Aero-News: Quote of the Day

ANN's Quote of the Day usually derives from current news, though we reserve the right to pick quotes out of history that have a bearing on the day's events and issues.

Sometimes, you'll find them timely and in keeping with the content of the day's news... and sometimes, they'll just be thought-provoking.

Reader suggestions and comments are welcome... and if particularly intriguing, timely, or poignant, may themselves become future Quotes of the Day.

Let us hear from you, folks!

Aero-News Quote of the Day

When the FAA most recently revised Order 8130.2J, they removed a paragraph that gave inspectors and designated airworthiness representatives (DARs) special instructions on the certification of gliders. While the deletion was for the sake of consistency, it inadvertently removed a reference to a guidance document on what constitutes a self-launching glider. This is important because it is up to the DAR or inspector to use their discretion in choosing an aircraft’s category and class to assign through its operating limitations. Absent any design standard, there is not a concrete distinction between a self-launching glider and an airplane. The FAA’s definition in FAR 1.1 is simply “a heavier-than-air aircraft, that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces and whose free flight does not depend principally on an engine.”

Source: From a recently disclosed EAA notice calling out issues with the FAA's rewrite of a doc that screwed up the defining verbiage for self-launching gliders. Nice work by EAA on this, BTW...

FMI: www.eaa.org