bwaco
Posts: 11
Joined: 5/30/2008
From: , CA, USA
Status: offline
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I'd really enjoy making the AWC fly-in... but it's looking about 80-20 against. I'm a member, have been since before I got a WACO, and all those folks have been incredibly kind and helpful, so it was high on the list.
As for being a hobo - well, that was sort of my plan, too, except I was going to stick with the traditional appellation of barnstorming. Here's what I found out.
We were all promised smaller, less intrusive government about 8 years ago. Let me tell you what that did to barnstormers. On the federal level, they wrote up a bunch of new laws, and a whole new chapter of Federal Aviation Regulations. The Notice of Proposed Rule Making admitted that the new rules would put 700 - yes, that is 700, in other words, almost all of them - operators out of business immediately, but they said that it was worth it in light of 9/11. Biplane operators being such highly perfidious national security threats and all. The new rules mandated getting federal approval for sightseeing rides, thereafter re-monikered Commercial Air Tours. We biplane riders always were dangerous to the national security, I guess, because the Feds really came down. To make their point they enacted the barnstorming law on September 11th, 2007.
So I went out and applied for my Letter of Authorization, got myself enrolled in the requisite drug screening program, peed in a cup, and waited for the LOA. What did the FAA do? They hung up the application for three months over my having put myself down as the person responsible for maintenance. It was the only legal answer I could give. The law says that the owner/operator "is the person primarily responsible for maintenance." Feds said, no, no, no... you're not a certified mechanic. The next regulation on the same page said that the person responsible for the maintenance shall ensure that said maintenance be performed by appropriately certified personnel. Okay, got that. But the feds kicked the application up to the OK City and from there to DC. This guy wants to be responsible for his own maintanance! Holy crap! Millions may die!
Finally the HQ guys got back to the local guys and said, essentially, what's the matter with you morons - he's right, , his responsibility is to hire the right guys - sign him off. Thus disappeared three months of being able to fly for a living.
So, then barnstorming - being a WACO hobo... With my fresh LOA in with all the rest of my flight dox, off I went and started trying to sell rides locally. Put it this way - no go. Unless you're at an airport so rural that there's no one around, no one will let you do it. Municipalities and other controlling authorities now generally require that you first get permission from their city attorneys (or equivalents), in writing, and then you can offer rides. Usually this requires appearing before the city council, blah, blah, blah. Someone runs right out on the ramp and tells you so. Unless, like I said, you're someplace so far away that you'd have to wait a year to sell a ride.
Furthermore, the feds required that any maintenance (the way my FAA operations Inspector put it was not let anyone so much as stick a decal on the airplane unless I had them pee in a cup first, and that they would be checking) be performed by appropriate personnel. Try putting that to some good ol' boys who've been around long enough to know how to work on round engines and sticks and tubes and see how far you get. They almost to a man voted the guys in who wrote the new rules, but they scoff at having any part of them themselves. Too intrusive. Too much gubment.
The funniest thing was when I talked to the FAA about how onerous these requirements were for barnstorming and the FAA official said, "What's barnstorming?" I told him, and he said, "Well, you can't do that any more."
So, with the price of gas and oil - today about $115/hour for a WACO - the feds having their nose in everything and local governments getting in on the act, the advertised pro-business, small-government, let-a-man-make-a-living era we're supposed to be in hasn't quite worked out that way.
And I've tried. I haven't been home in a year, just on the road with the WACO.
The end of the American tradition of barnstorming was thusly ensured. Now we're Commercial Air Tour Operators, and my sense is that before long all that'll be gone, too. Or bought up by the Chinese or Saudis, and they'll of course get their way.
The whole thing is a damn shame.
Sorry for the rant. I know it's out of place here. I'll shut up now.
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All Forums >> RC Airplanes >> Vintage & Antique RC >> RE: WACO YMF 
RE: WACO YMF - 
sort of a 21st Century Wrong Way Corrigan. 
Seriously though, it sounds like your FSDO guys are a bunch of clowns. (This is unfortunately not all that uncommon.) But there are some FSDOs who still apply regulation with some common sense mixed in. That would probably be a breath of fresh air for you I'd guess! 
