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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27239 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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It's one of the most protected airspaces in the world and there are special flight rules that must be observed in order to enter it. (He likely would not have received authorization to enter if he had asked according to procedure.)

To be specific, at the time the process to get permission to enter the Capital SFRA involved a pretty lengthy flight planning session going over nearly every component of the flight path, and required certain telemetry types not present in most (maybe not allowed in?) ultralights; the White House and Capitol Hill (and a few surrounding areas) remain prohibited even if you do that. They've since added an online course. Non-standard (eg not straight-line direct-to) flight plans can get more complicated than even that -- I've heard joking-not-joking stories about aerial imaging groups having to bring a police officer on the flight with them.

I can't help but think that if Mr. Hughes flew his slightly-overweight gyrocopter literally anywhere else, in a way that didn't bring national embarrassment to The Powers That Be, his criminal conviction would have evaporated at twenty different levels of discretion.

To be 'fair', the FAA is a petty bitch. They're still the Powers That Be when it comes to aviation, but they're willing to be petty in other environments as well: there's a decent number of 2008-2013 enforcement against 'fat' ultralights. The FAA didn't do hangar-level inspections without a serious complaint first, but if an FSDO gets a complaint, or a FBO knew you weren't behaving well, those complaints and photographic evidence could come in pretty quick.

((This was somewhat complicated by a lot of two-seat light-weight aircraft going around in that timeframe, which were in a weird state until 2008ish.))

This isn't even always wrong: see the Trevor Jacobs thing for a situation where the FAA absolutely came down on him like a sack of bricks (including prison time!) because it was embarrassing for them, but he also could have done a hell of a lot of mischief.

there's a decent number of 2008-2013 enforcement against 'fat' ultralights.

Interesting. Any cites to criminal, felony cases? My quick internet search didn't come up with much but rumors that people were given reprimands, maybe fines, and told that they had to get rid of second seats (but that they didn't care so much if they were a little 'fat').

That's fair. Most recent cases usually just go after airman's certs or private pilot's licenses; criminal cases tend to only get involved when there's risk to passengers or to people on the ground, and even those are pretty rare.

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