Legal

The Federal Air Surgeon periodically publishes a Medical Bulletin distributed to Aviation Medical Examiners (AMEs). In Volume 51, Number 4 of that Bulletin, Federal Air Surgeon Fred Tilton, M.D. published his article entitled “New Sleep Apnea Policy.”

Flight department companies are routinely employed as subsidiaries of parent corporations or holding companies. These flight department companies, financed by the parent corporations or holding companies, own, operate and maintain aircraft, employ the flight crew, and provide air transportation to employees and guests of parent and subsidiary corporations. These operations are typically conducted under Part 91 of the Federal Avia- tion Regulations (FARs) without an air carrier certificate.

A United States corporation or citizen may act as an owner/trustee for a foreign national or foreign corporation provided the beneficiary of the trustee has no control over the ownership, retains no incidents of ownership, cannot terminate the trustee, and there is no other relationship between the trustee and the beneficiary other than the trust agreement. This is an aircraft Ownership Trust.

In this article, we will discuss how foreign citizens could have avoided legal proceedings that could have resulted in forfeiting ownership in their aircraft.

On August 3, 2012, the President signed into law the Pilots’ Bill of Rights as Public Law 112-153 (the “PBR” or “Act”). Now that the PBR has become law, it is appropriate to look forward and speculate about the extent to which the Act will have any impact on precedent decided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) allowing the FAA to withhold certain portions of the Enforcement Investigative Report (“EIR”).

The Pilots’ Bill of Rights, Public Law 112-153 (the “PBR” or “Act”) was signed by the President on August 3, 2012. Within days, the government began taking steps to implement the provisions of the Act.

For many years, it has been an accepted industry practice for pilots of experimental aircraft (especially warbirds) to provide one or more media flights to members of the press as part of the airshow appearance package. If the pilot of an experimental aircraft is going to provide a media ride, based upon the FAA’s position on this matter, it appears that this must not be part of the airshow appearance contract. The airshow pilot must bear the full costs of providing the flight, including the fuel and oil. The airshow pilot must not benefit from the flight nor should the sponsor of the airshow benefit from the flight. Again, the act of providing a media ride must not be included as part of the terms and provisions of an airshow appearance contract. The reasons for these conclusions will be discussed in the remainder of this article.

The Pilots’ Bill of Rights sponsored by Senator James Inhofe (S. 1335) passed the Senate by unanimous resolution on Friday, June 29, 2012.

While some members of the aviation community congratulate themselves and each other based on the belief that threats represented by the TSA to the general aviation community are subsiding, the author of Flightwatch does not agree with their assessment. If you think the TSA is getting out of the general aviation business, please consider...

The reason for the investigation by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was described as follows: Our objectives were to identify Transportation Security Administration security requirements for general aviation reports, threats to general aviation, measures taken to secure general aviation, steps nonfederal stakeholders have taken to enhance the security of general aviation, and any “incidents of concern” with security at general aviation airports. In addition, we evaluated allegations of security vulnerabilities at three Houston-area general aviation airports.