Jose wrote:

At a recent safety seminar, it was held that "congested" could easily
be
construed to mean "over a freeway in the middle of nowhere", and it
was
stated by the person doing the seminar that flying the Hudson
Corridor
is technically illegal because you can't apply the "500 feet away"
rule
since NY is congested (never mind that we're over the Hudson River,
which is a mile wide). He also stated that the FAA has a "look the
other way" policy on that particular corridor.

This is an excellent example of why the FSDO system is broken. Every
inspector can have his own goofy interpretation of the regs and the FAA
will usually back them on it. Even if it's diametrically opposed to
some other FSDO inspector that has a different take on the regs (and is
also backed by the FAA).

Personally, I think the guy you're talking about above is full of
crap. Unfortunately, that doesn't make him less likely to try and tag
some pilot not flying within his personal interpretation of the regs.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)