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According to this article general aviation fatalities totalled 340 last fiscal year but there have already been 39 in the first month of the new one. Not a good start, especially with the ‘more difficult’ months ahead of ice, fog and increased night flying.

And its not helped by pilots like the one we overheard at Brown Field yesterday who seemed to have no clue what they were doing…

Tower: ABC123 Hold short of runway 26R
[silence]
Tower: ABC123 You are required to repeat the hold short instuction
Pilot: Hold short of 26R

Tower: ABC123 Position and hold 26R (meaning go on to the runway but hold for takeoff instruction)
Pilot: Position and hold 26R

Tower: ABC123 Do you know what position and hold means?
Pilot: Yes, it means position and hold
(didn’t see what happened but I think the pilot didn’t move onto the runway)

Tower (exasperated voice): ABC123 Cleared for take off, maintain 1500 feet until approved otherwise
Pilot: Cleared for take off

Tower: ABC123 Did you copy the restriction to maintain 1500 feet? (I guess the pilot was now above 1500)
Pilot: Sorry, I did not copy that
Tower: ABC123 When you get back to Brown, please call the tower

The airport was very busy with several planes practicing landings and takeoffs plus a few planes coming in to clear customs from Mexico, pilots needed to be extra vigilant or else accidents will be happening. I am sure when the pilot returned he received quite a lecture from the tower, I hope he learned from it.

After an aborted attempt on Weds when we found that the plane we had booked had a faulty alternator (don’t want to fly without the electrics!) I finally got my first lesson in a high performance plane, defined as any aircraft with a 200HP engine or greater. The Cessna 182 I flew was rated at 235HP and at one point we were indicating an airspeed of 150 mph – now that’s cruising! It sure was a lot of fun, in a couple of weeks we’ll do it again to put me and the plane through some performance maneuvers and after that I should get my endorsement that I am legal to fly the fast planes solo.

Well, the deny list was not comprehensive enough to stop the spammer but I am taking moderation off anyway. Its not that much hassle to delete all the comments straight from the database and after looking through the code its pretty easy to add some lines to ban the spammer completely.

Saw this post about alien flight training on the AOPA website this week and am very disappointed. As they explain, the TSA has issued a “final interim ruling” (surely an oxymoron) stating that from October 20th any non US-citizen wishing to undertake any kind of flight training in the USA has to pay a $130 fee, send in fingerprints, photos etc and be approved. And not just once, but every time you want to take a training: the biennial review, an instrument proficiency check, a checkout in a new plane and so on.

I agree with the intent, lets keep a close eye on who might be wanting to fly in the skies, but its been proven time and time again then a Cessna 172 can do very little damage when used a weapon. Even filled with explosives it would cause less damage than driving a rental truck filled with same into a building.

As a resident alien I’ve already been approved by the USCIS, vetted by the FBI, CIA and who knows who else, submitted photos, fingerprints and deemed to bea suitable resident of the US of A. Its just crazy then that now I have to go through the same process to learn to fly, or to improve my safety through further training.

Hopefully common sense will prevail but as it stands, starting Oct 20th, all flight instructors in the US will have to check that their students are US citizens or aliens approved to take the training, keep records of this information under penalty of fines and jail time. I think many of them will give up, and many legally resident foreigners like myself will be taking a lot less training.

Every month in the AOPA magazine there are reports of cities, counties whatever wanting to put houses and schools next to airports or, amazingly, under the approach path to airports. In the latest magazine plans are discussed for Oxnard, Riverside and Miami to name just three. Apart from the obvious safety issues, who wants to go to school next to busy airport noise? Same with homes, if you don’t love aviation why would you buy a house next to an airport? Now, in many cases the developers or city officials hope that once moved in they will complain and get the airport closed (“no I had no idea there would be airport noise when I bought this house next to the runway”) which most of the time is impossible as any airport that has accepted federal funds is obliged to keep the airport open for 25 years.