EAA Input
on New Homebuilt Advisory Circular Helps Prevent New
Regulations
Dispute
Remains Over Use of Accident-per-Hours Measurement
March 31,
2011 —EAA’s input to a new FAA Advisory Circular (AC) that urges transition
training for those moving to amateur-built aircraft helped address major areas
to improve safety without resorting to additional burdensome regulations. That
AC was released by the FAA this week and is the result of a committee
co-chaired by Sean Elliott, EAA vice president of regulatory and industry
affairs.
The new
AC provides information and guidance to owners and pilots of Experimental
category aircraft and flight instructors who teach in them. The document
complements FAA’s Amateur-Built Aircraft and Ultralight Flight Testing
Handbook, which address the testing of newly built Experimental Amateur-Built
aircraft.
EAA is
urging members to read and implement the information in the AC to enhance
safety for individual aircraft owners and pilots, as well as the amateur-built
community as a whole.
“We
joined forces to find a way to address the major safety issues for
amateur-built aircraft—including first flights, second- and subsequent owner
operations, and transition training—without creating new regulations that
could hinder this growing segment of aviation,” Elliott said. “Without the
input of EAA, AOPA and the Lancair Owners and Builders Organization, it was
entirely possible that there would have been more regulations imposed on the
amateur-built category.”
EAA
continues to dispute one area presented in the AC, however. The FAA continues
to use accidents per flight hours in its safety analysis and comparisons of
various aircraft types, despite discussion by FAA’s own government/industry
General Aviation-Joint Steering Committee that the method is
flawed.
“A flight
hour is not a flight hour across the board of all aircraft,” Elliott
explained. “Three hours in a corporate jet with one takeoff and landing is not
the same as three hours in a GA training or recreational aircraft, where there
might be numerous takeoffs, landings, and low-altitude maneuvering within that
period. FAA’s continued use of that methodology presents an unrealistic
picture of real-world use of various airplanes. We have asked that the FAA,
through the GA-JSC, explore better ways to measure the safety record of GA
aircraft.”
To ensure
the recommended training outlined in the AC is readily accessible, EAA
encourages owners/instructors of experimental aircraft to apply for Letters of
Deviation Authority (LODA), which allow for compensated training in those
aircraft. EAA also encourages FSDOs to support and grant such applications for
LODAs. Only with an adequate and easily accessible network of transition
training aircraft and instructors will allow the new AC to be truly effective
and meet FAA’s GA safety goals.
Mark
Sletten
Vice President,
Communications
Lancair Owners and Builders
Organization
“You can fly as safely as you want to fly because flying
is not a matter of luck. It’s based on choices you control.” Rod
Machado