Boris Badenov

It makes my heart shoot rainbows that he feels my pain. Still and all, in the end, all the FAA does is destroy the lives of pilots and slap the offending certificate holder on the wrist and say "no seriously, don't do that!". I fail to see how there's a legit answer to the question I posed in this feelfest.

If they really want the regs to be observed, they need to start putting the certificate holders out of business when a plane takes off illegally. But that wouldn't be fulfilling their "dual responsability", would it? Much easier to throw another starving kid under the bus for having the bad luck to have his number come up and get ramped on the wrong day.

PS. I say this as a guy who has had the good fortune (and a little skill in choosing employers) to work for companies that were owned and run by the good guys and tried very seriously to observe the regs but remain competitive. I had occasion to tour an aircraft of a type I used to fly tonight. It was a freaking mess. At least one system obviously inop and not MEL'd (If memory serves, it's not even MELable), nets present but pretty obviously not used. Duty times being fragrantly disregarded. What chaps my buns is that the company I worked for that flew the plane is out of business because they couldn't compete with the lowball operators. I certainly don't blame the pilots...they're just trying to make a living and hold on to a job in an awful climate. I blame the FAA and their persecution of whatever poor sap gets caught doing what tons of guys do all the time rather than trying to legitimately see to it that the regs are observed in a non-punitive way. Same as it ever was...just another political game. So lets hear it for the lawyers.