At 05:00 12 March 2005, Kilo Charlie wrote:

Allow me to touch on another little point, the FAR's
don't allow us to go below 500 feet at places like
an airport, unless we are in the act of landing. Driving
in at 50 feet, we aren't in the act of landing, are
we? Who want's to explain that in court?
JJ Sinclair

Oh for God's sake JJ.....you know full well that a
low pass is LEGAL re the
FAR's when over an airport.

The FAR point was debunked in a similar thread more
than a year ago. You can fly as low as you want as
long as you aren't within a specified distance of a
'man-made structure'. Anyone remember the distance?
As I recall the debate then turned to whether runways,
corn fields, other gliders constituted 'structures'
as they are often the only man-made objects near a
finish gate. It was decided that this couldn't be
the intended meaning because the way the reg was worded
it would make landing, formation flying and a bunch
of known legal maneuvers illegal too. There is no reference
to 'down the runway' found in the FARs either.

The thread ended with a discussion of the safety merits
of JJ painting his barn atop a 20' extension ladder
and whether it should be legal for him to do something
that injures 14,000 people each year. I thought that
put things in perspective. :-)

9B