to include all independent flight instructors and flight schools, including Part 141 and Part 61 schools. To quote a story by EAA, “Each instructor would be charged an initial application fee of $5000 and a $3500 renewal fee every three years. If the instructor has a second location an additional fee of $1000 would be assessed. Finally, they would be required to pay an operation fee of three-quarters of a percent of the CFI’s income (not to exceed $25000 annually).” Compliance includes providing the Bureau with audited financial statements each year.
We’ve just released a new product, a Garmin 430 GPS Guide for the iPhone and we’re running a contest in which you can win a free app or $50. It will take you just a minute or two to enter and it has an intriguing twist, since it’s actually a contest within a contest. Please help me … Read more
Now that airlines have been given the green light to fly again in Europe, there’s been a mad dash by passengers and the airlines to get back into the air again. Today, I was fortunate to be at Dublin International again and take a photo as the green flag was waved and airliners took to the skies again.
The volcanic ash clouds creating havoc for the airlines in Europe are also creating unprecedented opportunities. With air traffic interrupted, workers are patching runways and as one blogger proposed, general aviation pilots are making low passes at airports they rarely get to fly over. On Tuesday, Irish airspace was closed to all IFR traffic, effectively banning all flights above 7,500 feet, the base of Class A airspace in most of Ireland, and all airline flights. But VFR flights continued with no restrictions. It’s resulted in a few odd things, like the Citation I heard pass twice through Dublin’s airspace. The first time…
After the weekend iPad frenzy, people seem evenly split: 50% of online comments are positive while the other half question the need to carry around yet another electronic device. Yet posts by pilots are all positive if not exuberant. The beauty for pilots is that about 350 aviation iPhone applications already exist. Most of the existing apps will run either in their native iPhone 320 x 480 pixel size, or can be doubled to display larger on the iPad. App developers can rework their applications so that they are optimized to display on the iPad’s larger display. About a half dozen aviation applications have been optimized for the iPad and others are in process.
The pilots of United Flight 889 initiated the report of their near mid-air collision with a Cessna 182 near San Francisco last week. New NTSB rules may make those reports more common, so don’t be surprised if the number of reported near mid-air collisions rises in the coming year. All pilots are required to receive ground instruction on regulations found in NTSB 830. As of March 8, new rules add to the list of reportable events that require immediate notification of the NTSB. This may ultimately lead to more stories in the press about these events and eventually to theories that the number of near mid-air collisions is increasing.