A friend asked for comment on “How the FAA Shot Down ‘Uber for Planes'”. The proposed service would have allowed people to find a pilot heading for Martha’s Vineyard, for example, and hop on, paying his or her proportional share of the expenses, e.g., the flight school rental fee.
My response via Facebook was
The FAA tries to draw a sharp line between airlines, which they want to be 100% safe, and personal flying, where they let you build your own plane in your garage and then fly it yourself. They don’t want to put non-pilots in the position of having to judge if an operation is sufficiently safe. I think that perhaps there should be a middle ground. Require that there be a two-pilot crew, for example, which is the cornerstone of airline safety. Also require a higher level of insurance and that the pilots comply with the insurance company’s training requirements. The rest of the charter/airline regulations are not as important in my opinion.
(The FAA does have a track record of innovating in rule-making. It created the Light Sport Aircraft and Sport Pilot regulations, for example, to simplify two-seat visual flying. It took “more than a decade of deliberation” (see http://generalaviationnews.com/2013/09/09/a-new-approach-to-lsa-certification/ ))
What do readers think? On the one hand it would be nice if adults could meet over the Internet and do something that is already legal if they were to meet face-to-face. On the other hand, if you have never met someone face-to-face how can you evaluate his or her ability to be the single pilot of an aircraft?
There should just be a regulatory intervention if an activity is unsafe compared to, say, walking down the street. If your chance of death per hour walking down the street is, say 1/100000, then anything substantially safer than that shouldn’t need to be regulated until it gets to be about that dangerous.
Even if you meet face to face, how is the non-pilot supposed to judge?
Make sharing legal within current regs. Produce a high quality video explaining the differences between airlines and GA, complete with fatality statistics. The passenger will then be educated and can make an informed decision.
I say those that like flight sharing should get to keep flight sharing. Those that do not want flight sharing should not have to use flight sharing!
I could also get behind having a minimum hours requirement (like that required for an IFR rating)… or require an IFR rating itself. And possibly hold the aircraft to 91.409(b). Basically, stack the deck for increased safety, but do nothing beyond what’s already on the books.
Somewhat OFF-TOPIC, but still within realm of flying: there’s an exciting online Æon essay on “The parlance of pilots: the language of the cockpit is technical, obscure and geeky – and irresistibly romantic” by Mark Vanhoenacker, which goes a bit deeper into that, than the one previously widely known sample of Chuck Yeager’s Southern drrrrawwwl in Tom Wolfe’s “The Right Stuff.”
It’s not the same thing, but interesting none the less that Angel flights are permitted by the FAA. The minimum requirements are quite low for Angel Flight Mission Pilots yet somehow there accident rate for Angel flights is extremely low. However as a passenger you are getting into a plane with no knowledge of the pilot’s skill level and competency. Disclaimer, I am (what I consider) a highly competent IFR rated pilot who does complete Angel Flights and wholly supports the mission.
To be fair, you can’t judge the driving ability of an Uber driver, and people get in their cars all the time.
FAA has a helluva problem releasing docs permitting an activity but seem to be quite agile at forbidding things.