The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has delayed plans to release its proposed FAA reauthorization legislation. That occurred after the House majority leader informed the committee that consideration of the FAA reauthorization bill has been moved to September.
The current FAA authorization expires Sept. 30. It was put into place after an agonizing 23 short-term extensions that stretched from September 2007 to February 2012. While some lawmakers had promised that wouldn’t happen with this reauthorization, a short-term extension of the authorization may be needed while lawmakers pound out the final bill.
The reauthorization bill provides funding for the agency, but also includes priorities for the FAA, as determined by the Congress.
Oh, I’m not angry, I’m sarcastic. Bryan seems to suggest that a 3rd class medical is required to know what you’re doing while operating an aircraft. I don’t believe it is. I can spend an hour telling you stories about pilots with medicals (I assume they had them as they were operating aircraft that require a medical) cutting me off, flying incorrect patterns, landing on the non-active runway while others were using the correct runway, etc.
Profeciency and brains (not to mention money) are what’s required to fly; not a medical.
I strongly support the 3rd class medical requirements relaxation initiative and including it as an issue in FAA’s reauthorization deliberations. Anybody that can legally drive a car in the US should be able to fly a non-commercially operated airplane of up to four occupants, with a rest mass less than about 2 metric tons TOGW, with a Vmo of less than 200 knots (this relates to limiting the total energy involved in an accident to approximately that of surface vehicles and boats otherwise that do not require medical examinations – for example, imagine an F350 towing a 28’ Bayliner by a driver without a medical every two years ). But there are many more critical issues that need to be addressed in the FAA reauthorization legislation than just the 3rd class medical issue.
GA is getting crushed by “high cost” issues largely driven by inappropriate obsolete FAA criteria, that is going to completely lead to the collapse of low end GA, if not immediately addressed and fixed. From a dysfunctional NextGen design that will never contain separation service costs in its present form, or allow economic airspace access, to illogical, inappropriate, and ineffective UAV policies, to completely inappropriate avionics equipage requirements (e.g., overly complex and unnecessarily expensive ADS-B) that not only will never work to address Nextgen’s real needs, to wasteful and obsolete systems like WAAS and LPV that could be done much better and far less expensively with RNP, … to seriously flawed pilot qualification criteria (e.g., new ATPC qualification flight hour and simulation requirements that just serve as a deterrent to pilot training and professional pilot employment), to overly burdensome and unnecessary certification, STC, Form 337, and MX inspection policies. Overall, FAA is often the root-cause for much of this present strangling of GA. This serious issue needs to be addressed in the re-authorization hearings as well as the 3rd Class Medical.
Meanwhile we are left to wonder what might be influencing the decision to privatize air traffic control and pay for it with user fees…
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/04/bill-shuster-admits-personal-relationship-with-lobbyist-117054.html
So will the reauthorization bill include provisions for the much ballyhooed privatization of the FAA? Not likely. The FAA is one of the many sacred cow bureaucracies of Washington.
Seems to be heading to a European system where only the airlines, and super rich can fly.
Wasn’t for the Good Old U.S.A. I would not have been able to enjoy flying as I do. And now the present administration seems to heading toward a royalist system.
No, Rep Schuster, (the guy introducing your “royalist” privatization scheme), isn’t part of “the present administration”. He is a Republican. How did you completely miss that this is a Republican effort to privatize public infrastructure?
I am one of the many that can not fly under present medical rules because of our incompetent politicians.
Although I have owned 26 aircraft and have 8000+ hours, I am only capable of flying an LSA in the eyes of the government and do not expect things to change in my lifetime. We are one step away from a non-flying public.
Actually you can’t fly because you don’t meet the current medical standards for flight. Hours and airplanes owned is not relevant to that.
Mike, you sound like a bureaucrat.
Who is this guy taking my name?
Also mike has a good point your hours and aircraft owned don’t matter. The condition of your health does.
“The reauthorization bill provides funding for the agency, but also includes priorities for the FAA, as determined by the Congress.”
If only one of those priorities for the FAA included GAPPA and eliminating the 3rd Class Medical! Hope springs eternal, but it is the Government, of course…
How does elimination of the third class medical do anything more than save a pilot the cost of the medical every 2 or 3 years, (depending on your age)? That is about 2 hours worth of AvGas per year. Not really significant.
Bryan, I’ll bet you and Mike could become fast friends.
It’s not about cost..that needs to stop being used as a reason, because it’s a poorly crafted way to hide the real motives and makes us look shortsighted when we say that. It’s about allowing people like me who have been waiting a decade+ to earn their wings, only to be banned from doing so because of obsolete, obtuse laws that do nothing to significantly improve safety.
Bryan, I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and not treat this as though you’re being purposely obtuse. It’s about not having to be Superman to fly low-performance aircraft 6,000 lbs. or less in a non-commercial manner. It’s about older pilots, many of whom may not be able to afford $150,000 or more for a light sport aircraft, who would be perfectly fine flying a Cessna 150, 152, 172 or 182 or a comparable Piper product, many of which can be found for $15,000-$40,000. Simply rent, you say? Well, there are many more Cessna 172’s out there for rent than there are LSA’s available. A full-size SUV is around 5,775 pounds without adding cargo or anything being towed, yet there’s plenty of men and women who couldn’t pass a 3rd Class Medical operating them in heavy traffic on just a driver’s license. I, and many others, think that IS significant.
Ah, older pilots with no medical, self certifying because they don’t think they have a problem. Great idea.
In the last 18 months I have prepped for an add on glider license while one such guy took an oral for his commercial glider. He knew nothing about airspace , even though we were about 10nm from the Washington SFRA, and 5 mm from a Class D. He first mumbled something about Control Zones and TRSAs, but then just answered that he didn’t care he didn’t care about that “alphabet stuff”. He took his flight test right after mine, and couldn’t remember from takeoff to landing on a 1000′ tow that the examiner wanted him to demonstrate a slip to land. He took three pattern toes and couldn’t remember on any of them. That should really be flying with you and me in the system. Two weeks later he somehow passed a commercial ride.
On several other occasions I have been cut off in the pattern by older pilots that couldn’t hear the radio, and probably couldn’t see outside a very narrow field of vision. Love those guys, but not everyone is a local and familiar with them, and knows to watch out. Getting rid of the third class medical doesn’t help any oth this. The minimal monetary savings doesn’t seem to be worth the risk of having no check on these folks at all.
Oh, now I see your point. Thank God no pilot with a medical has EVER flown into a restricted zone and EVER missed a radio call. I’m so happy you’re looking out for society. Thank God for people like you. Would you care to start providing flight reviews or perhaps driving tests? How could we ever get by as a society without you explaining to us, more simple folks, these important safety issues.
I know my hearing was damaged due to my work in the military launching jets off an aircraft carrier. I’m happy that the freedom I provided for you has allowed you to take the position that my freedom to fly should be restricted.
You’re welcome.
Jay don’t be so angry. The point Brian is making is a valid one although he is not the best at expressing it. When digging through the NTSB accident database of General Aviation accidents you will see a lot of the accidents are caused by lack of proficiency. Many pilots become complacent after getting their license. Forgoing to practice, or not following all the important rules that they have learned. They have gotten the attitude that they don’t need to know and practice all of that, because they are better than that, or it won’t happen to them, and so on. From what I see this is a much bigger issue than medical reform.
Do we need new rules and regulations to get these complacent pilots to stop from being a safety risk? No! Rules and regulations are what is making GA so expensive. What needs to be done instead is the General Aviation community needs to self police and create a culture of continued study to keep everyone proficient and safer.
Bryan, your anecdotes are off point. You are basically asserting that the glider student was too stupid to fly. Are you saying that a flight doc would not have issued a 3rd Class due to this? This seems to be more of a licensing (CFI/DE) issue than a medical cert issue.
As for missed radio calls, are you flying out of towered or non-towered airports? If the latter, please remember that radio calls are NOT mandatory at non-towered airports. Some older pilots (myself included) get sick of listening to younger ATP-wannabes talking at hyper-speed on the local freq, and some don’t even have radios. Also, whether or not you were cut off in the pattern is a judgment call. I have been cut off by young, professional ATPs flying light biz jets who bust into the pattern (with radio calls) just because they want to.
The FAA has tightened a number of its cut-off standards (e.g. hypertension) over recent decades and has plenty of others (cancer) that may or may not have any relevance to the ability to safely operate a small aircraft. I doubt that you have any such problems yet so it may be a little difficult for you to understand the concerns of older pilots who would like to continue flying simply for fun.
Frankly, your posts smell of the arrogance of youth, and are short-sighted. f FAA /DOT succeeds in its campaign to indirectly reduce the number of recreational pilots competing with drones are other NAS users, it will eventually result in further restrictions and lost opportunities for younger (and sharper!) pilots like yourself.