So our new president decided to cancel all new government regulations by budgeting zero dollars to pay for new regulations. This isn’t exactly a novel idea; many new presidents have tried to tackle the overwhelming number of regulations that govern nearly everything we do. Aviation isn’t immune, and we all spend a ton of time trying to understand and then comply with our regulatory burden.

Sadly, whoever crafted the executive order that halted all regulatory activity sure didn’t think about the consequences. Airworthiness directives (AD) are regulations. So if the FAA found something unsafe in an aircraft, it couldn't issue ADs to warn us, although it turns out that there was only a three-week hiatus before the FAA resumed publishing ADs. I suppose the FAA in the meantime could have issued a Supplemental Airworthiness Information Bulletin (SAIB), which is a recommendation that carries no legal weight, but those have limited benefit, especially for a serious safety issue. When was the last time you heeded the information in an SAIB?

Like (most) ADs, some other regulations are also good, like the new simplified Part 23. Would it make sense to cancel those? Or the elimination of the medical certificate requirement for certain non-commercial types of flying? Does anyone (besides maybe a few medical examiners) want to cancel those rules? Actually, according to AOPA the new BasicMed rules remain on schedule for implementation on May 1. The new Part 23 rules were finalized last December and should automatically become law on July 15. We’ll see.  

Just for fun, let’s look at some existing regulations that I think ought to go by the wayside. The government seems to want this to happen, and the executive order also requires the elimination of two regs for every new one. (Confusion abounds: does that mean every new paragraph, sub-paragraph or sentence? Who the heck knows?) Anyway, here are some of my candidates.

Medical: The FAA could have made things much simpler on this one. Instead of adding a new regulation that says pilots can fly without a medical certificate up to six-seat aircraft non-commercially and they must have had a medical exam in the past 10 years and must go through a checklist of items with their doctor, blah, blah, why not just eliminate the medical requirement for private pilots entirely? There would be little if any added safety risk and fewer paragraphs in Part 61.

Pilots: Eliminate 61.31(f), the high-performance endorsement rule. Why do pilots need an extra signoff from an instructor saying that they can safely fly an airplane powered by an engine with more than 200 horsepower? What is so magic about that? This is a stupid rule, especially considering that the FAA allows a newly minted private pilot with complex and high-performance endorsements in relatively simple piston airplanes to fly a vastly more complicated single-engine turboprop like a TBM 850 or PC-12 with zero additional training. This is a glaring hole in the rules that is filled only by insurance requirements that pressure pilots to obtain additional training before blasting off in their new turboprop. Eliminate the complex and high-performance endorsements and replace them with a type rating requirement for certain airplanes. Sorry, I didn’t mean to add new rules, but this does need to be addressed, and, hey, it’s also a two-for-one rule replacement.

Maintenance: The 100-hour inspection. There is zero data to support the requirement that essentially an annual inspection be done on a light aircraft every 100 hours just because it is being flown commercially or for flight instruction. Never mind that light airplanes are not designed to be torn apart every 100 hours and that inspecting wing attach bolts and spars every 100 hours is completely useless and redundant. The FAA can’t even come close to justifying this rule; the only reason I could ever find for this rule is that apparently the OX-5 engine that powered the Curtiss JN-4 biplane way back when (circa World War I) was so unreliable it had to be overhauled every 100 hours, and when it came time to write the rule, some genius at the FAA latched onto that number. I can’t begin to count the wasted hours mechanics spend taking apart and inspecting flight school airplanes, time they could better spend fixing the stuff that goes wrong instead of staring into wing inspection holes and trying desperately not to collapse from mind-numbing boredom. I have been there, done that, and I have also proved that eliminating the 100-hour inspection resulted in more availability, greater reliability, a significant reduction in wasted maintenance man-hours and also a large reduction in maintenance costs. This rule goes out the window, tout suite!

Letters of authorization: RVSM LOA, you’re outta here! This can’t happen quickly enough. LOAs are another ridiculous FAA concoction, and when they get written into rules, as happened with RVSM, the result is utter chaos. The operator of every single aircraft that flies in RVSM airspace must apply for an LOA, and if that aircraft is flown under both Part 91 and 135, then two separate LOAs must be sought for the very same exact thing. How in the world does this make sense? There are LOA requirements for other operations that basically are like the FAA requiring special authorization to fly an ILS approach. Again, why in the name of sanity do people in the FAA think this adds any benefit to safety? The LOA approval process for RVSM has improved, I'll admit, but the bottom line is that FAA inspectors have zero time to look over RVSM LOA applications, and their time is much better spent monitoring real safety issues. LOAs should be used only in extraordinary circumstances, not for what have become ordinary flying techniques.  

That’s enough for now. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that aviation is the most highly regulated self-regulated industry in the world. There is an endless supply of regulations, but it’s in all our best interests to operate safely, and on the whole we do so despite—not because of—the rules. In the end, there ought to be only one regulation: don’t crash.