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FAA Approves Sport Pilot License
"Light-Sport airplanes will be limited in size and power: maximum weight 1,320 pounds, maximum two seats, maximum airspeed 120 knots, single non-turbine engine, fixed landing gear. If it's a Light-Sport, it should be one of the easiest planes to fly."
This has the potential to dramatically increase the number of people owning and flying planes. Not only is it easier for a person to become a Sport Pilot, it is easier and cheaper for a company to sell a Light-Sport airplane. (For years, people have been building "kit" airplanes just so they will fall under the looser "homebuilt" rules. Now, there will be no need to build a plane unless you actually want to do so.) Several airplane companies have promised to produce Light-Sport planes that will cost no more than a luxury car."
Terrorists fly planes, not you
"-Who said sit down?!"
-- S. Ballmer @ MSDC 2003.
Just what we need, a bunch of fucking idiots in the sky who are too stupid/undedicated/uncoordinated to get a normal pilot's license.
Getting your pilot's license isn't really that difficult, did they really need to dumb it down?
Haven't we learned anything from our clogged and dangerous highways? We don't need a sky full of people using cell phones, putting on makeup, reading the morning newspaper... Flying is serious business for you and for anyone whom you may run into on the ground.
One of the things I like about flying is that "in general", pilots really care about what the fuck they're doing, how they're doing it, etc. Sure, no one is perfect, and you'll always see people in any aspect of life behaving like an idiot... shit, we all do it.
But the difference between the focus of general aviation pilots and bozos on the highway is like night and day.
Very very disappointing.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
This entire post is not funny at all, mod it down.
Firstly, do you really think terrorists are stupid? They're not going to make the mistake of putting a heavy bomb in a plane incapable of taking off.
The 9/11 hijackers were anything but dumb (evil, suicidal, crazy, whatever else you feel like saying) having trained as pilots for very complex aircraft, and having planned that entire act. Bet you can't fly a 757?
Secondly, you throw in "Allah Ackbar" just to reinforce the idea that "terrorist == Muslim" (or at least "terrorist is a subset of Muslim". Remember the Oklahoma bombing? Timothy McVeigh ring any bells? The Unabomber? Whoever did the anthrax attacks?
I'm all for having a joke about 9/11 or terrorism but only if you've got something funny to say.
John.
That in the wake of 9/11 I can't get a driver's license without a mountain of paperwork, but I'm now allowed to fly a plane with only minimal qualifications?
We will invade a foreign country because they *might* have WMD's. Yet, now we're easing licensing restrictions for light aircraft, so that terrorists will have an even easier time loading up an aircraft with explosives and flying it into a public place?
While Michael Moore is being interrogated by the FBI, Achmed the suicide bomber is picking up his pilot license from the FAA...
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
Sounds like you'd better move somewhere where you'll be surrounded by only white people. Anything else is just too risky.