Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.), acknowledged by many as general aviation’s best friend in government, returned to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2018 for his 40th consecutive year after a busy week in Washington, where he introduced legislation to revitalize aviation.
The new bill, S.3270, named the Securing and Revitalizing Aviation Act of 2018 (SARA), is a follow on to Inhofe’s Pilot’s Bill of Rights 1 and 2, passed in 2012 and 2016. That legislation led to significant improvements in legal due process for FAA violations and reforms to the Third Class Medical called BasicMed.
“I’ve taken advantage of BasicMed along with thousands of others,” confirmed Inhofe, 83, who is the only active commercial pilot in the Senate.
A Certified Flight Instructor (CFI), Inhofe owns a Cessna 340, an RV-8, and a Grumman Tiger. He has amassed over 11,000 hours, including a 1991 flight to recreate Wiley Post’s historic 1931 trip around the world.
Many of the changes to general aviation proposed by Inhofe come from personal experience, plus input from pilot town hall forums such as the one held Saturday, July 28, at AirVenture.
“I recently had trouble finding a Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) when I needed a check ride to renew my CFI before it ran out,“ he said. “The new legislation will change the rule limiting DPEs to only two check rides per day and also remove geographical boundaries.”
To help eliminate the looming pilot shortage, the SARA Act would enable schools across the country to benefit from grants that would bring ground school education into classrooms and expose students to a career in aviation, both in the cockpit and as aircraft maintenance professionals.
The SARA Act also supports Inhofe’s existing legislation to modernize FAA-approved curriculum for aircraft maintenance. Inhofe noted that the FAA’s curriculum wastes time teaching maintenance professionals about decades-old technology instead of equipping them to repair the modern aircraft being used today.
Other proposed changes include protection for volunteer pilots and permanently eliminating FAA charges for the extra controllers required for air shows such as AirVenture.
As senior member of the U. S. Senate Armed Services Committee and primary sponsor of the defense authorization bill, Inhofe said he is passionate about improving the military aircraft fleet and addressing the shortage of military pilots. Currently, the Air Force is short about 1,500 pilots.
Inhofe also looks forward to the passage of this year’s FAA reauthorization because he worked diligently to ensure it contains resources and provisions to benefit the general aviation community. His reforms include allowing airports greater flexibility to expand investments in infrastructure. He’s also led efforts to encourage public-private partnerships to support local, small airports.
When asked about the status of ATC privation, which continues to rear its head, Inhofe emphatically stated “that’s dead and gone.”
“Since I flew around the world, I know what it’s like to fly in countries other than the United States,” he said. “We have the best system now and I have a favorite saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
I agree, Sarah. There is no reason for the 1320 lb weight limitand 45 knot stall speed, except to fall in line with what other countries have. The United States is the leader in aviation, so why do we have to live with what other countries require. Same with the weather. The way we gewt to read the aviation weather now is because that is the way other countries do it. What we had befor e was simple and easy to understand. Now we get to read weather reports that for instance call fog, BR instead of F etc.
Richard,
To that I would add that those other countries that have a category in line with our LSA do not require the stall speed to be met without flaps. That provides a significant decrease in the wing area compared to designs that are compliant with our regulation. That lower wing area saves weight that can be available for passengers / fuel / increased cabin dimensions / etc… You do lose some of the potential weight advantage to the flap hinging and actuation mechanism but that still leaves a nice bit that be applied elsewhere.
A trusted acquaintance of mine who had some participation in the early stages of drafting the performance limitations gave me some insight into that process. He told me that the No Flaps got pushed by a person(s) who felt it to be bad to have flaps in an an aircraft that was envisioned to be an inexpensive entry way to learning to fly. The reasoning is that the students would become dependant on flaps to get a landing speed within their capabilities. That by itself is a large pile of Bovine Scat in my educated opinion. I learned to fly in a C-150 that had perfectly acceptable landing speeds with or without the flaps fully deployed (or partially deployed). I am not sure how many of the LSA aircraft out there are actually being used for basic flight instruction but I am going to guess it is low. Those aircraft have turned out to be rather expensive and most are just used by persons (like me) that could not get past the FAA’s draconian standards for a 3rd class medical any longer. And that does not make us unsafe, it just proves out this Catch 22 for participating in the LSA category, if you roll the dice and try to get a special issuance and are rejected, you cannot fly LSA any more. So we we get to keep on flying in LSA just so long as we do not bother them with an attempt to get a 3rd class.
So when do we get the change to the 3rd class requirement that we really wanted? That was a simple extension of the LSA aircraft to include the existing basic 2-4 place aircraft such as a C-172. And no requirement for how recent your last 3rd class was and no requirements for your private physician to suddenly become an AME, just hold a valid state driver’s license. It is ridiculous to keep imposing the aircraft restrictions that came with the LSA category when there are plenty of existing (and equally SAFE) simple aircraft out there already but do not meet its arbitrary limits for Stall Speed and Gross Weight. Let’s face it, whoever came up with 45 kts stall with NO FLAPS was not living in the real world. As for the 1320 lbs Gross Weight pushes many designs too far.