Flight School rules by State
 

I am in the porocess of starting a traveling flight school. I travel to each students location and do an acelereted 3 week PPL course including ground school. Sometimes I rent an aircraft, sometimes I use the students and sometimes I supply the aircraft.

It seems in my home state of Michigan this is not legal as I have to be registered and approved at each location I teach.

Does anyone know of this to be true? Are there any other states out there that have such a law?

Any info would be appreciated.

Interesting. Most aviation activities cannot legally be regulated by the states...it's an infringement on federal turf. But some localities always want to push the envelope.

But you would probably need a business license in any state, that's just the business side of things, not really aviation specific.

Registered where, and approved by which agency?

I'm sure you'll run into some resistence with FBO's who have CFI's on staff.

That's the point running a business, any kind of business, is a state activity. My quasi-educated guess is that a state can probably not credential flight instructors - that's an FAA function – but probably can regulate where and when and how they do business.

Here's the Michigan statute: http://legislature.mi.gov/doc.aspx?mcl-259-85

Register the corporation in Delaware and then travel state to state. Your CFI gives you the "right" to teach anywhere you want in the USA.

I would be interested in the specific law that bars you from teaching in MI. Instead of taking someones word for it why don't you call a service that specializes in this sort of thing and seeing what they have to say. If that still doesn't satisfy you then call a labor attorney in Michigan and ask them for advise.

If you have AOPA legal services, they probably can answer this for you. I remember seeing some document posted on our wall at my old Flight School in Michigan. I think it's just a registration for tax purposes, no actual benefit to the school.

That law looks surprising like infringement on federal prerogative, especially where it starts talking about training records above and beyond those required by part 91. None of it looks to be particularly onerous, so maybe no one is annoyed enough to fight it.

Also this law is obviously corrupt...it is taken almost verbatim from 141, I suspect it was written to protect the state's big 141 schools from low-cost part 61 competition.

I suspect if MI tried to do this to airline operators, an army of ATA lawyers would drag them all the way to the supreme court to get it squashed.

My WAG was a little bit different, Rick. My guess is that it's either a revenue measure (although the fees are very small) or a consumer protection measure where registration means insurance and a level of accountability an avoidance of fly-by-night (no pun intended) operations.

At least that's what the State would probably argued if it was challenged as an undue burden on interstate commerce in violation of those parts of the FAA Act that preclude state regulation.

I'm not sure of the result, but most airports have minimum standards for operation of businesses on the airport; why not a state?

btw, glancing at the statute, including the definition section, I can't even tell whether in regulates independent CFIs at all.

I don't think a state has the fundamental right to effectively prohibit the operation of part 61 flight school under the terms permitted by the FARs, nor can I see why they would want to (unless somebodies friends are in the 141 business).

The way I read it, anyone offering flight instruction would potentially fall under the category of flight school.