"Guilty" of Flying the Wrong Pattern?

Jim Logajan wrote:
So I still don't think that government agencies are not required to
abide by _all_ the FARs. Government agencies, including the military,
are presumably still rerquired to abide by all the FARs that use the
unqualified "aircraft" or "person" terminology.

The problem here is in the U.S. Constitution, I believe. A/C
owned by say Interior cannot be forced to be maintained by rules
of the DOT. DOT can't ask Justice, the law firm to both
agencies, to litigate against Interior. If Interior said its
employee/pilots need not be certificated, then I think FAA can't
enforce against the pilot individually. No certificate; no
certificate action. If they proposed a civil fine for operating
w/o a certificate plus other violations, Interior would step in
and defend the employee and their own rule that their pilots need
not have certificates. Then no way to force it to court. It
ultimately would be the United States of America v. the United
States of America.

Fred F.

TxSrv wrote:

Jim Logajan wrote:

So I still don't think that government agencies are not required to
abide by _all_ the FARs. Government agencies, including the military,
are presumably still rerquired to abide by all the FARs that use the
unqualified "aircraft" or "person" terminology.


The problem here is in the U.S. Constitution, I believe. A/C owned by
say Interior cannot be forced to be maintained by rules of the DOT. DOT
can't ask Justice, the law firm to both agencies, to litigate against
Interior. If Interior said its employee/pilots need not be
certificated, then I think FAA can't enforce against the pilot
individually. No certificate; no certificate action. If they proposed
a civil fine for operating w/o a certificate plus other violations,
Interior would step in and defend the employee and their own rule that
their pilots need not have certificates. Then no way to force it to
court. It ultimately would be the United States of America v. the
United States of America.


I don't think that's the case. We just opened a brand new tower/tracon
building here at BIL. An unbelievable amount of time and more
importantly money was spent making the building ADA compatible. That's
a Federal Government law that applies to all buildings and it certainly
isn't the FAA that came up with it. The FAA spent a lot of time and
dollars complying with other agencies laws. OSHA, TSA, FBI, etc. The
list is endless.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Marty Shapiro writes:

Public Aircraft:

(1) An aircraft used only for the United States Government; an aircraft
owned by the Government and operated by any person for purposes related
to
crew training, equipment development, or demonstration; an aircraft owned
and operated by the government of a State, the District of Columbia, or a
territory or possession of the United States or a political subdivision
of
one of these governments; or an aircraft exclusively leased for at least
90
continuous days by the government of a State, the District of Columbia,
or
a territory or possession of the United States or a political subdivision
of one of these governments.

This definition excludes cities, and therefore excludes most police
departments.

As a mater of regulation, pilots of public aircraft do not have to
have a pilot's certificate.

But cops are not pilots of public aircraft, generally speaking, based
on the definition given above. They are civilian employees of cities,
not employees of the U.S. government or its States, territories, or
possessions, and their aircraft are presumably in the same category.


You are really talking about something you know NOTHING about now. Not like
that is a new practice for you but a city is a political subdivision of a
State.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
Marty Shapiro writes:

Federal agency, state, state department, county (parish in LA), city,
township, town, village. All are political subdivision's.

Cities and the like are corporations.

If any political subdivision on a map counts, then school teachers,
firefighters, garbage collectors, and a vast number of other people
can fly without certificates and ignore the FARs.


If they are flying public aircraft they can. As I mentioned in a earlier
post many cities and counties have gotten surplus UH-58s (the military
version of the Bell 206 helicopter) these aircraft are not certified and
they don't have N numbers.

Newps wrote in
:



TxSrv wrote:

Jim Logajan wrote:

So I still don't think that government agencies are not required to
abide by _all_ the FARs. Government agencies, including the
military, are presumably still rerquired to abide by all the FARs
that use the unqualified "aircraft" or "person" terminology.


The problem here is in the U.S. Constitution, I believe. A/C owned
by say Interior cannot be forced to be maintained by rules of the
DOT. DOT can't ask Justice, the law firm to both agencies, to
litigate against Interior. If Interior said its employee/pilots need
not be certificated, then I think FAA can't enforce against the pilot
individually. No certificate; no certificate action. If they
proposed a civil fine for operating w/o a certificate plus other
violations, Interior would step in and defend the employee and their
own rule that their pilots need not have certificates. Then no way
to force it to court. It ultimately would be the United States of
America v. the United States of America.


I don't think that's the case. We just opened a brand new
tower/tracon building here at BIL. An unbelievable amount of time and
more importantly money was spent making the building ADA compatible.
That's a Federal Government law that applies to all buildings and it
certainly isn't the FAA that came up with it. The FAA spent a lot of
time and dollars complying with other agencies laws. OSHA, TSA, FBI,
etc. The list is endless.

In this case it's the United States Congress that is odering all
federal agencies to comply with the ADA. It is NOT one federal agency
ordering another federal agency. Congress has the ultimate weapon to use
if you don't comply - your budget is 100% at their mercy. The other "club"
Congress has is to allow, in the law, for citizens to sue if you don't
comply. Now it is no longer USA vs. USA in court. It is USA vs. citizen.

I recall there was a big stink many years ago (20 or 25?) about this.
Congress routinely exempted itself and federal agencies from laws such as
the ADA. This was a boiler plate exemption that they inserted into
everything. Large contributors protested and they dropped the blanket
exemptions.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

Jim Logajan wrote in
:

Marty Shapiro wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
Newps wrote:
Government agencies are not required to abide by the FAR's. Many
do to make it easier on themselves but they are not required to.

That can't be right. At least not such a blanket exemption. All I
can find is some exemptions for certain operations mention in 5-6-3
of the AIM.

Do you have a cite?

From the FAR 1.1 definitions:

Civil aircraft means aircraft other than public aircraft.
...
Look carefully at the start of FAR 61.3. Note that it only requires
a pilot certificate for a civil aircraft. It does NOT require a
certificate for a public aircraft.

§ 61.3 Requirement for certificates, ratings, and authorizations.
...
As a mater of regulation, pilots of public aircraft do not have to
have a pilot's certificate. As a mater of policy, most governmental
agencies do require their pilots to have one or their own equivalent
(eg. the military).

Thanks for the cite. HOWEVER....

The some of the Flight Rules in part 91 appears to make _no_
distinction between civil and public aircraft. Once airborne, the
pilot of a public aircraft still appears to be required to abide by
some of the Flight Rules under part 91. This seems to be the case
because 91.1(a) specifically says the part 91 Flight Rules apply to
"aircraft" - note it has _no_ qualifiers.

So I still don't think that government agencies are not required to
abide by _all_ the FARs. Government agencies, including the military,
are presumably still rerquired to abide by all the FARs that use the
unqualified "aircraft" or "person" terminology. (It's a mixed-bag
under part 91; some FARs definitely refer to civil aircraft, others to
all aircraft.)

My own opinion is that most agencies insist that pilots of public
aircraft be licensed and follow the FARs simply because they don't want the
adverse publicity and resulting Congressional investigations and/or law
suits should there be an incident, especially if fatalities are involved.

IIRC a few years ago, when there were several in-flight breakups of
forest fire fighting aircraft that it turned out the Department of the
Interior had its own airworthiness & maintenance rules for these aircraft.
These rules were changed to be more in line with the FAA rules after the
negative publicity.

--
Marty Shapiro
Silicon Rallye Inc.

(remove SPAMNOT to email me)

Newps wrote:
It ultimately would be the United States of
America v. the United States of America.

I don't think that's the case. We just opened a brand new
tower/tracon. An unbelievable amount of time and more
importantly money was spent making the building ADA compatible.
That's a Federal Government law that applies to all buildings...

If Congress passes a law which says buildings must comply with
ADA, then any agency which ignores the law answers to Congress.
There's easier ways they can make them comply, but ultimately
they have the power to impeach the FAA Administrator or DOT
Secretary.

Now if Interior said its pilots need not be certificated, then
either the President or the Congress could step in if they
disagreed. Congress need only deny appropriated funds for the pay
of the pilots. However, if neither the President nor Congress
cared over the issue, then there's nothing the FAA alone can do
about it. In contrast, the law the FAA works under does not say
that all pilots must be certificated by FAA, but that the FAA
"may issue airman certificates." Marion Blakey can thus fly
anything she wants w/o any cert, even a drivers license!

Fred F.

Newps writes:

I don't think that's the case. We just opened a brand new tower/tracon
building here at BIL. An unbelievable amount of time and more
importantly money was spent making the building ADA compatible. That's
a Federal Government law that applies to all buildings and it certainly
isn't the FAA that came up with it.

I think you'll find that it's not unconditional. There has to be some
connection with the Federal government (including receipt of
government funds, transaction of government business, etc.). That's
how the Fed normally usurps the Constitutional authority of the States
to control this type of legislation.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Mxsmanic wrote:
There has to be some
connection with the Federal government (including receipt of
government funds, transaction of government business, etc.).
That's how the Fed normally usurps the Constitutional authority
of the States to control this type of legislation.

Jabberwocky. Completely inapplicable to the situation posed by
Newps. Since when is an ATC facility a frickin' State function?
Shameless ignorance knows no bounds.

F--

On Wed, 01 Nov 2006 07:27:29 -0500, Bob Noel
wrote in
:

LEOs aren't "above" laws that don't apply to them.

So LEOs are just above the laws that govern ordinary citizens?