JR,

I don't know is the "maiden flight issue" is as widespread as is being made out to be, it certainly is not any more of an issue than at any other events. I have at numerous times been at scale contests, local flyins, etc... that maiden flights have occurred and it has been no more of an issue. Why is it that the turbine community is all of the sudden the bad boys when accross the board this is an AMA rule that is being ignored by every facet of the hobby. If the maiden flight is flown at the event prior to or after the official event times is it an "illegal" flight? This has been debated ad nauseum in different forums.

If the T/W is exceeded how do you propose the CD measure this? As I described I have been down this road and there is not a good method to accomplish this. To much variance between methods.

The Best of the West incident just proves that there are people out there flying turbines that don't need to be flying them. Some CD signed the guy off at some point in time. When I got my waiver it was certainly a lot less diffucult as the TCD did not exsist at that time. FWIW I refused to sign a guy off for his waiver last summer because he crashed the plane that he was attempting to get his waiver with. His comment was it was too windy.... so what... it was a judgement call and he should have grounded himself prior to the crash.

I don't think we need to carry on without rules, I support rules and feel like we need rules in place to govern the masses. Problem is the enforcement of those rules. I disagree with your comment about a small group of waiver holders deciding which rules they will abide by, the majority are following the rules or are attempting to follow the rules. There are some individuals that feel like some of the rules are not enforceable. Some of the rules, T/W for an example are not good rules they don't take into account the inherent aerodynamic differences in the airframes. So what might help to limit the speed of one airframe might not limit a second cleaner airframe at all.

I think you will find that the majority of legislators in this country that are charged with making the rules in society gravitate to the "experts" in the field to try and formulate a set of rules and guidelines that are reasonable and enforceable. You state that Dave Brown is faced with us not policing ourselves but yet has he spent the time finding out why? Could it be that we are not just a bunch of renegades with blatant and total disregard for the rules? Could it be that we can't find a good method for enforcing the rules so we are eliminating the unenforceable ones and trying to implement some that might be better rules. Rules that are more likely to focus on a solution to a greater issue, pilot competency? It will really be interesting to see how enforcement other than self policing would work. I'm ready for my speeding tickets.