From AOPA News:
FAA POLICY CHANGE VOIDS MANY IFR GPS UNITS
Many previously IFR-certified GPS receivers might now be unapproved for flying many instrument procedures due to recent FAA policy changes, according to AOPA. On Thursday, the association said the FAA's Advisory Circular 90-100A , issued in March, indicates that only three GPS models -- the Garmin 400, 500 and G1000 series -- are now legal. Other models made by Garmin, including the new GNS 480 WAAS receiver, as well as receivers manufactured by Chelton, Honeywell, Northstar, and Trimble are listed as "noncompliant," AOPA said. The action means up to 26,000 GPS users no longer comply with a 1996 FAA policy that allows GPS to be used in lieu of ADF or DME.
To most people the above news may not mean much. What is ADF or DME and who cares about Advisory Circular 90-100A. To certain airplane owners and operators, this means they spent a lot of money on equipment they can’t use as intended. But that’s not the real story. The real story has impact on every single American, because it tells a story of a federal agency out of control, without oversight; an agency completely out of touch with the purpose for which they were created. And it means aviation in America is at dire risk. The above is a symptom of the disease which will have devastating impact on everyone.
The FAA is completely out of control, and this is just more proof FAA has become dangerously wasteful, arrogant and is harmful to aviation safety. Not only have they expanded their operating scope way beyond what is authorized by law, and not only do the play fast and loose with their own rules and the laws imposed by Congress, actions like this shows all too well that they are making aviation LESS safe, rather than helping in any way. The FACT is my any GPS on the market, including any aviation handheld (of any vintage) is more accurate and reliable than ADF and as good as DME. The FACT is that FAA has impeded the utility of GPS by creating unnecessarily burdensome requirements for "certification" which have proven to have NO BENEFIT to safety, and they have done so with NO LEGAL AUTHORITY as there is no regulatory basis (part 91 rule) or precedent for requiring a TSO on navigation receivers for part 91 operations...the issuing of "policy letters" and "advisory circulars" to define what is effective regulatory content VIOLATES THE LAW under which the FAA operates - and they are never held accountable! This is what is really wrong with the above anouncement: FAA ignoring the law and acting without oversight.
It is worth repeating that Advisory Circulars are by law NON REGULATORY, but the FAA routinely uses ACs to amend regulations (which is illegal). The reason the law prohibits ACs and policy letters from having regulatory affect is that these are issued by the agency with no notice, public comment or outside oversight. This is very bad; it violates the requirement for an open process with public comment and, in theory, public oversight. Regulatory agencies like the FAA have rules they are supposed to follow when they want to change the rules, and the process requires publication of intent with sufficient time to allow public comment, and it requires the agency to respond to every comment filed. The FAA bypasses this process when they use policy letters and ACs to amend operating rules. They *claim* these are 'interpretations' but anyone can see that this AC change is hardly that: it clearly and unambiguously imposes operational requirements, and that is the definition of "regulation" in this country. You don’t need a law degree to realize this is bogus, and you don’t need to be a wild eyed anti-government radical to see that the FAA is making significant changes here with no public oversight or even reasonable notice.
FAA has been getting away with this practice for years. It has become standard operating procedure. It’s become habit. We’ve all lived with it (well, not all of us). Many GA pilots have unknowingly accepted a higher level of risk because of it. Others have simply quit flying altogether as the burden and cost of this nonsense has driven them out. The FAA isn’t happy with the current rate of attrition, now they are going to accelerate it.
The FAA has convinced the general press (and it appears most of Congress) that they need more money, that they are having a funding "crisis", yet the numbers are absurd. The FAA budget is out of control: they are hemorrhaging cash and, according to all recent audits by GAO, they don't have any idea where the cash is going. They have failed, consistently, to account for all their spending...yet they need more, that they know for sure. So they can waste billions on systems that have zero benefit to GA users or airlines alike. Consider WAAS - It is pointless and of zero utility: for enroute there is no need for better than 30m that GPS gets without WAAS; using WAAS as a precision approach is dangerously unreliable, and can not, without local correction, meet ILS standards, a conclusion reached by the USAF when they rejected the WAAS concept years ago. Think about that: the USAF, who funded the invention and development of GPS, rejected the concept behind WAAS after extensive analysis. In fact, the USAF final report on augmenting GPS recommended a different approach which was more effective and orders of magnitude more cost effective. The FAA rejected cost the better performing and cost effective approach to fund WAAS, a multi-billion dollar boondoggle. And now the FAA is preventing us from using WAAS.
The FAA wants to impose a "surcharge" for using ATC services, on top of the taxes we pay, and the willing accomplices in Congress and the popular press are going for it! They’re clearly heading for European style user fees, ignoring (or perhaps embracing?) what a disaster it is everywhere else in the world where it has been done.
The Airlines *think* this is going to be good for them, at least some of them, because they think GA is stealing away business. Some GA pilots *think" it won't matter to them 'cause they don't fly turbine aircraft on IFR flight plans. Well think again. The recent history of the FAA leaves no doubt that this initial "compromise" is only a first step. They’ll expand it, without using the proper regulatory mechanisms, notice or comment, without any limits at all. Certain airline executives will think that’s OK, that it will only affect GA operations. Well, they’re wrong and they’ll pay for being wrong.
You see, the FAA approach to extracting user fees is a losing proposition in every way. It won’t work to generate new revenue: the FAA will spend more money collecting fees than the fees. There is no reason to believe otherwise. There are not enough airplanes flying to pay for the overhead the FAA will *need* to collect fees. Starting with just turbine airplanes, collecting $25 per flight plan will increase the FAA cash burn more than it will generate. So the FAA will *have* to expand fees. Perhaps a G5 operator will readily absorb a $100 per flight plan charge as in the noise compared to overall cost of operation, but if you run the numbers, you see the problem: there are not enough turbine aircraft to generate reasonable revenue rates. If you look at FAA budgets today you realize that it costs a million bucks to clean the toilets in their DC offices. It will cost many times that to collect these "surcharges", yet the number of GA turbine flights will amount a tiny fraction of their overhead. They’ll be losing money on user fees. The enevitable conclusion will be that the FAA *must* expand user fees, to justify the cost of collecting them. They have few choices: they can increase the burden on GA Turbine operators to ridiculous levels, they can go after the rest of GA (which is most attractive as there’s more of us), or they can go after the airlines. Lest you think this is a "one or the other" choice, think again. Eventually the FAA will just *have* to go after all three.
Then the snowball effect gets serious. Usury fees will reduce GA flying, reducing fuel taxes revenue. Thousands of GA operators will simply get out. It won’t be just the cost that drives people away. The hassle factor, and the loss of utility that results, will drive people away from GA. The last place on earth where GA is viable will be gone. And the FAA will have a real crisis: justifying their own existence.
This is when the airlines will get to pay for their lack of vision. The will sit in their thrones content that GA is being destroyed and think that is good for them. For a while. But reality will catch up. As GA dwindles to European levels, the FAA will turn to the airlines for more revenue (they will of course have no other choice!). Ticket taxes won’t be enough. The "surcharge" structure will still be losing money, so they’ll expand it to include airline operations. And a few hundred bucks per flight still won’t be enough. The direct costs to the airlines will become a crisis.
The indirect cost to the airlines is more subtle. Currently US airlines depend on the availability of really cheap pilots to operate. Sure, senior captains are paid pretty well. It takes a lot of years working for what can amount to minimum wage to get there. The fact that there is an ample supply of young pilots who want an airline job, and are willing to work cheap for a while, is what makes this possible. News flash: GA in the United States is what makes this ready supply of cheap pilots possible. Foreign carriers have long relied on the supply of pilots from the USA, but over the last 20 years or so they’ve seen the supply diminish. This as forced the largest carriers to train pilots from scratch, and they’ve realized how much it costs. Guess where they base these training facilities: yup, right here in the USA. Because there isn’t anywhere else they can afford to do it. They also have a struggle finding enough applicants to keep the supply going, and as hard as some have tried, they still hire pilots from the USA.
Kill off GA in the US and our carriers will eventually find themselves struggling to find enough pilots. Sure, you say, pilot shortages have been predicted dozens of times but never really happen. There has always been GA feeding the fire. Kill of GA in the US and they won’t have anyplace to go to base their training facilities. Because this is the last place on earth that real GA exists.
If you’ve read this far you are thinking "what a downer, dude, get positive". You’re thinking this is a worst case scenario that can never happen. Sure. I’ve painted a picture of an extreme case. But it is a frighteningly familiar story. I’ve been in Europe and the Far East, and there is no such thing as GA as we know it in those places. GA airplanes are, by and large, accessible to a very few in those places. The numbers are frighteningly small, costs are abusively high and restrictions are devastating to utility of small airplanes. And the path the FAA is on is the path that leads exactly to this end.
There is a difference, though. It is called the United States Constitution. A document crafted by people who were largely skeptical of government control. While those authors never imagined airplanes, they clearly imagined the dangers of large federal governments which operated without direct visibility and oversight of the people. The envisioned, in many ways, what the FAA has become. Several of those authors clearly stated that any government agency that gets as big as the FAA has gotten will get out of control. The foundation of this document is that people should be suspicious of, and keep control over, government, rather than let it get the other way around.
Some will argue we’ve failed in our duty to protect the Constitution and keep our government under control. Hard to argue otherwise looking at the current situation. The question is, have we passed the point of no return or is there still time to reel in the FAA and similarly out of control agencies? I believe, firmly, that it is not too late. The key is holding agencies like the FAA accountable for their actions and accountable to the law. It’s the job of Congress to provide that oversight. And the most effective tool Congress has is the budget. Tell your congressional representatives to DRASTICALLY CUT the FAA budget, force the FAA to eliminate useless programs and departments, and refocus on what they should be doing (issue ACs like the one at the start of this article would definitely be on the ‘got to go’ list). Make FAA account for and justify what the spend. Congress can do that. Tell them to get to work.
That’s the way I see it, at least. We still have a choice.
Choose Wisely.