Mark James Boyd wrote:


Does anyone else have a better, firsthand account of how this developed?
The Palouse Soaring Society was mentioned in a 1978 and 1990 documents...
Any glider regulation historians out there?

Once upon a time the SSA had an exemption that permitted
towing by Private Pilots at SSA clubs where the pilot could
charge for the tows to cover the costs. The exemption had to
be renewed every two years by the SSA, much like the current
data plate exemption. IIRC, the pilot was prohibited from
logging the time for the purposes of additional ratings but
could recover the actual cost of the tow, including fuel and
maintenance, etc.

In or around 1997 when Part 91 was rewritten, Sec.
61.113(g) was written to eliminate the biannual need for the
exemption renewal which took up unnecessary time and money
from both the FAA and the SSA every two years.

My presumption is that the rule means what its plain
language says, notwithstanding the typically tortured syntax
of FAAspeak.

A few years ago at the Portland SSA convention, this exact
question was pitched to John Lynch of the FAA who had had a
significant hand in the rewrite of Part 61. John's response
was somewhat oblique to the effect that pilots should not
try to infer more than the language says and that if its not
prohibited by the regs, its not prohibited.

61.113 is pretty clear as currently written, even if the FAA
had second thoughts about the regulation change after the fact.

My favorite Bob Wander quote may apply here. With respect to
the FARS,

If it says you can, you can.
If it says you can't you can't.
If it doesn't say, you can.




Peter D. Brown
http://home.gci.net/~pdb/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akmtnsoaring/