Summit Aviation Blog – Federal Aviation Regulations

There are five questions, you have five minutes. Good luck!

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Thanks for playing!

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If you need quick and easy reference to the FARs that doesn’t require to you memorize a new FAR/AIM book every year, get a subscription to the Summit Aviation Digital Reference Library. You can search for things in seconds, store bookmarks to sections that you read the most, and stay up to date because we check the Federal Register daily and incorporate annotated changes in each biweekly update.

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The FAA has made 494 changes to the FARs so far in 2009; and they’re apparently not done yet if this goes into effect before the end of the year.
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NOVEMBER 23, 2009, 12:44 P.M. ET

FAA to Require De-Icing Systems On Commuter Planes

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By JOSH MITCHELL and ANDY PASZTOR

WASHINGTON — The Federal Aviation Administration moved Monday to require small commuter airplanes be retrofitted with enhanced ice-protection systems, action long advocated by government crash investigators and outside safety experts.
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The proposed rule would apply to airplanes weighing less than 60,000 pounds at takeoff — essentially small turboprops and some regional jets. Most larger airplanes already have the systems, which automatically shed ice or at least warn pilots they need to turn on such equipment, the FAA said.
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The decision follows more than a decade of arguments and stalemate over the need to install enhanced ice-protection systems, and it comes amid a renewed focus in Washington on airline safety.

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It’s becoming increasingly difficult to stay up to speed on  new regulations as they go into effect.  We’ve had FAA inspectors tell us that they use our software because it’s the easiest way for them to do their jobs.
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If you work at a charter organization, airport or other organization that is regulated by the FAA, you owe it to yourself to be sure you have the most current information in the most easily usable form. We’ve been in business 19 years keep people like you on top of FAA publications and regulations.   Our job isn’t getting any easier with the velocity of change in the industry these days, but we maintain accuracy and  customer service because we know that your job isn’t getting any easier either, and we love working in aviation!

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Checkrides seem to be getting longer. . .

I was talking with a friend at the FBO today.
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He asked how long I’d been flying, and I said I’d just gotten my private rating in September.
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“Really! How long was your checkride?”
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“Eight hours, and then we came back another day and worked on a few things.”
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“Holy cow.” He said. “They’re getting longer and longer.”
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He told me that he had gotten his private rating in 1964, and the checkride (or FAA Practical Test) was a total of about two hours. The FAA examiner (not a “designated examiner”) had asked him a few questions on the way out to the airplane, which was the extent of the oral. The examiner observed the preflight, and then they flew around the practice area. During the flight, the inspector actually reached over, stopped the engine, took the key out of the ignition, put it in his pocket, and said
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“Your airplane.”
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Our friend was basically left with a powered glider. He chose an intersection of two dirt roads, made an emergency landing (a real one, not simulated) and he and the inspector got out and smoked a cigarette.
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“Well, I guess you’re safe enough.”  The inspector said between puffs.
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My friend has been talking with people all over the country, and said that he knew people who had gotten their private ratings in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. And now in 2000.
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And the length of the checkride was always a function of what year it was. The later their checkride, the longer it was.
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This is at least partly a function of how many regulations a pilot is required to know.  I asked my new friend how big his textbook was, and he said he had studied a little folded brochure with less than 10 pages to take the written exam, and none of the regulations were mentioned on the checkride.
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I studied four hefty textbooks for the FAA knowledge test, and studied even more (plus all the charts) for the oral. And I had the Summit Aviation Digital Reference Library to look things up quickly.
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This highlights the importance of staying up to date.
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The velocity of change in aviation regulations is increasing. There have been 464 changes to the FARs so far this year, compared to 375 for all of last year.
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A biweekly subscription to the Digital Reference Library keeps you up to date easily. The staff at Summit checks the Federal Register daily and incorporates changes into each new volume.  Each new DVD has a “what’s new” section, and changes are cross-referenced from their original documents.
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I love books as much as the next person. You can carry a book on the bus, read it in the bathtub, mark it with highlighters and stick tabs and bookmarks into it. You can even fold down the pages.
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As much as we may love books, the Digital Reference Library is a much more practical (and green!) method for aviation professionals to research FAA reference materials.
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Did you know that on paper, the Summit Aviation Digital Reference Library would require hundreds of thousands of pages and overflow a bookcase fifteen feet wide and five feet high?
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Most of the volumes on the shelves of that bookcase would need to be replaced frequently – although often newly printed publications are only released once a year, the documents within them can change on any working day.
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So, maintaining this physical aviation library would require printing thousands of documents a year, finding the right place in these books, and pasting in the changes daily, and throwing away phone-book sized volumes and replacing them frequently.
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Summit Aviation’s Digital Reference Library allows you to do most of the same things with the digital versions of documents that we like to do with books – We mark books with highlighters, sticky tabs and bookmarks into it and fold down the pages. Unfortunately, all that goes away when next year’s book comes out and we have to buy a new one. Unlike a physical book, when you highlight and bookmark sections and paragraphs in your Digital Reference Library, your highlights and bookmarks will stay where you put them forever, even when you get the updated version twice a month!
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Besides that, you can search the contents in a flash, you can cut and paste parts into other documents or emails, and you can carry this whole bookshelf with you in your ever-diminishing carry-on luggage, and use it anywhere you find a PC.
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So, probably the only thing you CAN’T do with it is read in the bathtub. (You could, but laptop computers are expensive and really hate water.)

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