Cloud_dancer wrote in
:

In article ET,
writes:
It's the BFI with a 2 place that has given 500 "lessons" but never
solo'd a student that is against it... why? I have no idea....

Actually, most of the real BFI's I've talked to are against it. The
reason is, if I understand it correctly, that it takes your currently
usable training aircraft and regulates it out of use in 3 years, and
forces you to buy a factory built aircraft to teach in instead. I know
that I won't be able to make that kind of financial stretch to keep on
teaching - it simply won't pay back - and resent being forced to when
I have a perfectly serviceable aircraft now. I expect most other BFI's
are in the same situation.

Yes I agree, this part is quite troubling...



So in 3 years many of the current BFI's will be forced out of
business. That means fewer people to train new pilots, and more
expensive training if you can find it. It's not even clear whether
many manufacturers will even be willing to sell completed aircraft for
training use, with the potential liability issues there. So you may be
forced to train in GA aircraft and then self transition into lighter
UL types. Less training and training in a different class of aircraft
than you are actually going to fly in probably won't do good things
for the accident rate. :-(

Another part of the NPRM talks about having to train in a smaller,
slower aircraft first than transition to the larger faster aircraft... I
dunno how this will be resolved, but I expect some of this has already
been changed... we shall see.. hopefully soon.


And if you buy a factory built aircraft, you can't do your own work
and repairs on it, so it has to go to an AP, again increasing costs to
the BFI, and thence to the student. Too high a cost is what has shrunk
the American flying public from about 800,000 at it's peak down to the
current 500,00 or so.

Hrm, I know you can take a course for 2 levels of maint for LSA, I dunno
about the differing requirements for trainers though.



IMHO - Sport Pilot could be ok, IF they left the 2 seat training
exemption in place, and just bumped up the UL empty weight limits to
350# for part 103 and 600# for 2 seaters under the training
exemption. But as we last saw it, it looks like it's intended to screw
the current BFI's out of existance and force all training to the
existing GA CFI's. I'd rather have what we have now than that.

Kevin


It is my expectation (although I cannot back this expectation up with
any facts whatsoever)..., that the planned obsolesence of these trainers
may be overturned, either by the final rule or an amendment later on....

Most of my focus in sport pilot is on the new class of license created,
rather than the restrictions on existing UL's that are imposed. For me,
I expect it will allow me to get a SP lic for "about" half the cost of a
PPL and fly pretty much the way I would use a PPL anyway.... For my
father, who bought a high doller plane, only to have a minor medical
event that cause him to have to quit flying less than 30 days later :-(
it's an opportunity to fly, period.

I believe OMB's 90 days was yesterday.... of course we would have all
fallen over dead in surprise if they had acted within the deadline...


--
ET


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