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FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

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Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#81

Post by captain_perl »

eblanshey wrote: post #71
na85 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What that certificate attests is that the airline has appropriate infrastructure in place to operate the specific aircraft type(s) safely. That means appropriately trained and qualified technicians to maintain the aircraft, a proper supply chain to procurement airworthy spare parts, properly trained aircrew, etc. Operating aircraft isn't like web development where you can just push a buggy pile of JavaScript and fix…

It's the distinction between private and commercial that doesn't make sense to me. If I want to fly from A to B, whether I get paid or not doesn't make a difference to the safety of the passengers. If I have a private pilot cert, I am qualified to fly the aircraft safely. Enlighten me if I'm wrong.

I hold a commercial airplane rating ...

The PPL is about 40 - 60 hours of experience at the time of rating, and CPL is 200+ hours. New PPL holders do not have an IFR endorsement, while most CPLs do. So the qualifications are vastly different.

In the industry, we say that a PPL is "a license to learn."

I read both press releases and the missing info is which aircraft were being used with the unrated pilots. If it was a plane requiring a SIC, and the second pilot was a student, then that was the real reason for the revocation.

Also, the catchall "recklessness" can be used at any time. Flying pax without a rated SIC would be an easy complaint to win.

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#82

Post by dredmorbius »

matte_black wrote: post #16
Waterluvian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help a layperson. Do you mean a company that competes by cutting corners with safety?

Yes, though in some cases the safety is only marketing fluff and cutting corners actually doesn’t contribute to any reduction in safety. A safety arbitrage play means a company is attempting to turn a profit by selling a cheaper asset deemed unsafe at the same price as a safe one or a bit less. If the unsafe asset is actually as 100% safe as the safe one, then they have played a valid arbitrage. If the unsafe asset h…

There's also survivor bias.

If 10 firms start out, and 1 survives to profitability, that single firm's P/L will show gains, but the industry net won't.

That's not true profit, but a probabilistic artefact of essentially winning a sequence of bets.

There may also be gains possible if the survivor can increase scale of operations and/or start mitigating risks that smaller players cannot. This is another path to monopoly advantage that is based, again, on effectively winning early chance-based trials, and then ratcheting in an ever-larger risk advantage as compared to smaller players.

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#84

Post by [deleted] »

NikolaNovak wrote: post #79
unethical_ban wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your insurance company sounds like a bag of dicks. Do they also deny a claim if you ride a motorcycle without a helmet, which is legal? What about skydiving, or skiing a black diamond course, or attempting Longs Peak in the winter without three layers on?

Sometimes I forget the USA centric nature of forum until I read riding without helmet is legal... :0 I've see motorcycles without helmet last time I was down south in the fall and it scares the absolute beejesus bonkers out of me :/ (I've been riding for a decade, do occasional dirt trails, and have doing motorsport rallying a while back, but never enough of a daredevil to mount a bike without helmet and armour)

[deleted]

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#85

Post by userbinator »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #43
mikestew wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commercial flights, yes, and that’s because we certify and license the crap out of such things. And thus we circle back around to parent’s point. I don’t have a source at hand, but IIRC flying a private plane is one of the better and more reliable ways to get yourself hurt or killed.

My life insurance policy specifically denies a claim if I'm flying general aviation (private plane). It is that much more dangerous than commercial (on par with driving in a car). https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/17/opinion/The-Dangers-of-Pr... "The National Transportation Safety Board found that in 2011, 94 percent of fatal aviation accidents occurred in what’s called general aviation. That category includes private…

on par with driving in a car

...which people in general seem to have no particular fear of.

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#86

Post by olympus »

travisjungroth wrote: post #67
olympus wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right that there are commercial flights that fall under part 91 rules. However in this case I think TapJets response was trying to say that their pilot didn't require a commercial rating, which would answer the FAA's claim of "a commercial pilot certificate was required."

I bet the flights will be considered to have been under 91 (don’t see how it would be 135 or 121). I also think it won’t help them at all because these are commercial flights either way. You seem to be both speaking with authority and saying the opposite of what I’d expect here. What’s your background in aviation law?

I have no backround in aviation law, just aviation. I’m a private pilot, my dad is a commercial pilot, and my cousin works for a charter jet company. I work with several pilots, and a few previous coworkers have retired from the USAF and fly for the airlines. We have arguments about the rules all the time. We pull out the FARs all the time just to win.

My interpretation of the TapJets response wasn’t that they were saying that the pilots had commercial ratings, it’s that they were saying that they didn’t need one, i.e., it was a non-commercial flight. TapJets doesn’t give any details, and neither does the FAA. But flying a light jet non-commercially can happen, so it’s not like TapJets is obviously in the wrong. Several celebrities own and pilot their own jets without commercial ratings.

I think in the end the FAA will stick with their ruling, I doubt they would issue an emergency revocation if they were on the fence.

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#87

Post by olympus »

revelation wrote: post #65
olympus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they claim they were operating under Part 91 (non-commercial) rules since they didn't take money for the flights. Part 91 rules are less strict, in particular they don't require a commercial license. I'm not sure which jets they were flying, but most business jets have a two person crew requirement, and a student pilot would not meet the crew requirements. It doesn't sound like their short response completely cov…

You believe this elementary fact in their own rules escaped the FAAs lawyers?

No, I’m interpreting what TapJets said in their response. I’m sure the FAA has some solid evidence and they get to make and interpret the rules. But here’s what we have as public knowledge.

FAA: You flew flights with unqualified pilots and with private ratings.

TapJets: All our flights were legal under FAR Part 91.501.

They didn’t dispute that the flights happened, and they didn’t dispute that they had passengers. They didn’t claim that the pilots did have commercial ratings. Thus, they must be claiming that they viewed the flights as non-commercial.

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#88

Post by acct1771 »

sidlls wrote: post #80
JohnTHaller wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that tapjets seems to work like Uber and Airbnb now, so they don't fly anything.

This seems like the kind of defense a guy caught at a massage parlor would use. "That tip is for the massage, not the sex."

Or "this is the fee to join our pot club, the weed comes free"? (If I'm not mistaken, this is how many of the first jurisdictions handled it).

If the law is broken, fix it? The whole "spirit of the law" thing is what leads us to political attacks being made with laws.

Either it's illegal, or it's not, and if we as a society should decide we want it to be, then it will be.

Re: FAA Issues Emergency Order of Revocation Against TapJets

#89

Post by [deleted] »

god_bless_texas wrote: post #42
IIAOPSW wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does make a difference. The main difference between a Private Pilots License (PPL) and a Commercial Pilots License (CPL) is that you cannot fly customers for profit on a PPL (but you can fly people as favors and be reimbursed for expenses). Its hard to tell just how serious these accusations are. For instance >the airman who served as second-in-command only had a student pilot certificate Presumably the f…

The problem with your comment is that you are wrong in your interpretation. Your interpretation is that it's black and white on what the FAA can do. There's famous saying among pilots when doing something that isn't explicit in FARs. "That sounds like a grey area". For a conservative pilot, they'll never do it because it could be a license suspension or at minimum dialing a number to talk to an FAA investigator. To a…

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