Looking for Loopholes? Your Engine Doesn’t Care About the Regs

At birth every human on the planet is gifted with two great benefits: Time and integrity. Either can be used to improve our situation. Either can be wasted.

Unfortunately, for those who choose to waste these endowments, they cannot be restored to their original state. Once frittered away they are forever gone.

This came to mind as I returned to my home base after presenting a seminar on piloting basics. Traditionally I make my pitch using rock solid references with some baseball stories to illustrate the points and a handful of humorous tales to keep the audience awake and intrigued.

As is so often the case, I got a comment from an attendee that was intended to stump me. As a secondary effect, I suspect the guest thought there was at least an outside chance I’d proclaim him brilliant for finding a gaping hole in the regulations.

He said this: “I’ve never been able to find a regulation that says we have to do a weight and balance for each flight. There isn’t one.”

There was a hopefulness on the face of the inquisitor. His expression bordered on smugness. He was carrying a big ol’ bag full of confidence that made him 100% sure he was on solid ground. Well, maybe 98%. Either way he was pretty darned confident.

“Sure, there is,” I replied. “91.103 covers that.”

I was every bit as confident as he was — although my confidence was bolstered by the fact that I’d covered this exact concern earlier in the presentation.

Sometimes when we’re focused on our own issues, we can miss important details. 14 CFR 91.103 is titled Preflight action. It stipulates, “Each pilot in command shall, before beginning a flight, become familiar with all available information concerning that flight.”

When I teach this topic, I generally simplify that sentence to this more easily understandable translation: “All you need to know is everything.”

That includes runway lengths, radio frequencies, winds, visibility, density altitude, special use airspace along your route, NOTAMs, TFRs and, of course, the loaded weight and balance of the aircraft.

Now, a sharp-eyed reader of the regulations might note that weight and balance isn’t explicitly mentioned in the regulation. And they’d be right. It’s not specifically stipulated, but it is implied so strongly that it would take a linguistic contortionist with extensive legal experience to make the case that “all available information” doesn’t include details that specifically pertain to the safety of the flight.

If we devalue our integrity to the point that we’re nit-picking the regulations with such a fine-toothed comb, we might also note that no regulation exists that specifies you must put oil in your piston engine before you fire it up to fly.

You can check. That regulation just isn’t there.

But 91.7 does require that a pilot verify the aircraft is in airworthy condition. The word oil doesn’t appear, but it’s hard to make the case that a dry piston engine is in an airworthy state.

91.103 comes into play here again. While the regulation says nothing specific about oil, or oil quantity, or the price of a quart of your favorite lubricant, it does say that a pilot must become familiar with all available information concerning that flight. In my book, oil is a fairly critical issue to the safety of flight. So while the regulations don’t exactly say, “Hey doofus, put oil in the airplane if needed prior to flight,” it kind of assumes any pilot worth his or her salt has the integrity and the self-preservation skills to take that important step.

Incidentally, there is a regulation that tells us in no uncertain terms that our aircraft must have an oil pressure gauge and an oil temperature gauge. There is a regulation that stipulates our lubrication systems have to function properly in all expected attitudes and conditions. There is even a regulation buried in Part 23 where few pilots let their fingers do the walking that says the usable oil capacity has to be sufficient to hold up through the aircraft’s endurance under critical conditions. But it doesn’t say that a pilot has to put that oil in the engine.

It doesn’t say it. But it definitely means it.

The old folks call this reading between the lines. Too often we might be inclined to find the exact term that’s missing. Some of us might interpret that to mean there is no rule that requires us to do the smart thing, the logical thing, the thing any sentient being with the will to survive knows is necessary. But we don’t have to because the rule doesn’t say so.

This is what is known in scientific and technological circles as dumb. This is what throwing our integrity away looks like. This is also the reason the Pilots Operating Handbook for the 1959 Cessna 172 was less than 40 pages long, while the current version clocks in at 10 times that size.

When I teach in the airplane or in a ground school class setting, the references I use come from the FAA, the aircraft manufacturer, the avionics maker or, in the case of seaplanes, I incorporate a bit of insight from the U.S. Coast Guard. Because for at least part of that flight our aircraft qualifies as a watercraft.

I do not reference what my Uncle Bob thought about any given topic. Not once have I suggested that some guy I met at a party gave me the real story on how to do this or that. And I have made it a habit throughout my career to avoid looking at regulations with an eye toward finding a loophole.

However, I do recall one comment that has stuck with me for years. While presenting a seminar many years ago, an elderly man in the front row identified himself as a retired Eastern Airlines pilot. I adopted his credo and have strongly suggested others do the same. I will make that same suggestion to you. He said this: “I was always taught to conduct myself in a manner that would benefit me at the hearing.”

Wiser words were never spoken.