Stimpy the Kat

At the beginning of "All This "...I was safely tucked away in my Momma's womb.

Then I made my First Mistake.




Stimpson

Stimpy the Kat

Just read the Admin. vs Spyke brief, thanks for that.

Nominated for Heartwarming Story of The Year. !!

Seriously though, I know people who have withheld info. on their application and it has come back to bite them....So, there's that.

Your course of action was/is correct but, it COULD have gone very wrong also.

Glad it didn't.



Stimpson J. Kat

Excargodog

True story:

A guy I subsequently met took his lttle Grumman Cheetah from the grass strip where he lived about 20 miles in a very rural area and mostly over water - to a very small uncontrolled airport that had an airport diner for the breakfast version of a $100 hamburger. Had a good meal, but as he finishes and starts back to where the airplane was parked, some cop comes up and says all aircraft are grounded because two airliners have rammed buildings in NYC which was only about 3000 miles away from the small uncontrolled airport. While the cop is at the other end of the building spreading the word, Cheetah Pilot says the heck with it, I'm not going to have my aircraft tied down for an indeterminate length of time while this gets sorted out while I have a hangar 20 miles away and takes off for home. Flies over 15 miles of water and five miles of sparsely populated rural area and lands uneventfully.

Cop, of course, gives the N-number to FAA. OK, even the FAA knows that grounding all aircraft was ridiculous overkill, and they offer the guy a six week suspension, basically the same length of time all general aviation aircraft were suspended after 9/11, simply to maintain their own credibility with the cops who made the notification and because they couldn't let the precedent be established that you could flout such orders. At that point the plot thickens. The guy refuses.

A lot of people don't realize the FAA lacks independent enforcement powers. It's sort of like a military Article 15. They offer you a deal to avoid a trial, because it's a lot quicker and cheaper for them. He is ENTITLED to turn them down. But once he does they HAVE TO take it to an administrative law judge.

OK, the administrative law judge ain't an aviator. He apparently actually believed that a 2000 pound airplane flying at 1500 feet at 105 knots over rural America and empty water WAS a threat to national security. He cancelled all the guys certificates and said that the guy could start over fresh - in three years - getting a new private license, but could not utilize any of his previous time for doing that, on the assumption that he might learn from his mistake.



As pig-headed as ever, the guy refused to admit what he had done was wrong, in fact he still did when I met him years later. Despite living on an airstrip, the guy hasn't flown since although the Cheetah still sits in the hangar next to the guys house.

The moral? While the FAA can be bureaucratic and officious they really do want people to be able to fly. Administrative law judges, not so much. Also, don't be a pig-headed fool.

AirBear

Gonna throw in my FAA Medical Bureaucracy story.

Back around 2004 or so, my observant wife noticed a red splotch I'd had on the top of my head had darkened. She nagged me to have it checked out. My Doc had done that a few years back and said it was fine. Well I had to see him for an unrelated issue. As he finished and was heading out the door I remember about the spot. He came back in and looked at and suggested I see the Skin Doc.

Later that week I did just that, he took a sample of this dime-sized area and sent it to the lab. The following Monday his nurse called me and said the lab reported it was malignant melanoma Luckily it hadn't metastasized yet or I wouldn't be here typing this. So a few days later I go to the plastic surgeon, he cuts a quarter sized area out and works his magic. I was there for less than 90 minutes. The following week I get an "everything's fine now" report.

Now all this happened in the spring just a month after my FAA Physical. I went back to work and flew until the fall. I call my AME's nurse to schedule my FAA Physical and ask her how I should report this melanoma. She didn't know so I called AMAS (Virtual Flight Surgeons back then I think). The Doc quickly returns my call and informs me I've been flying illegally all summer

Turns out any Cancer is grounding until the FAA reviews the diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. My cancer could have been serious but it was caught in plenty of time and really wasn't that big of a deal. The procedures I had were simple outpatient stuff. I had no idea about this rule.

So now the stupid stuff starts. I have to stop flying even thou I'm perfectly healthy. And I don't have sick days to burn either. I have to get all the paperwork done by my Doctor and send it in. After quite a few weeks I get clearance to fly along with a nastygram from the Feds "admonishing" me to abide by such-and-such regulation. Well excuse me for using common sense. Idiots.

conoblep

@STC: I agree, it could've gone much worse. And per numerous opinions 'The question was confusing' isn't an excuse for an incorrect answer (even though the questions ARE rather ambiguous in what they are truly after).

Thankfully, the RFS who I dealt with put it to bed and was quite reasonable (FAA employees, reasonable? Who knew...). From what I have experienced usually the lower levels of the agencies are the most reasonable and easy to deal with. The upper echelons of bureaucratic hell where individuals are far removed from reality is where things really start to go downhill. I think it was the correct course of action to bite the bullet when I realized my error, and get it (whatever ended up happening, ended up a non-issue) over with. Better than have it come back to bite me in 10 years when the FAA somehow finds out about it and yanks my medical and all certificates for falsification years into a career. I've read countless stories of the FAA finding out about something that would've been relatively minor, years after concealment (intentional or not), and it not ending well for the poor soul.

Isn't Spyke a little depressing? The NTSB appeals archives are full of cases like that... And even ones that are clearly tilted in the airman's favor usually took the 10th circuit slapping the NTSB down for railroading the defendant and rubber-stamping the FAA counsel opinion on appeal.

I think my favorite part is that the ALJs saying that the questions are clear to a person of reasonable intelligence really means that we are all supposed to not only be experts on criminal law but also internal medicine and know exactly what the intent was by the lawyer who wrote the question we just answered. Also by self-disclosing it makes proving that there was intent (key to "intentional falsification") by the agency extremely difficult.

Really I was just wondering where you were a decade ago to tell me to run when the cops showed up to the private residence we were 'gathered' at instead of hanging around. That conscience has really been useless over the years.

conoblep

: Plastered over the doorway to the Aeromedical Division in OKC "In these halls, common sense is an uncommon virtue"
: He sounds like quite a security threat. What a mess. In criminal court the case brought by the FAA would've been laughed out of the courtroom. That's what happens when you appoint a single self-interested entity to be legislator, judge, jury and executioner.

Pretty good reading about how administrative law is impacting the relationship between the people and the different branches of government (totally off topic)
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-tyr...ate-1497037492

Excargodog

Don't single out the Aeromedical Division for criticism. They work for an organization whose motto is; We're not happy until you're not happy.

conoblep

Received the standard FAA letter "You have been deemed worthy, but warn of any changes" letter. So that's over with. What is more concerning is that I was issued the medical on 6/14/18 and the letter was dated 9/6/18... Which means it took them 3 full months to simply review the file. Ouch for those who are awaiting SI medicals or file reviews