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When is enough, enough?


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You won't get certification easing until you get no liability for the FAA. It will never happen as long as they can be sued for allowing it. 

Someone will always blame the FAA for allowing you to use non-certified equipment even if you drive into a mountain in clear weather. 

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You won't get certification easing until you get no liability for the FAA. It will never happen as long as they can be sued for allowing it. 

Someone will always blame the FAA for allowing you to use non-certified equipment even if you drive into a mountain in clear weather. 

Of course that's true. But many of us know the above is not a valid reason to avoid such technology. 

 

In fact, I'll bet a dollar "non approved", advanced technology, experimentally proven, well configured, inexpensive EFIS/Autopilot/ADSB equipment will save far more lives than via it's omission. Especially when configured with a "save me" button. (yes, this exists, yes it works)

 

And, yes the FAA is the entity at fault. If they employed "risk based analysis" properly, it's clear that many lives would be saved. However, the FAA would instead, gladly pull your ticket and fight to the bitter end to screw you, for your installation of unapproved equipment. To make matters worse, they make it exceedingly difficult to do the testing required in your aircraft. And they specifically disallow any form of experimental EFIS. I'm sorry but this is beyond absurd. 

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You won't get certification easing until you get no liability for the FAA. It will never happen as long as they can be sued for allowing it. 

Someone will always blame the FAA for allowing you to use non-certified equipment even if you drive into a mountain in clear weather. 

 

You can't normally sue a government agency for negligence the way you can sue an individual or company.  The federal government is protected by sovereign immunity.

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You can't normally sue a government agency for negligence the way you can sue an individual or company.  The federal government is protected by sovereign immunity.

This is what I thought, too.

So now we need to figure out why the bureaucrats feel such a need to drag their feet, hem and haw, and not allow some of the most basic, common sense ideas to move forward.

And while we're at it, someone needs to explain why AD's have grown from 1-2 pages long in the 1960s/1970s to 6-7 pages long now. Same basic information, just less easy to understand because you have to first wade through the crap.

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So now we need to figure out why the bureaucrats feel such a need to drag their feet, hem and haw, and not allow some of the most basic, common sense ideas to move forward.

It's all about power. The petty bureaucrat wants to emphasize to us that he has all of the power and we have none. With even the Bureau Head telling Congress that they won't comply with the law, how can you expect any of the minions to have a decent attitude???

As for AD length, much of it appears to be useless bureaucratic garbage attached at the beginning. Sure would be nice if FAA could abbreviate that part much the way manufacturers do with SIs.

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Power yes, but more about keeping their jobs by creating a problem so they can fix it. They can get budgeting by showing the appropriation committee see look what we accomplished and could you please give us an increase in our next years budget

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Liability comes in many forms one of which is complaints to Congress and public embarrassment in the news. Bureaucratic heads have rolled with such lately but I do agree that by changing the qualification regime to use some of the new stuff would be just as safe if not more so than the system we have now. 

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I'm going with the "love the one you're with" rule. I love my dual vor plus dme and adf panel with a nav radio that auto identifies stations and shows me the current radial I am on. That plus an iPad puts me right in the sweet spot of technology for vfr and light ifr training on a budget. Of course I'd like to have glass and a coupled autopilot but I'll invest my cash in an engine overhaul and tank reseal instead.

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Me, too, Dave! My first trip after my PPL was in my trainer, dual VORs cross-tuned to verify where on the direct path I was. I did omit the hash marks, though. Still cross-check occasionally to verify that I'm on (the highlighted) path, but less so than before. I just like to keep up with where I am. For a while, I would tube and give the radial to my wife, and she would plot our location (an excellent introduction for her, and it gave her something to do).

Ryder's auto-identify radio sounds pretty neat!

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I fly victor airways with dme and tune both radios. I also look out the window and do a physical fix of my location. The ipad stays on most of the time but from time to time I turn it off and do a fix via the sectional chart and landmarks only. I also have the garmin d2 watch set with the current altimeter setting and tuned to my final destination airport or on nesrest mode. When I fly with friends I have them do the navigating and fill in a nav log when we hit checkpoints they chose. It makes it more fun like a scavenger hunt.

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Victor airways . . . Victor airways . . . Oh, yes, those strange lines connecting VORs. Had to follow V3 in Florida once. The rest of my flights have all been direct, with an occasional vector around Bravo airspace, before and after getting a GPS. Going direct using only VORs is getting difficult as they are being shut down; it's hard to draw intersecting lines when you only have one working VOR within reception distance. Going over the Appalachians from WV to NC there are some spots with no VORs any more.

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That sucks Hank. Here in Florida reception is great and there are a bunch of VOR stations. I like flying on them as it makes it easier to fix and report my position especially with dme. If you look at airnav most airports are described in space as being 50nm on the KPIE 201 radial etc. That makes it nice to fly there even if you don't have rnav or gps.

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That sucks Hank. Here in Florida reception is great and there are a bunch of VOR stations. I like flying on them as it makes it easier to fix and report my position especially with dme. If you look at airnav most airports are described in space as being 50nm on the KPIE 201 radial etc. That makes it nice to fly there even if you don't have rnav or gps.

That's cause Florida is a fricken pool table. But I like to fly the Victors sometimes it's fun and quite often the victors are the best routs through the mountains.

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