Warbird Restrictions Lifted

Locally imposed restrictions on the operation of experimental exhibition aircraft, most of them warbirds, have been lifted at airports in the Los Angeles basin. EAA says the relaxation came after three years of lobbying by the group. In 2003, the Van Nuys Flight Standards District Office (FSDO) decreed that experimental aircraft were effectively banned from four local airports. Although the existing aircraft could continue using the airports where they were based, if they moved or were sold they weren’t welcome. Van Nuys FSDO officials reasoned that experimental aircraft, by their classification, posed an increased risk to the densely populated areas surrounding the airports in question (Van Nuys, Santa Barbara, Burbank and Whiteman). In an EAA news release, the organization says it’s been lobbying the FAA relentlessly since the memo was written and on Sept. 8 the effort bore fruit. Another memo has been written that supersedes the old memo and “any airport limitations or restrictions on EE aircraft developed by field offices based on that [old] memorandum, are rescinded.” EAA says some pilots were told they couldn’t fly over populated areas [including takeoffs and landings] even though their airworthiness certificates and operating limitations allowed them to.