Top Letters And Comments, August 18, 2023

Second Chance Six

Great story! My son and I recently bought an RV6A and have found the local airport folks to be VERY helpful as we learn to maintain the plane. Don’t know what we would do without them and the sense of community greatly enhances our ownership experience!

dbier

I see this as one of those serendipitous mistakes of youth. She’s already learned a lot from it, and undoubtedly will learn much more about the care and feeding of aircraft, all of which will be valuable as she continues in aviation. It may be a while before she takes her bird to the air, but she will be much more confident in it now. There are airplane drivers, and there are pilots.

And give her credit for the wisdom to recognize that good friends and family at home are far more valuable than a paycheck far away.

Aviatrexx

Maintenance, Paperwork And Checkrides

One of the challenges of flight training is they are commercial operations usually with dedicated maintenance and dispatch personnel. The student shows up, dispatch gives then the keys and away they go.

Determining airworthiness is mostly theoretical ground school exercises as maintenance of the school’s aircraft happens behind the scenes and without any student involvement. If there is an actual issue with the airplane they have been assigned by the dispatcher, the default is to tell dispatch who gets maintenance personnel involved.

The problem arises when the new Private Pilot goes out and buys an airplane and has very little idea of the reality of now being the person responsible for attaining and maintaining airworthiness.

This is one area IMO where, in general, flight schools could do a better job.

David G.

Poll: Should Congress Investigate UAP Claims In The Name Of Flight Safety?

As there have been no known midair collisions between human-made aircraft and UAPs, safety is NOT a reason to investigate. If UAPs are not human-made, any tech we gain from them could have national defense implications and should NOT be shared with anybody who might leak it to other nations.
Duh. If something in the air is compromising safety in a real way, it should be investigated. But the government hiding things conspiracy is ridiculous.
No! UAPs are just products of excitable people who are too lazy to dig deep enough to explain what they are seeing. I've seen many odd things, in 31,000 flying hours, but I always came up with plausible explanations with a little thought and/or digging. Congress cannot deal with an issue like this without turning it into a three-ring circus.
Congress is not equipped nor inclined to conduct a meaningful investigation like this. If they wanted to investigate whether a cover-up exists, they'd have to move beyond grandstanding.
Yes. In terms of flight safety, it should be looked into.
Waste of money.
If they are clever enough to get here then they should be able to miss anything we can fly.
Yes. They may be from near peer adversary nations.
Always remain vigilant, but skeptical too.
No, they should focus on their real job and keep the government running.
UAPs should be investigated but Congress is incompetent to do so.
Yes, if it occupies their time so they won't meddle in other things.
If a UFO violates the FARs, the FAA should investigate.
Congress should appropriate funds so the military can afford adequate photography equipment, say, an iPhone 6.
No. Congressional "investigations" are often a waste of time and hot air.
While I believe that there is no chance we are the only beings in the universe, Congress is the last org I want to see investigate in the name of “flight safety.”
It probably needs looked at, but Congress will never get anywhere.
No, leave it to the FAA and the military.
They are already here. Why bother?
Yes, UAPs are collision hazards for military operations. There have been 11 near misses in recent times.
Not in the name of flight safety... we haven't found a UFO in aircraft wreckage yet.
Heck NO! Congress should concentrate on what they were elected to do which, in my feeble mind, is to keep the executive branch in check and look out for their constituents.
Congress is not the organization to investigate anything.
I don't see nay evidence of a coverup here. It's just a phenomenon that has no final findings.
There is no chance that aliens are involved, but it would be useful to know what is being seen. Congress should stay out of the way.
They are real, they just aren't aliens.
It's all a bunch of BS caused by tech glitches and people with overactive imaginations. It sells books and satisfies attention seekers.
Risky to allow aircraft of unknown origin to occupy the national airspace, posing a risk to users, without investigating.
No, it isn't a flight safety issue.
Investigate without mention of paranoid ramble.
Yawn.
Congress? No. The scientific community? Perhaps.
When the Gov can find Yeti, Sasquatch, and the Loch Ness monster, they might be able to find a UAP.
Investigations are not a Congressional responsibility. This is the job of the NTSB and FAA.
Yes. Its possible something non-government is going on.
Stop wasting tax prayer money! The government has no money. Government gets money from us. This must be reduced to defense only, defense should be reduced by 60%.
I don’t care at this point.
Congress has better and more important things to do with their time, but they are too busy chasing shadows and playing politics in the hope the public doesn't realize what a worthless bunch of bureaucrats they really are!
Aircraft are safe from UAP.
There may be UAPs, but flight safety is not a good reason to use to investigate them.
I think it's very unlikely that UAPs are "little green men", but we do need to know what they are for national security reasons.
Sure, maybe it’ll keep them from screwing up other things.
If they are out there fine. If they are not, that's fine too.
The truth is out there.
Can we just go to their planet, please?
They came, they saw, they damn sure found no intelligent life here.