"RST Engineering" wrote in message
...
[...]
Warbirds, you are not welcome at Oshkosh.

We've all got our pet peeves when it comes to other pilots. Around here,
where we don't see warbirds on a regular basis during daily flying, it's the
RV "squadron" who do high-speed, low passes down Lake Sammamish, or the
Mustang replica pilot who does his "overhead break" to a landing at the
airport, or any number of other pilots doing stupid pilot tricks.

Ironically, if I were to have to call out the group of pilots who cause the
most trouble around here, it'd be the people flying experimentals, and
primarily homebuilts. Based on that, using your train of thought, I'd want
all experimentals banned from Oshkosh.

I'm thinking that probably wouldn't go over too well, though.

As far as the warbirds themselves, IMHO while there may indeed be a general
attitude problem among them, the real problem is attitude problems
generally. From the various descriptions I've read here alone of events at
Oshkosh, never mind elsewhere, it's clear that the real issue is that
failing to conform to procedures and fly safely is basically condoned.

Would it be a lot of work for the FAA to file actions against each and every
pilot who violates basic safety common sense (the FAA loves 91.13...they
could get to use it a lot at Oshkosh), FARs, and procedures outlined in the
NOTAM? Damn straight it would be. The first year. For that matter, they
need not go after everyone...just triage the offenders, and go after the
worst. Most important: make sure each and every certificate action is VERY
well publicized.

It might take a year or two for pilots to figure out that there just is no
room for screwing around, but I'm sure they would. Each year, there would
be fewer and fewer pilots who need reprimands, and on average the severity
of the incidents should reduce as well. Problems will never be eliminated,
but it sounds as though right now there's a LOT of low-hanging fruit that
needs to be harvested.

Are warbirds a problem? Well...perhaps. But it's not like anyone seems to
be taking the safety issues seriously generally. IMHO, it's a bit premature
to be banning specific classes of airplanes and pilots from Oshkosh, when
huge strides in safety could be made overall by focusing on the BAD pilots
first (and if the majority of the bad pilots are flying warbirds, well then
you help get rid of the warbirds without actually explicitly banning them
).

Pete