Thread: The FAA

I'm sorry - I just can't stand holding back anymore!

On July 10th I had an accident with my CT. I've not written or discussed it here because of the ongoing scenario with the FAA. When it's all said and done you'll get an amazing earful. BUT I just can't resist letting this one out...

Two days ago on my fifth or sixth call with one of these fine FAA fellows I was told "after all you're just a low time sport pilot"! It's hard to put inflection here but it was very obvious by his tone of voice that he has absolutely no respect for the sport pilot category.

What sets the story here is - he has by log book records (which he obviously didn't look at) ... Had he looked at the logs he would have known I received my private in 1976. Flew some then and then started back up again about five years ago. I have close to five hundred hours as a Private Pilot and a few as a sport pilot because I haven't taken the time to go get my medical that expired last year.

I'm going to stop there but I find this remark very sad and akin to "racial discrimination". I truly sometimes wonder about our government, it's employes and it's standards of quality and commitment.

More to come...

Roger H (administrator)

Very sorry to here about your scenerio. Would like to inject something that gets under my skin about once or twice a year. I live in Afton, WY where the Husky is built, test flown, sold etc. The FAA is here often and I can tell you that as far as the Sport Pilot Cat. of aircraft, they consider it to come from a "weak gene pool" as far as they are concerned. No respect. I operate my SW as a private pilot and am getting ready to take my commercial check ride. The CT is an amazing aircraft with little or no merit given. I've got some respect from other husky pilots and TBM pilots and owners, etc here at my home field due to the performance and mountian capibilities of my CT but belive me they think of it as a joke of an aircraft. The government is looking to kill this catagory and sweep it under some carpet somewhere as chalk it up to a mistake.

Roger,

I saw your accident in the NTSB database about a month ago. I figured you'd talk about it when you wanted to talk about it. Too bad about the FAA treatment. It seems to vary depending on the area you live in. I know that in my neighborhood, we've had an LSA designated examiner get his certificate pulled. Twice. I suspect it's more from incompetence than bad FAA treatment. Can you tell us how the repair went and if your bird is back in the air?