In article ,
says...


"sleepy6" wrote in message

Jim sent me a private email wanting clarifications and we had a coup
le
of email exchanges. Just some clarifications of the UL situation.
I
don't make others private email public but it's okay with me if Jim
wants to post mine. When Jim has time to research the info, I'm sur
e
he will reply on here.

Sorry, I wasn't suggesting that anyone post private emails (bad
"netiquette" - I agree)... What I meant was that I (and probably
others) would like to know what concerns the UL community
has - and suggesting that this might be a good place to post them.

Bill

Don't get me wrong here. The local EAA guys are great and the other
chapters seem to welcome UL as well. I have never had any reason to
complain about the grass roots part of the EAA.

The national level is a different situation. The EAA has a long
history of not representing UL. Are you aware that in the 22 years
since part 103 was written that the EAA has never initated a single
petition for the improvement of part 103? The only thing they have
done is file for the same exemptions that other organizations worked
for after they got them.

Are you aware that sport pilot came about when the EAA blocked a
petition in the ARAC committee for improvements to part 103? That was
the first petition for large improvements in 22 years and was almost
guaranteed to be enacted before the EAA action.

Don't get me wrong, there are some good things in sport pilot. This
is not about sport pilot at all. The UL community would have gladly
supported an EAA effort in that direction. The point is that if the
EAA had cooperated, part 103 would have been improved. They chose to
hijack that petition instead of write their own. On top of that,
the way sport pilot was written eliminates the fleet of existing UL
trainers and the existing system of instructors in a couple of
years.

The registration of the UL trainers and instructors provided
the largest part of the income for the UL organizations. With
no trainers, no instructors and much less funding, the picture
looks pretty bleak for the UL organizations.

Recently another UL petition was submitted. This petition was NOT
discussed with the UL community. In fact once rumors started that it
was being drawn up, the orgs denied it existed for a long time. The
community first knew all the details when it was put on the docket.

As written, it is a thinly disguised attempt to allow the orgs to make
money by chargeing members to participate in a phoney safety study. In
other words, if you pay the orgs, they would let you use the petition
exemption for a little more weight. It isn't designed to help the
community. It is designed to produce income for the orgs.

The EAA originally was going to be one of the submitters but pulled out
after the community got upset about what little we knew of the
petition. The EAA did submit a favorable comment to the petition.

The community was so upset that most of us do not support the petition
submitted by our own orgs. We submitted comments about what the
community really wanted instead.

You can read the petition and comments for yourself at

http://dms.dot.gov/search/document.c...docketid=19350

If you read my comment #144 first it will help you watch for certain
items when you read the petition which is comment #1. If you read my
comment #57 you will see what the petition should have been to really
help the community.

I asked Jim to check out the above and then tell us what his position
would be concerning UL. He is very busy but assures me that he will do
that as soon as he can.

Bob