By ANN Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

In aviation, there has been no longer-drawn-out and painful gestation than the government's Sport Pilot/ Light Sport Aircraft regulation. Conceived in 2000, it was going to be final and introduced at Oshkosh. In 2001. And 2002. And 2003.

This year once again, Sport Pilot is the Dog That Did Not Bark. The FAA Administrator, Thursday, tells us that it is now out of their hands, in the control of other government agencies. Any question about prognosis elicits a shrug. Six months. A year.

"'04, Maybe?"

The Feds are as discouraged as we are, but there are real victims here. Those are the kit plane and ultralight vendors who have had their businesses whipsawed by government procrastination and nonfeasance. The bottom dropped out of the ultralight market as would-be buyers, at once tantalized and concerned by the prospect of Sport Pilot's new rules which were "coming, any day now," kept a Kung-fu death grip on their wallets.

In the meantime, designers who developed to the Light Sport Aircraft specs find that their machines are contraband in the United States. Wonderful.

"What can we do to help?" we asked.

"It's not in a stage where the public has any control," our Federal source, codenamed Cobwebbed File, told us. "It's a bureaucratic thing now." So we have to live, for however long, with the dog that did not bark. We need to let it lie.

After all, it is a sleeping dog.

FMI: www.faa.gov