AVmail: January 20, 2003

Reader mail this week about noise troubles in Belgium, FSDO follys, and more.

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Noise Troubles In Brussels Belgium

The US isn’t the only country to suffer from unreasonable noise restrictions.First, a little background if you’re not familar with Belgium:The country is split right down the middle between Dutch and French speaking people. Brussels is right in the middle of this split and has some combination of the two, but more French than Dutch. They hate each other.Recently, the French banned all night flights over the southern half of Brussels and Belgium (basically, dumping the noise on the “Dutch”).Now, the Dutch are threatening to close down all night flights over their territory, since they’re a little upset (why should they have the noise?) This would effectively kill the freight hauler DHL.Incidentally, there are more people living in northern (Dutch) Belgium than in southern (French) Belgium. :)For more information, here’s a link.Robert May


FSDO Folly

Amazing, you means the Feds would do something wrong? (AVweb Newswire Jan. 16, 2003.) Like the guy here in ATL that thinks my Canadian built Harvard (T-6 to most people) has a jet engine on it — I had to go to Washington to straighten that out. Or the guy in the IAD FSDO that thinks my medical and my license have to have the same address on them and he was going to violate my because they didn’t. Or the best yet, the Southwest guy I ran into who told me the story of a similar Fed who was going to write him up for having a certificate issued in 1979, signed by Langhorne Bond, because it “wasn’t an airman’s certificate” because it didn’t look like anything he recognized — you see he was in high school when it was issued.Thanks I feel better now. John Hyle


FSDO Folly

Having read the Inspector General’s nine-page report, I wonder whether disciplinary measures were taken against the FSDO employees who were harassing Mr. Brinnell. Some of the statements recorded by the Inspector General are almost unbelievable that an FAA employee would consider such abuses of power. Despite FAA Administrator statements to the contrary, the FAA still has significant internal personnel problems and pilots should always consider all contacts with the FAA adversarial until proven otherwise. A truly sad state of affairs. Steven Morton


FSDO Folly

I have read the 10-page pdf file you provided of the IG’s report. While it is encouraging that it is being recognized that some FSDOs are exceeding their authority and, like most Gov’t agencies, are very good at protecting their own empire, I noted two things about the report that bother me. 1. The IG letter carries no date! They mention improper record keeping of the FSDO, but if the IG’s letter has no date, it may not be “findable” in the future. 2. While the report never hesitates to name the “victim” and admits a finding of FSDO (FAA) personnel wrong-doing, none of the wrong-doers are ever named! This looks like further protection of the Government employees that should be exposed for the world to see.Keep up the good work of bringing us news of this type.Larry Wheelock


Airport Curfews

Re: Question of the Week. Just imagine driving down an interstate highway anticipating a rest stop ahead only to find the facility is closed due to the fact that the neighbors dislike the noise of traffic on the interstate after sunset. It is the same premise with airports. Airports are just like entrance and exit ramps on the interstate highway system; they allow airplanes to enter and exit the intracountry aviation system and should never be closed to traffic.Ray Bloch Sr.

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