Doug Haluza wrote:
FAA enforcement is admittedly a hypothetical situation. I have not
heard of any enforcement actions from a posted log. Even if there were,
a good lawyer could probably poke holes in it. So I don't think this is
the main issue.

We did have a mid-air recently. Since it was in Class-G below 18K, our
reps who are trying to contain the fallout from this don't have to
start by digging out of a hole. And fortunately we have a good working
relationship with the parties as well.

Now if it happened above 18K (without a clearance), the situation would
be completely different, for the pilot and the community. Even a near
miss report from above 18K is going to cause problems for more than
just the pilot involved.

So the question to the community is, which is the slippery slope:

1) Letting people post flights with obvious problems, in effect
encouraging others to emulate this until something bad happens. Then
try to dig out of the hole.

2) Trying to discourage this by asking people to change their behavior,
to make it less likely that we dig a hole in the first place.


There is also number 3, which is the only one relevant to the accident
you mentioned, but from some reason it is discounted buy many, and it
is:

3) Encourage pilots to install a transponder and turn it on.


P.S. There is also an insurance aspect to this as well. If your log
shows an obvious violation, your insurance could deny payment in the
event of a loss. This will cause a lot more pain than the FAA can.

This is an interesting assumption. I didn't dig my insurance policy
yet, but I don't recall that violations are excluded. I think, like car
accidents, you are covered whether it is your fault or not.



wrote:
This reminds me of Lord of the Flies.

We spend all this time worrying about hypothetical situations where the
FAA uses our IGC files to rain on our parade, when all the time the
true enemy was ourselves.