A Return to Reason?

A confutable FAA policy detrimental to pilots seeking training and flight review in experimental category aircraft—homebuilt or otherwise—may well be abrogated by bipartisan provisions within the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) currently before Congress.

The FAA policy, established in July 2021, required certain aircraft owners and flight instructors to obtain a letter of deviation authority (LODA) prior to providing flight training in experimental aircraft—including the owners of homebuilt aircraft seeking training in their own machines.

The unforeseen 2021 policy change engendered a great deal of confusion among pilots and aircraft owners and forced the FAA to hastily adopt the LODA workaround lest tens-of-thousands of aviators found themselves summarily grounded.

Backed by Representatives Sam Graves (R-Missouri), Rick Larsen (D-Washington State), and Kai Kahele (D-Hawaii) and Senators Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) and Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi), the bipartisan provision insinuated into the NDAA would eliminate the LODA requirement, thereby relieving myriad pilots of burdens heaped upon them by inept federal stooges.

Under the provision, owners of experimental aircraft could—without obtaining a LODA—hire Certified Flight Instructors (CFIs) and Designated Pilot Examiners (DPEs) to provide instruction or carry out flight reviews in said experimental aircraft—provided compensation were neither solicited nor remitted for the use of such aircraft.

EAA’s vice president of advocacy and safety Sean Elliott remarked: “The LODA system has a distinct purpose to make aircraft and training commercially available in limited circumstances to promote safety and transition training in aircraft that are not otherwise readily available. But using it as a broad-brush way to address a poor legal interpretation that served only to degrade safety was completely misguided. Our thanks go out to the members of Congress who understood this and included this important policy fix in legislation.”

Specifically, the provision (SEC. 5604. LETTER OF DEVIATION AUTHORITY) states:

A flight instructor, registered owner, lessor, or lessee of an aircraft shall not be required to obtain a letter of deviation authority from the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration to allow, conduct or receive flight training, checking, and testing in an experimental aircraft if:

1. The flight instructor is not providing both the training and the aircraft.
2. No person advertises or broadly offers the aircraft as available for flight training, checking, or testing.
3. No person receives compensation for use of the aircraft for a specific flight during which flight training, checking, or testing was received, other than expenses for owning, operating, and maintaining the aircraft.

FMI: www.congress.gov, www.faa.gov