Pietenpol-List: FAA waivers = EAA refusal to support chapter events
Posted: Thu Jan 17, 2008 5:19 pm
Original Posted By: RBush96589(at)aol.com
I figured that it would interest many of my friends...My local EAA chapter is organizing a rather large "aviation day" type fly-in(Feb.16) for the second year. We were just informed by EAA that if an EAAchapter fly-in has *any* FAA waivers for any reason, they will absolutelyNOT sanction the event or provide insurance. This would apply to ANY eventthat has skydiving demos, balloon races, aerobatics, certain demonstrations,military fly-bys, etc. I don't wanna start a big thing on this list per se,but I know this will affect many aviation days, fly-ins, etc. that many ofyou might be involved with. We were SHOCKED to hear this and it seemed tofly in the face of what I understood they were saying about how thewell-publicized changes to the regional event sponsorships. They said thatthose changes wouldn't affect chapter-level events and fly-ins, but itobviously does.I guess IAC is just out of luck now and can't hold acro contests unless theygo it alone?In short, now we have to find our own insurance, and from what I heard atthe meeting today, many of the very active chapter members are *seriously*angry with EAA... to the point that many experienced homebuilders havestarted to question the benefit and purpose of even belonging to EAA and whydoes our chapter even need to be be affiliated any more if they're not goingto help us promote aviation beyond a pancake breakfast?I don't know if this is coming from the underwriters, lawyers, EAA board, orwho, but it sure seems to confirm a lot of the rumors that were going aroundsince last year. I've also been told that the new Young Eagles forms havelegal language that many pilots can't go along with and which requires theparents to sign away all rights to sue EAA unless they pay EAA's expenses,I'm not a lawyer but I heard about that at Oshkosh from some VERYhigh-number YE pilots. I didn't place much stock in that story before butnow, the pieces seem to fit together rather well.Has the heart and soul of the EAA finally been destroyed by lawyers? I surehope not, but I'm pretty alarmed right now and sad for the inevitableside-effects. If they can't support their chapters holding reasonable, safeevents, then what CAN they do to support local aviation? Oshkosh iswonderful and all, but that's NOT the focus of where new pilots come from!They're basically saying that "if you work with the FAA and follow the rulesto keep the event safe, then we expect you to have an accident so we don'twant anything to do with you." I should point out that they won't cover ANYpart of the event, they're not just excluding covering the parts of itrequiring FAA waivers.Anyway, I just thought that many of you would like to know about thissituation. We weren't told anything about this until just now... less than amonth out from our event! How many other EAA chapters are going to get thissame rude awakening at the last minute, and just cancel events entirely?Sad, sad, sad. And they wonder why aviation is so expensive...-Mike________________________________________________________________________________
I figured that it would interest many of my friends...My local EAA chapter is organizing a rather large "aviation day" type fly-in(Feb.16) for the second year. We were just informed by EAA that if an EAAchapter fly-in has *any* FAA waivers for any reason, they will absolutelyNOT sanction the event or provide insurance. This would apply to ANY eventthat has skydiving demos, balloon races, aerobatics, certain demonstrations,military fly-bys, etc. I don't wanna start a big thing on this list per se,but I know this will affect many aviation days, fly-ins, etc. that many ofyou might be involved with. We were SHOCKED to hear this and it seemed tofly in the face of what I understood they were saying about how thewell-publicized changes to the regional event sponsorships. They said thatthose changes wouldn't affect chapter-level events and fly-ins, but itobviously does.I guess IAC is just out of luck now and can't hold acro contests unless theygo it alone?In short, now we have to find our own insurance, and from what I heard atthe meeting today, many of the very active chapter members are *seriously*angry with EAA... to the point that many experienced homebuilders havestarted to question the benefit and purpose of even belonging to EAA and whydoes our chapter even need to be be affiliated any more if they're not goingto help us promote aviation beyond a pancake breakfast?I don't know if this is coming from the underwriters, lawyers, EAA board, orwho, but it sure seems to confirm a lot of the rumors that were going aroundsince last year. I've also been told that the new Young Eagles forms havelegal language that many pilots can't go along with and which requires theparents to sign away all rights to sue EAA unless they pay EAA's expenses,I'm not a lawyer but I heard about that at Oshkosh from some VERYhigh-number YE pilots. I didn't place much stock in that story before butnow, the pieces seem to fit together rather well.Has the heart and soul of the EAA finally been destroyed by lawyers? I surehope not, but I'm pretty alarmed right now and sad for the inevitableside-effects. If they can't support their chapters holding reasonable, safeevents, then what CAN they do to support local aviation? Oshkosh iswonderful and all, but that's NOT the focus of where new pilots come from!They're basically saying that "if you work with the FAA and follow the rulesto keep the event safe, then we expect you to have an accident so we don'twant anything to do with you." I should point out that they won't cover ANYpart of the event, they're not just excluding covering the parts of itrequiring FAA waivers.Anyway, I just thought that many of you would like to know about thissituation. We weren't told anything about this until just now... less than amonth out from our event! How many other EAA chapters are going to get thissame rude awakening at the last minute, and just cancel events entirely?Sad, sad, sad. And they wonder why aviation is so expensive...-Mike________________________________________________________________________________