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Howard Fried |
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| About the Author ... |
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Howard Fried started flying with the Army Air Corps in WWII, where he
served both as a multi-engine instructor pilot and in combat piloting B-17s.
After a stint teaching sociology and on-the-air and management jobs in the
radio business after the war, he turned to teaching flying again full-time.
Over 40,000 general aviation hours later, he is still instructing
and running his own flight school. Along the way he administered over 4,000 flight tests
as a Designated Examiner until victimized by rogue FAA
officials.
He has authored two popular flying books aimed at student pilots and
instructors, Flight Test Tips and Tales and Beyond The Checkride, and a
series of audio tapes, Checkride Tips from
Flying's Eye Of The Examiner.
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I've
said before and I'll say again, the folks in ATC (air traffic control) are, on
the whole, the greatest public servants in the history of the human race.
However, the Flight Standards division of the FAA is an entirely different
story. The vast majority of people in Flight Standards are typical bureaucrats, shuffling paper and doing as little actual work as possible while
putting in time waiting until they can retire and draw their pensions. Then
there is a fairly large minority who, like some law-enforcement officers who abuse
their authority, mercilessly harass the airmen (and women) they are supposed
to help. These power-mad individuals are the real problem, and unfortunately
they are reinforced and backed up by the management of the system in which
they work.
Finally there is a tiny minority of Flight Standards Inspectors (Aviation
Safety Inspector is the actual title — ASI) who are truly dedicated public
servants and who go the extra mile to help the folks they are supervising. I
have been very fortunate in having had two of these fine people assigned to my
operation as the Principal Inspectors supervising my operations, so I know
that this type does indeed exist.
I'm not referring here to those who, through ignorance, cause problems,
although this happens much more frequently than necessary. Examples of this
include the inspector who, on seeing airplanes with certified Hartzell "Q-tip" props, grounded the airplanes "because they had bent
props." Although the FAA is characteristically incapable of admitting
that any of its employees can make a mistake, this one example was so blatant
that even the FAA couldn't cover it up and sweep it under the rug. The
inspector involved was sent back for more training.
I had a personal experience with mistakes resulting from ignorance when,
several years ago, I had permitted my CFI Certificate to lapse so that instead
of renewal I was required to seek reinstatement. The local FSDO Office Manager
told me that I had to take both CFI written (now called Knowledge) exams
again, although I knew this wasn't required. Sure enough, though I passed both
tests with scores in the high 90s, the Airman Certification Branch advised the
local FSDO that it was not necessary for me to have taken these tests and the
results had been discarded.
The next step in this farce occurred when I went in for the check ride. I
took in an Ercoupe, an airplane that is characteristically incapable of
spinning. The Ops Inspector who was assigned to administer the flight check
looked up and said, "I see you brought me an Ercoupe. What are you going
to do when I call for the spins?"
I replied, "I don't have to do spins. I've already demonstrated
them." He had on his desk a several inch-thick pile of records that I had
brought in, including military records showing loops, rolls, half-rolls,
spins, etc., as well as my recently expired CFI Certificate. Even so, he
pulled out his Inspector's Manual and read me where it says, a CFI applicant
must do spins on the flight check, or have an endorsement stating that he has
received instruction in "spin entries and recoveries left and
right." He said, "I don't see such an endorsement, so we can't do
the ride."
My response was "To whom do I appeal?" Just then his boss, the
Unit Chief (now called the Operations Manager) came walking by the cubicle
where we were sitting and the inspector called him in. I sat there like a bump
on a log, not saying a word while the inspector explained the situation. His
boss looked at him like he was crazy and ordered, "Give the man his
ride!" Of course, I had made an enemy for life by proving the inspector
wrong in front of his boss. I later learned that that particular inspector
consistently sought excuses to avoid flying, so perhaps it wasn't ignorance
that caused him to attempt to turn me down for the ride that day.
Every airplane has an equipment list which is issued with the airplane when
it leaves the factory This document simply lists all the stuff added to the
basic airplane such as instruments, avionics, etc. and the regulations say
that if it (whatever "it" is) is on the equipment list it must be in
or on the airplane and in working order, or certain procedures must be
complied with. This regulation was written primarily for aircraft involved in
commercial operations (FAR Parts 135 and Part 121), but that hasn't prevented
overzealous inspectors to vigorously apply it to basic Part 91 operations.
Back when I was foolish enough to become a light single-engine aircraft dealer
for Cessna as well as a Cessna Pilot Center for training, we were forced by
our contract to buy four light single-engine airplanes a year, at least one of
which had to be a 172 Skyhawk. Cessna made their profit when they sold the
airplane to the dealer and they didn't care if he ate it. We usually bought
two 150s and two Skyhawks. In each of these new airplanes would be a
cellophane envelope about ten inches square containing a nice string net made
from 1/8-inch-diamter white cord. On the equipment list would be an item
showing "1 Cargo Net." We were certainly not alone in throwing this
envelope containing the net unopened into a bin in the loft in the hangar. All
the Cessna dealers and schools I know did the same thing.
The regulations state, however, that if an item is on the equipment list,
it must be in or on the airplane or a specific procedure must be followed. It
would have been a simple matter to remove the cargo net from the equipment
list, but who is going to do that? Sure enough, a nitpicking FAA inspector
violated a fellow school operator for not having a cargo net aboard the
aircraft in his fleet although the equipment list showed each aircraft to have
one. This, of course, rendered the airplanes "unairworthy" in the
eyes of the FAA! You can be sure I had that item removed from the equipment
lists of all our school airplanes (about a dozen at that time) before it
should become my turn to suffer a violation.
Even worse is the case of the airplane owner who was violated by the
Friendly Feds because the equipment list in his airplane listed a cigarette
lighter, and although the receptacle was in the panel, the lighter element was
not, thus rendering the airplane unairworthy. (The airplane owner was using
the receptacle to power some other kind of portable electric equipment.) This
seems to me to be the very ultimate in nitpicking but there are no doubt others
equally as bad.
These examples are similar to the major air carrier that suffered a
substantial civil penalty (fine of many thousands of dollars) for operating an
unairworthy airplane because the on/off light on the coffee maker in the
galley at the cabin attendant's station wasn't working. Please understand, the
coffee maker worked quite well but the indicator light was inoperative and the
airplane was deemed to be unairworthy by the FAA. How's that for nitpicking?
The day after she acquired her Private Pilot Certificate, one of our
students rented an airplane from us and took a girlfriend to fly some 65 miles
away for lunch. They were in an airplane that was on our line but which we
didn't own. Instead, a private owner, a doctor on the staff of a local
hospital, leased it to us. He had bought the airplane new from a dealer on the
field and leased it to them for a few months. Deciding that he would be better
off if the airplane was on our line, he had moved it over to my school. During
the six months or so of its lifetime, the airplane had gone through three or
four 100-hour inspections. I foolishly assumed that everything was in order
since it had been on the line at a reputable flight school. Boy! Was I
mistaken. I already knew it was foolish to make assumptions, but I did it
anyway.
When the newly minted pilot and her friend arrived at the distant airport
where they were to have a pleasant lunch at the restaurant on the field, they
disembarked and walked across the ramp to the terminal where the restaurant is
located and they were met at the door by an FAA inspector from our District
Office who was there to conduct ramp checks. Although by no means a close
friend, I knew this guy quite well. The following conversation then occurred
between the inspector and our new pilot:
FAA Inspector (after identifying himself): "Did you just arrive in
that airplane over there?"
New pilot (proudly): "I sure did."
Inspector: "May I see your Pilot Certificate and Medical
Certificate?"
New Pilot: "You most certainly may," (and she
hands them over).
Inspector: "I see that you just got this pilot
certificate yesterday and that Howard gave you your flight test."
New
Pilot: "That's right."
Inspector: "I suppose the airplane
paperwork is all in order?"
New Pilot (without really knowing): "Of
course it is. Come on, I'll show you." (Rookie mistake. Never volunteer
anything, especially to the FAA. If she had just kept quiet, he would have
been satisfied and not gone out to look in the airplane.)
They then went out to check the paperwork in the airplane. Guess what?!
Everything was in order except the Aircraft Registration. Prominently
displayed in the pouch on the side wall in front of the left front seat was a
temporary registration slip that had expired several months previously.
The three of them then adjourned to the terminal where they called me.
I
instantly knew what had happened — I'd seen this before. The good doctor
(airplane owner) had received the permanent (and valid) registration in the
mail and dropped it in a desk drawer at home, promptly forgetting all about
it. I explained to the FAA Inspector that this was no doubt what had happened
and he agreed that it was the most likely scenario. Since this happened before
my troubles with the FAA, and since he was a reasonable person, he said,
"Howard, I'm through here now. I'm now going to walk out that door to the
parking lot, get in the G-car and go home. Do you understand what I'm
saying?" I replied, "I certainly do, Bill. Now I'll tell you what
I'm going to do. While those two young ladies go into the restaurant and have
lunch, I'll be flying down there in another airplane to bring them back. I'll
call the owner of the one in which they flew and when he shows up with the
permanent registration certificate, two of us will fly over there and retrieve
his airplane. Until then it can just sit there." (What kind of example
would it have been had I accepted his kind offer? And what if something had
happened while those two ladies were flying the airplane back with an expired
temporary registration certificate?)
A couple of days later the owner brought in his permanent registration
certificate which had sure enough been laying in a drawer at his home and we
retrieved his airplane, all this at his expense. Not only had he learned a
lesson, but I had as well — in my case it was to reinforce the old adage,
"never assume anything."
I really cannot understand how it could happen to a nice, reasonable guy
who had extended that offer to me since he was (and is) working for an agency
that consistently promotes the really bad guys, but this reasonable inspector
has been promoted three times since then and is now the Office Manager in a
large FSDO in another FAA region. Perhaps there is some measure of justice
after all.
Besides mistakes in interpretation and picking flyspecks out of the pepper,
there are some vicious inspectors who, with an agenda of their own, make
up regulations as they go along. An excellent example of this is the
inspector who told Mike Taylor, "Safety
is not my concern. That's the job of the National Transportation Safety Board.
My job is to find violations, and I intend to do just that!" (This
from a man whose job title is "Aviation Safety Inspector.") This evil
person then made up a regulation to fit the situation so that he could violate
Mike. The really sad thing is the fact that the agency then closed ranks and
backed him up! This started a seven-year battle that is still raging.
If a given inspector really wants to get an airman, he will reinterpret an
existing regulation or make one up to fit the situation. That's what happened
(among other things) in my own case when an inspector decided to strip me of
my DPE after 17 years of being a faithful representative of the administrator.
This vicious inspector told another operator, "I'm going to get
Fried!" (That's a direct quote, and I have an affidavit from the operator
to whom he said it.)
My treatment of the subject "Those Nitpicking Feds" has had its
emphasis on pilots, but they aren't by any means the only ones subject to that
kind of foolishness. This morning I was talking with a man who runs a
maintenance shop and he told me he was required by a FSDO Inspector to get a ferry
permit to fly a brand-new Cessna 172 30 miles to his facility from the
field where it is based because one of the numerous Camloc cowl fasteners
wouldn't seat properly — a prime example of real nitpicking.
This man, who holds an Airframe and Powerplant Certificate with Inspection
Authority, also told me of a flight school operator for whom he does the
maintenance, who got violated because a Cessna 172 was missing a static wick,
a device not required on the CE-172. Of course, if it was on the equipment
list, it had to be there or the airplane would be deemed to be unairworthy.
That one reminds me of something that happened to me. As an example of the
viciousness of some of these inspectors, I had a Seneca II based in a distant
state for a specific project. When the FAA is out to get you, they mean
business. They sent an inspector not only out of his district, but out of his
region with specific instructions to ground my airplane. It was parked on the
ramp in front of the FBO where it was temporarily based. In response to the
inspector's demand as to which airplane was mine, the lineman pointed it out
to him, and after crawling all over it, he issued a condition report and
tagged the airplane because he found a static wick off which a couple of
inches had been broken. Right next to where my airplane was parked sat a tired
old BE-18 (Twin Beech) with pieces of the cowl hanging loose and oil dripping
onto the ramp, but this obvious old wreck was not bothered.
More than any other bureaucracy of which I am aware, the FAA is in love
with words. Although not necessarily written by lawyers, the regulations are
expressed in legalese, no doubt in an attempt to make them crystal clear, but
doing so has had the opposite effect of leaving open the rules to a variety of
interpretations. However, it is not only in the FARs that the FAA's love
affair with words is apparent. I have lived to see the Artificial Horizon go
through several name changes until it has become the Attitude Gyro or the
Attitude Indicator, while the Turn and Bank, Needle and Ball, Slip/Skid
Indicator and while the Gyroscopic Compass went through several changes
indlucing Directional Gyro before finally becoming the Heading Indicator. This
must thoroughly confuse the student as he or she goes through the literature
studying the material for the Knowledge Test (which used to be called the
Written Test).
Job titles within the agency have also undergone a series of changes.
Inspectors in Flight Standards are all Aviation Safety Inspectors or ASIs but
the Maintenance Inspectors are now Airworthiness Inspectors, and the
first-line bosses who used to be Unit Chiefs are now Managers. The Accident
Prevention Specialists or APSs became Accident Prevention Program Managers or
APPMs, and finally Safety Program Managers or SPAMs.
And flight instructor endorsements, probably in attempt to defend against
potential lawsuits, have become much more specific. In the old days it was
sufficient to make an entry in the student's logbook, "Okay to solo"
but now you must say where, when and in what kind of airplane and with what
weather minima. We used to enter, "Okay for X-C" (a blanket
endorsement for student cross-country), but now we must describe the planning
and preparation, as well as the date for the cross-country flight, the weather
conditions under which the flight may be made, the destination and stops along
the way for each specific flight. My goodness, how they are complicating our
lives!
This column was written prior to the tragic events of September 11, 2001,
but the illogical, unreasonable, knee-jerk reaction of the government is a
prime example of my point. I suppose I could go on forever, citing examples of
stupidity, ignorance, and nitpicking, but I'm sure you've got the idea and I'm
out of space for this time.
Usual Boilerplate: If you have a comment regarding this column, please post it here rather than
sending it to me by direct email. That way others may benefit from your input.
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