Proficient Pilot: Rules, rules, rules

When I took my first flying lesson in 1952, my instructor handed me a thin, 25-cent booklet titled Civil Air Regulations for Pilots. It was relatively easy to read and understand. You could learn most of the rules in only an hour or so. Most of them made sense and are still in effect. Some, however, no longer exist. It was once required, for example, that pilot applicants “be of good moral character.” Apparently that is no longer necessary. There also was a time when a married woman could not apply for a pilot certificate without her husband’s written consent!

As aircraft became more numerous and more complex, so too did the rules governing them. Although many of us complain about the piling on of new regulations, we concede that most of them make flying safer.

A sad aspect of the regulatory process is that the need for many critical regulations is not foreseen. Some are created and implemented only after tragic events cause us to recognize a need for them. For example, a regulation limiting high-performance aircraft to an indicated airspeed of 250 knots when below 10,000 feet msl was introduced after a number of close encounters of the wrong kind. Operating at lower airspeed gives pilots of high-performance aircraft more time to see and avoid the slower aircraft populating the lower altitudes.

Prior to the enactment of this speed limit, jet pilots could take off, suck up the gear and flaps, lower the nose, and accelerate to the barber pole (airspeed redline). Fun? You bet. The sensation of so much speed so close to the ground is a major thrill. Was it safe? Not so much. The only way to get a similar sensation these days is to request a block altitude from ATC, level off when breaking out of an undercast, and skim the cloud tops at high speed (when above 10,000 feet). Passengers love it, too.

Another rule required aircraft to be equipped with altitude-reporting transponders when within 30 nm of the primary airport of Class B airspace. This was the result of a midair collision between a Piper Archer and an Aeromexico DC–9 over Cerritos, California, in 1986. (The Archer had a transponder but not an altitude encoder.)

Another accident caused by the lack of an applicable regulation or procedure struck closer to home. It involved a TWA Boeing 727-231 that crashed into Mount Weather, Virginia, on December 1, 1974. All 92 souls on board were killed. This touched a particularly sensitive nerve because I was flying as a TWA captain in the same type of airplane in the same part of the country at the same time that this accident occurred.

The mishap airplane had been maintaining an assigned altitude of 7,000 feet while heading toward the Washington Dulles International Airport for an instrument approach to Runway 12. The aircraft was being radar vectored at the time and was 50 nm from touchdown. It was not on a published route when the controller cleared the flight for the VOR/DME approach. At that point, the cockpit voice recorder reveals that there was a discussion between the captain, first officer, and flight engineer as to what altitude should be maintained. Should they remain at their current altitude (7,000 feet), descend to the altitude for crossing the final approach fix (1,800 feet), or descend to some intermediate altitude? Interestingly, TWA as well as the U.S. Air Force had been requesting clarification as to how altitude is to be managed at such a time, but the FAA did not respond until after tragedy struck.

The crew descended to 1,800 feet, the published altitude for crossing the final approach fix, a decision that sealed Flight 514’s fate. It was discovered during the investigation of this accident that a United Airlines flight had narrowly escaped the same consequences while executing the same approach six weeks earlier.

The FAA resolved the confusion that pilots were having with respect to altitude management by issuing a regulation with which every instrument pilot is now familiar. Paraphrasing FAR 91.175(i): When a pilot is cleared for an instrument approach, he must maintain the last assigned altitude until established on a published route for which lower minimum altitudes are published.

I never thought that I would write a column favoring regulation, but just think where we would be without the legal guidelines that help to protect us from ourselves and each other. In a sense, we should be grateful when additional rules are developed that make our flying safer. Occasionally, though, misguided regulators go overboard. At such times it becomes our obligation to vigorously resist unnecessary, excessive, and punitive regulations. It also is vitally important that we resist those who promulgate them.

Web: www.barryschiff.com

Barry Bchiff has been awarded the Louis Blériot Medal by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale.