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Learning to fly opens up opportunities beyond the skies. One of the easiest ratings you can add on to your private pilot certificate—and one of the most fun—is the seaplane rating. There’s nothing like landing on a lake, then taxiing across the water to a beach for a picnic lunch, or a rustic lodge for a restful vacation.

What: Cessna 206 with Wipline 3450 floats
Where: Southeast Creek, Church Hill, Maryland
Photographer: Mike Fizer

New company wants to increase renter pilot access

Single checkout would be good nationwide

A team of entrepreneurs is working to solve that age-old dilemma faced by vacationing pilots every day: onerous checkouts when you want to rent an airplane away from home.

Rod Rakic, founder of the pilot social networking site myTransponder, is teaming up with other entrepreneurs to develop Open Airplane, a program to allow pilots who go through a standardized checkout to rent airplanes any time at any FBO in the country that participates in the Open Airplane project. The Open Airplane website tracks the eligibility of pilots who have passed its standardized checkout and allows them to reserve rental airplanes across the nation at participating flight schools and FBOs.

The website will allow users to rate the airplanes at the various companies and allow for online reservations. When a pilot shows up to fly at that location, he can skip the checkout. After returning to the airport, he records the Hobbs time on the Open Airplane website. At that point, his credit card is charged and the FBO or flight school is paid, minus a commission for Open Airplane.

Based on his market research, Rakic believes the rental companies will realize additional new business from the program, pilots will get more value out of their pilot certificates, and the industry will enjoy better safety because pilots will be more active.

Open Airplane will offer standardized instructor training to participating FBOs and flight schools. Pilots will need to maintain a nonowned insurance policy, which many renters already carry.

The Open Airplane website is in Beta mode now. Interested pilots can sign up for a free newsletter to learn more. Look for a launch late this year.

AOPA voices concerns about proposed ATP requirement

FAA suggests 1,500 hours required to fly for airlines

Proposed rules that would significantly increase airline pilot training requirements—and cost—could force many would-be pilots to abandon aviation careers, exacerbating shortages that threaten the future of GA and commercial air travel alike. That is among a list of concerns voiced by AOPA and others in response to a proposed FAA regulation, mandated by Congress, that would require airline first officers (who may currently qualify with a commercial pilot certificate) to hold airline transport pilot (ATP) certificates.

The rule would increase from 250 to 1,500 hours the minimum requirement to serve as a Part 121 FO for many pilots. Part 121 pilots must currently hold an ATP certificate to serve as captain.

The FAA proposes allowing students enrolled in four-year degree programs to qualify for an ATP certificate with 1,000 hours. AOPA said this would place students training outside of those programs—including those at Part 141 flight schools or training with individual instructors or flight schools under Part 61—at a disadvantage: Students would have to spend an additional $90,000, approximately, to accumulate the flight time and complete training outside of a bachelor’s degree program.

The FAA lowered the ATP age requirement from 23 to 21—but only for students enrolled in a four-year college program.

AOPA recommended changes, including removal of simulator training requirements that are more applicable to type ratings than to certificates. Students required to receive 16 hours of simulator training, including at least eight hours in a full flight simulator (Level C), would compete for scarce simulator slots in Part 142 schools, AOPA said.

AOPA believes advanced jet training should be required only for pilots seeking Part 121 jobs. AOPA noted that the proposed regulation could exacerbate an already serious shortage of pilots. An estimated 20 percent of current ATP and commercial certificates are held by pilots 60 and older. Just more than 3,000 ATP certificates were issued in 2009, compared to nearly 8,500 in 1990. Private pilot certificates have declined from about 40,000 new certificates granted in 1990 to 20,000 in 2009.

FAA avgas research funding ‘critical’

Unleaded alternative sought

The FAA is a critical participant in continuing research to develop an unleaded aviation fuel, said the presidents of five aviation associations in a letter urging congressional support for funding in the agency’s fiscal 2013 budget.

The letter signed by AOPA President Craig Fuller and four other association leaders urged support for a $1.995-million funding level; that would continue progress toward the “complex transition” of the general aviation piston aircraft fleet to an unleaded fuel.

“FAA involvement is absolutely critical to identify and transition the general aviation piston fleet to a new unleaded avgas,” the association executives wrote to House Appropriations Committee members. “This activity is also needed to ensure technical and safety cooperation with EPA as it considers regulatory action to address lead emissions from general aviation under the Clean Air Act. In fact, an environmental group filed a lawsuit against EPA to force them to make an endangerment finding and to issue regulations limiting lead emissions.”

Also signing the letter were Experimental Aircraft Association President Rod Hightower; General Aviation Manufacturers Association President Pete Bunce; National Business Aviation Association President Ed Bolen; and National Air Transportation Association President Jim Coyne.

Notice of Annual Meeting of Members

The annual meeting of the members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association will be held at 12 p.m. on Friday, September 7, 2012, at AOPA headquarters, 421 Aviation Way, Frederick, Maryland, 21701, located on the Frederick Municipal Airport (FDK), for the purpose of receiving reports and transacting such other business as may properly come before the meeting, specifically including the election of trustees, and specifically including the adoption of an amendment to the bylaws of the association to expand eligibility for voting membership in the association beyond pilots and owners to individuals who have an interest in advancing the cause of general aviation.