Waypoints

Godbless the FAA. If we didn't have that federal bureaucracy to kick around, we'd have to invent one for the comic relief, if nothing more. At the federal level, the agency leaves itself so open for ridicule that you sometimes wonder how so many good individuals within the organization can collectively seem so inept.

It's true that at each and every level of the behemoth agency of nearly 50,000 employees there are hard-working, dedicated, loyal professionals. Everywhere you turn — flight service, air traffic control, airports, flight standards district offices, aircraft certification — day in and day out, good work gets done. Compare our aviation system to any other in the world and you'll see just how lucky we are to fly as unhindered and as inexpensively as we do. And yet, like clockwork, the "agency" (composed of those same helpful individuals) churns out some of the worst government you might imagine. Is it the bozo individuals within the agency that force the bad policies through, or does some level of group-think take over when they all get together?

As with any group, there are some FAA employees who are more dedicated than others. A minority are apparently there to push only their own agendas or to justify their own existence, regardless of the overall good of aviation.

For example, one airframe manufacturer recently certified a new model. The changes included a new engine and some gauges. The airframe and systems have been proven for decades. For years, and through many model certifications, the aircraft from this company have carried a handy placard on the center column with the critical checklist items for takeoff and landing. It wasn't a required placard, just a nice-to-have addition to the cockpit. However, during these certification flights, the FAA test pilot insisted that the checklist be removed because it was not lighted. Never mind that most pilots fly fewer than 10 percent of their time at night — and that when they do, they are required to carry a flashlight. No amount of argument from the manufacturer would change the inspector's mind. So now, when you buy Model X, the salesman hands you a placard to install yourself. When you buy Model Y or Z from the same company that placard is already attached.

I'd tell you which manufacturer is involved, but the company personnel have to work with this inspector in the future, and they fear retribution when the time comes for their next certification project. That's the really scary part.

While this ridiculous interpretation of the rules comes from the hinterlands, sometimes the bad ideas come straight from headquarters.

You'll remember the proposed "ticket" program from last summer. The FAA said that it was going to allow its inspectors to issue "tickets" on the spot to pilots who violated any regulation. This traffic-cop mentality was supposed to make things easier for the inspectors and grease the wheels of "justice." Never mind that pilots had no recourse. AOPA and everyone else in the industry — from general aviation all the way through the airline crowd — cried foul, and eventually the FAA changed the policy to be more acceptable. Well, from the same brain trust that brought you the ticket program comes a new "interpretive rule" that absolves air traffic controllers from any legal responsibility to correct pilots who incorrectly read back a clearance (see " Pilot Counsel: Questioning clearances," p. 139).

This is truly a case of fixing something that's not broken. As the system exists now, pilots read back clearances so that the controller knows the pilot received and understands the entire message. On our party-line radios, it's not unusual for part of a message to be lost when another pilot on the frequency keys the mic. This method of cross-checking works great 99 percent of the time. Occasionally a controller doesn't hear a pilot incorrectly read back a clearance, and every great once in a while this little transgression actually causes a problem — usually a loss of separation because of an incorrect altitude. The FAA got its bureaucratic nose out of joint when on a couple of occasions the National Transportation Safety Board actually declared that the transgressions were the FAA's fault for not catching the incorrect readback. So rather than accepting the rebuke and figuring out a way to make the system better, the FAA just changed the rules and now, in effect, says, "Pilots, you're on your own." This change in policy now causes an "us-against-them" attitude between pilots and controllers and actually decreases safety.

AOPA has asked the FAA administrator to change the interpretation. The attorneys will have a field day with this one, but in the meantime, y'all be careful out there.

Now you'd think that an agency that takes such a shortsighted look at safety couldn't possibly have a long-range strategy on any subject, but it appears that in the area of user fees, the agency is looking into the future. For years, the agency — often a mouthpiece of Clinton administration politics — has been requesting from Congress the right to levy user fees. At one point, the FAA claimed that future funding shortfalls would require the implementation of user fees. An AOPA analysis showed that there would be no shortfall, and an independent consultant hired by Congress verified it. The outside consultants concluded that the current plan of collecting revenue through fuel and ticket taxes works just fine now and will do so in the future.

Still, the agency is attempting to lay the groundwork for future user fees. Most recently, the FAA declared that general aviation is growing so much that it is now driving the agency's workload. Never mind that the number of GA hours flown and the number of pilots and aircraft are lower now than in the 1970s when the FAA itself was a smaller agency. The FAA's claim, which was made at the GA Forecast Conference in April, contradicts its own forecast of commercial aviation made a couple of weeks prior (see " President's Position: Damaging headline," p. 4). At the Commercial Aviation Forecast Conference, the agency noted that commercial aviation's growth would outpace GA's.

But by making the claim that GA was "driving the FAA workload," was the agency attempting to justify future user fees? Will our system become like New Zealand's? There, the air traffic system, which is miniscule compared to the one in the United States, was privatized in 1987 with the promise that general aviation would not have to pay user fees. Well, guess what. The private company now manning the air traffic system says that it can't possibly continue to offer services to GA at no charge. So, beginning July 1, pilots there will be charged $22.50 to file a VFR flight plan and $1.60 for the first minute of a weather briefing and 27 cents for each subsequent minute. The other fees are too numerous to list here.

The New Zealand air traffic system, like the one here, was built for the benefit of the airlines. In most cases, GA does not need the extensive radar systems and control towers that the airlines demand. In fact, many "airline" airports with control towers are really general aviation airports with a handful of airline flights a day. We don't need 10,000-foot runways made of concrete three feet thick. We'd be happy landing on the taxiways at most large airports. So if it's GA driving the FAA system, we'd be happy to drive it right to the scrap yard.

And while we're on the way there, let's stop and take along a new FAA policy that requires random drug testing for pilots conducting charity flights. The number of aircraft accidents and incidents resulting from drug abuse is so small that it's difficult to measure. And drugs have never played a role in any charitable-flight accident. Once again, the FAA is dropping a huge regulatory net over all of aviation, rather than attempting to craft rules that fit a particular circumstance.

It's not all bad news. Every once in a while, some semblance of reason comes out of FAA headquarters at 800 Independence Avenue in Washington, D.C. The FAA recently adopted a policy long advocated by AOPA that allows avionics manufacturers to build general aviation units to a level of reliability appropriate for our needs. Until the change, the manufacturers were required to build all black boxes to a level of reliability necessary for the airlines — basically, a one-in-a-billion chance of failure. There are few GA systems that need that level of reliability and few of us would be willing to pay for it. Now, manufacturers can concentrate on building new avionics systems that will enhance safety, and they will be able to afford to provide them at a more reasonable cost.

In reality you don't have to look far to see the good work that the FAA does. The next time that you key the mic, a helpful controller will be there; when you dial 800/WX-BRIEF, a specialist will provide a useful weather briefing. Apparently the trick is to not let too many of them in the same room for too long and to keep them as far away from Washington, D.C., as possible.

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