A national defense authorization bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives Dec. 8, 2022, includes language that eliminates an FAA policy change that requires pilots — and their flight instructors — to obtain a letter of deviation authority (LODA) to give or receive flight training in experimental aircraft.
“Disregarding decades of precedent, the FAA changed its tune on flight training and in July 2021 issued a directive requiring certain aircraft owners and flight instructors providing flight training in experimental aircraft to obtain a LODA in order to conduct flight training,” officials with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association explained.
The new policy drew backlash and confusion from the general aviation and flight training community who argued that the directive was nothing more than a paperwork exercise that did nothing to enhance safety — and in fact achieved the opposite. Following its release, nearly 40,000 pilots were grounded overnight.
Even the FAA Administrator at that time, Steve Dickson, called the LODA a “four-letter word.”
AOPA joined with other aviation advocacy groups to champion a change to the new policy. With strong support from Reps. Sam Graves (R-Mo.), Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), and Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii) and Senators Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), a provision to eliminate the LODA requirement was included in the final defense authorization bill.
“The FAA legal office has turned the definition of flight training upside down and this provision is only the first step in getting us back to where we were and where we need to be. Flight training is a safety issue and we don’t need anything that impacts that in a negative way,” said AOPA President Mark Baker. “AOPA appreciates the bipartisan effort of members of Congress and our allies in the GA community for addressing this issue. We will continue to work with our friends in Congress to take the next step and codify the definition of flight training that has been used for more than 60 years.”
The bill is expected to pass the Senate soon and arrive on the president’s desk for signature.
I have been working with various departments of the FAA for more than 40 years and find that administrations come and go while the FAA folks largely keep on doing their things unless something big comes along to alter their course.
Most of the time we are able to work with the FAA and achieve progress through our direct relations with staff or in the working groups that are set up for that purpose, and through the rulemaking process.
In this case I am sure the Biden administration had nothing to do with the training rule, or even knew about it. What would anyone in the administration gain by it?
It seems to have come bubbling up from some obscure place in the FAA. And if it takes an Act of Congress to fix it, then so be it. Thank you Mark at AOPA and the other leaders of GA organization who worked on this, and for our friends in Congress.
If we want to point fingers, remember that shortly after our most recent former president appointed a new DOT chief the FAA went directly to the city attorney for Santa Monica and gave away the federal government’s right to keep Santa Monica Airport open in perpetuity. The city was pledged to keep SMO open to serve the area’s needs for a general aviation reliever airport to complement LAX’s service as an air carrier airport. Now the airport has been all but killed by that dark of the night act, which did not comply with any requirements for pubic hearings and a decision by Congress, as had been prior FAA and governmental policy in similar closure processes. Without top level action it will fully close in 2028.
Did this have anything to do with property development interests wanting to close the airport in order to remove height restrictions on the surrounding areas? Very, very likely.
Did it have anything to do with the fact that in the 1980’s the former president was prevented from building a 1,500 foot tall hotel on the final approach to runway 21 at SMO? Who knows?
Bottom line – let’s not drag our political biases into these discussions or we will be as divided as the rest of the country when what we need is clarity and unity in dealing with foolish regulations or people.
I have found the FAA in general, under this “Biden” administration is very “non-accountable” for anything they do or do not do.
Read the AOPA summary of the legal case of Warbird Adventures vs. FAA. A dispute over selling rides to the public in a P-40, which is a limited category aircraft, got way out of hand. The aftermath overturned a FAA policy on flight instruction that had stood for decades.
And the obvious and easy fix would have been to challenge the designation of those flights as “flight instruction,” i.e., to have said “the balance of the evidence shows that those were paid rides, not bonafide flight instruction.”
Instead, someone at the FAA lost their mind, and then the organizational refusal to acknowledge or correct mistakes kicked in.
I sure would like to know who caused this problem in the first place??
Probably an FAA bureaucrat sitting in an office in Washington or Oklahoma City who has nothing better to do than fiddle with the regulations.