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Jerry said: > Fill me in on the meeting the Feds had a month ago. > What were the agenda and topics discussed? > What changes need to be made to make the program grow faster? Jerry, I can't find the messages with the details. A member of one of the Sport_... forums knows someone who knew of or was at the meeting. We took the original report with a salt shaker but we hoped. But we can't know the details (yet) because the meeting and its results are secret until any results are published in the Federal Register. Later, we saw evidence that it may have actually happened as reported in the operating limits issued to a converting gELSA. In summary, the FAA (and most of us) were dissatisfied with the progress of Sport. No light weight SLSA have been certified, almost no American made SLSA have been certified. Almost no new ab initio Sport Pilots have been minted. >From what we hear, the FAA has been thinking about how to improve the program. Last summer, a Sport forum member, Robert Metzler found FAA Order 8130.2F CHG 1 which gives the rules for which operating limits MUST be assigned to each type of ELSA. I helped research it and write down, as clearly as possible, what it means to us. We found that it was obnoxiously restrictive to the existing UL trainers and fat UL which are converting to be grandfathered ELSA (gELSA). As a result, everybody started saying they'd be skipping ELSA entirely and going ExpAB. We think the FAA was listening in. Now, according to the report and that one in-the-field inspection, it seems the FAA has changed 8130.2F to be much more lenient. We've also been campaigning for an increase in the allowed weight of true part 103 legal ultralights. Finally, we've been whining about the extreme difficulty in finding Sport Pilot legal aircraft at the FBOs, the schools and the independent CFIs. Lots of guys who want to can't find a plane to take the check ride. Lots of guys who want to convert their UL-trainer or fat-UL, can't because they can't fly off the 40 hour phase 1 testing without their license but they can't get their license because they haven't flown off the 40 hour phase 1 test after getting their plane inspected. There's pressure to up the gross weight limit so the various other trainers like the C-152 can be used. That would give almost every existing school a Sport Pilot eligible aircraft already on their flight line. All in all, we're hoping the FAA gets sensible and fixes some of these problems. It's been a mess. It may get better. We hope. Ed Burkhead http://edburkhead.com ed -at- edburkhead???.com (change -at- to @ and remove "???") ============================================================================== To leave this forum go to: http://ercoupers.com/lists.htm Search the archives on http://escribe.com/aviation/coupers/
