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Aviation History
1945
1945 - 0867.PDF
MAY 3RD, 1945 FLIGHT 481 Only Angels May Fly US. Civil Air Regulations that "Handcuff" the Private Pilot By N. D. RYDER THOSE of us in Britain who are inclined to complainthat our more or less benevolent Government hastaken far too long to realise that aviation means something, may console ourselves with the reflection that there are compensations in this—especially for the private pilot. Anyone who doubts this statement should study the Civil Air Regulations of the U,S.A. where, most Englishmen fondly imagine, everyone can do what he jolly well pleases, even though "Prohibition" is no more. For in that land of the free, it seems, the private pilot is so hedged about with queer regulations that one would imagine the authorities wanted to discourage him from leaving the ground. This will come as a surprise, or as a shock, to many of us who have long been encouraged in the belief that in America, before the war, light aircraft were "thicker than fleas on a dog's back" compared with the grasshopper density of this country. But I have it on the authority of the American journal, Air News, which recently published an article setting forth some of these restrictive regulations and sharply criticising the Civil Aeronautics Board for that section of their book- of-words aimed at the '' elimination of undesirable flying practices." • "This," says the journal, "is the curiously unfunny joker which has brought the most peculiar regulations in the American lawbooks. Some of these regulations may have saved a few lives, but it is a known fact that no law has ever been written which would save a grandstander from his own misadventures. But attempts to achieve this goal have handcuffed every airman in this country for eighteen years." The American pilot, it seems, is faced by '' an almost insurmountable obstacle of restrictions which actually discourages all but the fanatics." Most of these restrictions, if not all of them, have no doubt been imposed from the best of motives; nobody sug- gests for a single moment that those who framed them had any objective other than to make flying as safe as possible. But some are too sweeping, some are out of date and need drastic revision, and others are so queer that it is difficult to guess just what particular aspect of safety the framers originally had in mind ; maybe they have even forgotten themselves by now! Too Sweeping Take, for example, the one which prohibits the operation of a landplane at less than 500ft. above water, and amphibians at less than 300ft. This was introduced because in the late '' twenties'' there were some very young men who liked to give themselves and the crowd a thrill by diving under bridges, or took a sadistic delight in " beating- up " a crowded holiday beach. Of course it was patently necessary to discourage this sort of perilous amusement, but the resultant regulation makes it illegal for the level- headed owner of a Piper Cub to hop across a small bay or estuary without first wasting time and juice in climbing above the minimum height. It prevents the pilot of a small seaplane from coming down close enough to, say, a lake, to see if there is room to land for a spot of fishing. Of course, nobody normally flies at less than 500ft., but the point is there are many occasions when, for some sp'eci- fic reason, a private pilot may wish to do so without in any way being guilty of "undesirable flying practices." And needless to say, the odd clown still occasionally writes himself off against a concrete breakwater, in spite of this form of hari-kari being strictly illegal. As an example of the out-of-date regulation in need of some modification, the article points out that although the helicopter has more or less arrived, it is still illegal to operate an aircraft at less than 1,oooft. 'above a city or congested area, so it would be quite illegal to land one's helicopter in the back garden or on the office roof—assum- ing you have that sort of roo'f. Similarly, the same regu- lation rather cuts across American plans to establish air parks in the middle of some of their cities unless the said airparks are to be built on 1,000ft. .stilts. At the other end of the scale, the 1926 rule forbidding the operation of any but military or experimental aircraft at altitudes exceeding 17,000ft. is still in force. In 1926, 17,000ft. was quite a ceiling, but to-day it is a very moder- ate height for commercial operation though it hardly con- cerns the owner-pilot of a 60 h.p. grasshopper. Defeating Their Purpose That regulations can sometimes defeat the very purpose they are meant to serve is illustrated by one concerning parachutes. As everyone knows, a parachute needs inspect- ing and repacking at not too wide intervals if it is to be 100 per cent, dependable. Whether there had been cases of 'chutes failing to open in circumstances which suggested some sort of neglect I cannot say, but C.A.B. made it unlawful for any civil aircraft to • carry a parachute f01 emergency use unless that parachute had, within the pre- ceding 60 days, been packed by a person certified for that . purpose in accordance with C.A.R. The result of this regu- lation is that few private owners have, in the past, provided themselves with a parachute at all, because they did not want to be saddled with the compulsory expense and trouble of frequent repacking. One can easily see the force of this regulation where the fare-paying air passenger is concerned, but the law does not compel the private pilot to carry a parachute. Yet if he elects to do so he imme- diately comes under one more regulation, with the inevit- able risk of being penalised for infringing it. Thus he is discouraged from carrying a parachute even though he may fully appreciate the well-known fact that if he ever needs it, he will need it badly, and so would not be likely to neglect its proper care. In any case, many a life has been saved by an old 'chute that fortunately did its job though nobody could remember the last time it had been repacked—which makes any parachute, say 65 days away from the rigging shop, better than nothing in an emer- gency. As for legulations coming under the heading of "queer," it is laid down, for example, that nr> student pilot can apply for a private pilot's certificate unless he can speak English. But for some curious reason citizens of Pueito Rico are exempt from this ruling', so we shall probably find veterans of the Polish Air Force taking the easier way out, after the war, by becoming legal citizens of that favoured locality. Queerest of all, however, must surely be the regulation which stipulates that the applicant for a pilot's certificate must be "of good moral character."—Shades of the Pilgrim Fathers! ! One is tempted to wonder if this appar- ently irrelevant stipulation was inspired by the morbid expectation of the applicant's soon having to face the Great Examiner. As Air News itself indicates, it's a good job for the automobile industry that the same requirement does not apply to drivers' licences! And so, on the principle that it is always a comfort to see somebody worse off than oneself, British pilots may feel consoled ; at least they don't have to get their appli- cations for an "A" licence backed by the local vicar, who, by the way, is often himself referred to as a " sky- pilot."
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