The EAA Flight Advisor Program
An EAA Flight Advisor is an individual who has elected to volunteer to assist an aircraft builder in evaluating his or her flying skills with respect to the aircraft that is being built. These individuals are part of the "member helping member" tradition of the Experimental Aircraft Association. The Flight Advisor does not pass judgement on an individuals flying abilities, but helps the individual develop appropriate guidelines for making an informed decision concerning the flight testing of their aircraft. If the builder makes the decision to do the flight tests personally, the Flight Advisor can help locate aircraft-specific flight training. If it is determined that an outside party will do the flight testing, the flight Advisor can help locate and evaluate a suitable test pilot.
In order to qualify as an EAA Flight Advisor, an individual must conform to any of the following experience measures:
* First flights or test flown three or more aircraft (homebuilt, restoration or ultralight);
* Built/restored and test flew own aircraft and
- is a Technical counselor with significant flight test experience
- or has significant experience in requested specialty, i.e. homebuilts, vintage and more than 1,000 hours PIC time.
* Built and test flown own ultralight and
- is a Technical counselor with significant flight test experience
- or has more than 300 hours in ultralights.
* An ATP/CFI with significant “show plane” experience, i.e. homebuilts, vintage and more than 1,000 hours PIC time.
* Military flight test experience with “show plane” experience, i.e. homebuilts, vintage and more than 1,000 hours PIC time.
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Transition Training for Amateur-Built Aircraft
There is an article in the January 2008 issue of Safety Wire, an EAA Newsletter for Technical Counselors and Flight Advisors that deals with flight training in homebuilts. An article posted here last November dealt with the expiration of the EAA exemption for receiving compensation for renting your homebuilt to an individual for transition training. Apparently several individuals are still confused about the current process.
There is no limitation on giving or receiving flight instruction in an experimental aircraft when there is no charge being made for the use of the aircraft. Flight training is not an issue, it is the rental of the hombuilt aircraft that requires a letter of deviation from FAR 91.319 from your local Flight Standards District Office (FSDO).
If you have any questions about the process, you can call EAA Aviation Services at (888) 322-4636.
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Stabilized Approaches.
The secret to consistently good landings, they say, is to always do it the same way (assuming that way resulted in a good landing in the first place). Some instructors will teach their students to strive to arrive at a specific spot on an approach the same way each time, for instance, 300 feet agl, on centerline, configured for landing and on approach speed. If those parameters are met on each approach (consistency) there will be a much better chance of the result being a good landing in the touchdown zone because the steps to be taken after that point should always be very similar.
Some air carriers even have this method spelled out in their operating procedures. The aircraft must be stabilized, on speed and centerline and configured for landing by 1000 feet on an instrument approach and by 500 feet on a visual approach or a go-around will be initiated. Sounds like a good plan.
So, what happens when that plan goes out the window. What if you're at a controlled airport and they decide to change your assigned runway? What if something distracts your normal flow of events during that last part of the approach and landing?
That is the subject of the latest issue of the NASA Callback publication. It primarily covers Air Carrier incidents, but those of us flying smaller aircraft can also learn from their experiences. Take a look at the latest issue at the NASA Callback website.
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Local Notams?
Remember those days when you had to call your destination airports and get the Notams for their local area from them, or had to specifically ask the FSS briefer (what's that?) to retrieve the Class L Notams for your destination? Oh wait, that's now.
Well, the FAA is supposedly changing the designation of all those ‘L’ Notams in their system effective January 28th. You will be able to retrieve them along with all the other D Notams that you usually receive when planning for a trip, be it through a briefer or a DUATS type online system.
The slight (?) glitch in the system, though, is that only new local notams will be entered into the system. All those Notams currently residing in the ‘L’ Category will remain there and have to be manually changed to the D Category, a process the the FAA says could take months (at best). So, even though the system will be changed shortly, play it safe and check your destination’s notams the old way for a few months more.
There is more detail in this AOPA article.
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Exemption 7162 has Expired!
The latest issue of the EAA internet newsletter has an article on the expiration of Exemption 7162 which occurred at midnight on October 31, 2007. Fine, you say, but what is Exemption 7162. Well, that was the exemption to the FAA rules which allowed owners of experimental aircraft to be compensated for renting their aircraft to others who sought experimental aircraft-specific training and flight reviews. Yes, that means that you may no longer legally rent your aircraft to others who are building the same type so that they may receive aircraft-specific flight training.... unless you jump through a whole new set of hoops.
Since the exemption is no longer in effect, those individuals who wish to use their experimental aircraft for flight training will need to contact their local FSDO and apply for an Experimental Flight Training Letter of Deviation, outlined in FAA Notice N8900.15. Once that letter is issued, the owner may receive compensation for the flight training use of his/her aircraft.
The Sport Pilot Rule, issued in September 2004, includes a new regulation, FAR 91.319(h), which gives the FAA Flight Standards District Offices (FSDOs) the responsibility of working with experimental aircraft owners who offer their aircraft to be rented for specific flight training and flight reviews. Individuals looking for aircraft-specific training in experimental aircraft must now contact their local FSDO to obtain a list of the experimental aircraft within their FAA region which are available for the requested training. This list was formerly maintained by the EAA.
There is more detail in the EAA article with links to the text of the regulations mentioned here. The article does not say whether the EAA is actively pursuing the reinstatement of the exemption.