Babbitt Mulls Fees For Low-Time Pilots

Money Collected Would Offset Fuel Taxes Not Paid By Pilots Who Don't Fly Regularly

ANN April 1st Special Edition: FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt is reportedly considering tacking a surcharge onto renewal fees paid by pilots. The surcharges would be based on the number of hours a pilot flies in any given year.

Due to decreasing revenues to the federal government, and because the President and Congress has asked all government agencies to come up with ways to not only save money, but to also increase revenues, the FAA has developed this fee scale for nearly ALL pilots, most of them holding GA-related certificates and ratings, with different annual renewal fees dependent upon ratings and endorsements and hours flown each year.
In an internal memo forwarded to ANN, the Administrator proposes a registration fee structure that begins with a basic registration fee of $20. For pilots logging from 0 to 99.9 hours annually in the previous calendar year there will be a $100 surcharge each renewal period. The FAA says the surcharge is intended to offset the revenue from Federal aviation fuel taxes that the pilot did NOT pay by not flying at least 100 hours during the previous year. all pilots, for the first time, will not only have to renew what was previously a lifetime certificate and pay annually, but will also have to keep a logbook and make entries for each flight to avoid the additional fees.
For pilots holding advanced ratings (beyond S.E.L. etc), the fees will be similar. However, Babbitt notes in an internal memo that all flight hours will not count in the hours requirement for this section of the new regulation. For instance, in addition to paying for your S.E.L. rating every year, if you have an Instrument Rating, there will be an additional $10 annual charge for that rating as well as an additional surcharge of $100 if fewer than 10 hours of actual IFR flight are logged. These 10 hours will count towards your annual total flight hours, but an Instrument Rated pilot could find him or herself in a situation where he or she flew 200 hours in a calendar year, but of them, only 9.5 were IFR, and is assessed an additional $100.

Pilots who fly aircraft which run on mogas or other alternative fuels will also be assessed additional fees based on any STC on file with the FAA. Those will be in addition to the low-time surcharge. Sport Pilot fees begin at $10 for basic renewal, and the first surcharge is $50 for those flying under 100 hours.

EAA President Tom Poberezny called the proposal "just about the stupidest thing I've seen come down the pike since since Orville and Wilbur knocked together that first airplane in shed in Kitty Hawk in December." NBAA President and CEO Ed Bolen said the new fee structure is "simply outrageous! The monitoring will cause nightmares for pilots AND will be hard to prove if the FAA ever audits you as an individual pilot." However, several iPhone and iPad apps are reportedly already in development to automatically track your flight time and push that data to a federal government server.

For those who determine they are unable to afford the fee structure, the FAA does make a provision for terminating your pilot certificate privileges. Fees for termination, which are irrevocable, begin at $50 for Sport Pilot, and increase based on additional ratings and endorsements.


They've already got us re-registering our aircraft biannually for which the fees are going up tremendously in the future.... Suggest we all keep our eyes open for continuation of this boondoggle and write your rep's today!!!

http://aero-news.net/index.cfm?ContentB ... 632608838&

I think it is a joke. Nothing on AOPA

I cant get over that kid with its tounge in that pigs mouth......sorry

The idea reminds me of the Marx Brothers routine with Chico on the piano. It went something like this... "We get $15 dollars an hour to play, $25 dollars an hour to practice and if you don't want us to play, well, you can't afford it".

Somehow they need to have a $100 fee for those that are not pilots but like to watch the planes fly over.

Tim

low rider wrote:I cant get over that kid with its tounge in that pigs mouth......sorry

Labor and delivery 10K
Shots and Dr check ups 2K
Clothes and toys 3K

Picture licking the pigs snout PRICELESS!

That article raised my bp a few points (glad it's a joke, the problem is that I wouldn't put anything past the feds these days, so anything seems plausible), but the higher res pic of your(?) kid with the pig made it all worth it!

I agree that this has got to be some type of joke....if it isn't, the AOPA would be all over it like fly's on sh!t...not to mention EAA.
It would go over about as well as a lead brick.

Brian.

I think the publishing date: April 1st, might be a clue.

RobBurson wrote:

low rider wrote:I cant get over that kid with its tounge in that pigs mouth......sorry

Labor and delivery 10K
Shots and Dr check ups 2K
Clothes and toys 3K

Picture licking the pigs snout PRICELESS!

Rob is that you before or after you went to Mexico?

Brian - Steve's Aircraft wrote:I agree that this has got to be some type of joke....if it isn't, the AOPA would be all over it like fly's on sh!t...not to mention EAA.
It would go over about as well as a lead brick.

Brian.

For those who dont know. ANN publishes a April 1st Edition every year. It even has a WARNING that it is coming. It is a JOKE! Dont worry!

Hey Rob ,thanks for blowing that up.My bad ,looks like the kids tounge is more in the pigs Nose than mouth.

Apparently the FAA has not heard of April 1.

again from ANN today;

FAA Spokesperson Can't Quite Grasp The Concept of Parody

Under the heading of "we can't make stuff up that's this crazy," ANN finds itself in the midst of a genuine 'WTF' moment (to use colloquial Internet parlance). Shortly after noon this day (Monday), ANN Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell got a phone call from a person claiming to be calling on behalf of the Administrator of the FAA. The initial tone was serious and somewhat stern... and the caller claimed to be Sasha Johnson, currently the FAA Assistant Administrator for Communications.

Ms. Johnson seemed to be upset over a parody piece ( Babbitt Mulls Fees For Low-Time Pilots) we wrote for our infamous April 1st edition... a piece clearly labeled as such (an April 1st Special Edition) and accompanied with a number of supporting documents (as well as a prominent "FUNNY" tag preceding the title) that noted the nature of the day and our customary annual break with reality to enjoy a little fun and games with an industry that has had to deal with way too much dreary news, of late. Ms. Johnson wanted us to provide additional clarification as to the piece's parody orientation and apparently was dealing with some indignant folks who either did not read the piece on ANN (where the labeling was clear) or chose to believe it despite the numerous warnings and attributions affixed to the day's parody process. Ms. Johnson was NOT happy... claiming that Randy Babbitt had directed her to fix this confusion and was demanding some kind of response from us... the nature of which wasn't altogether clear.

The annual April 1st gig has been going on for well over a decade and actually has roots in things we did several decades ago when working in the print magazine genre... it has been lauded far and wide, hundreds of thousands (literally) have written to us over the years to express their amusement and we have actually had submissions from FAA personnel, even HQ personnel, themselves. As a matter of fact, Babbitt noted his enjoyment of one of our previous parody pieces in a prior year and certainly seemed aware of the nature of the joke.

ANN tried to explain to Ms. Johnson that making a fuss over this would only create greater notoriety for the article, add more confusion to the mix, and not let the joke die when it should have... on April 2nd. Ms. Johnson seemed annoyed and engaged in a heated exchange which included her statement, at one point, that "well, then, you better stop writing about the FAA." Ms. Johnson did not indicate how far such a restriction was likely to be applied but regardless of the issue at hand, for ANY authorized representative of the FAA Administrator to tell ANY journalistic organization to stop writing about them is a line that should never be crossed... in anger, or otherwise. Further; when explaining to her that such a statement was, at best, offensive and an over-reaction to the matter at hand (even invoking Benjamin Franklin and this nation's protection of the right to parody), she responded that it made no sense to talk to me any further since, "...You obviously don't care." Again... about what, we're not quite sure... but the matter definitely went out of bounds and we politely explained that there was nothing further to discuss until cooler heads prevailed.

The sad part of the matter is simply this... for a number of people to believe that FAA would do something so stupid as to target struggling pilots with additional and onerous user fees was apparently way too believable for a number of folks who were either not aware the piece was parody or jumped the gun because the FAA is held in such disdain amongst so many in the aviation community. We thought the piece was pretty outlandish, fairly silly, and well beyond the FAA's ability to sink so low... and, most important, plainly not believable. BUT... its obvious that a few thought otherwise, and not understanding the well-publicized parameters involved in our April 1st issue, chose to complain to the FAA. That's sad... but now that we think about it... probably a LITTLE bit understandable. The FAA has set itself up, again and again, as working against the proper aims of the aviation community and despite a number of attempts to proclaim each new Administration's intent to be kinder and gentler, the FAA has fallen well short of that goal.

So... believing that the FAA is THAT foolish may not be so outlandish, after all.

It's sad that the FAA doesn't have a sense of humor, it's sad that bullying a journalist seems to be the way to get their point across (and, mind you, this is far from being the first time we've had to deal with such nonsense), and it's sad that the FAA has so eroded the flying public's trust in its innate sense of fairness and propriety that even a well-documented April 1st parody is seen to be believable by a few.

We're sure we haven't hear the last of this... and we'll keep you informed as to what develops in this tempest via telephone. Yeeshhh... Honest to God, Folks... even we can't make this stuff up.

If you saw the way they treat fuel taxes in trucking, this story becomes a whole lot less funny.

If you don't think the government is fully capable of this level of stupidity you have not been paying attention lately. Things this dumb and worse happen on a daily basis.

shorton wrote:If you don't think the government is fully capable of this level of stupidity you have not been paying attention lately. Things this dumb and worse happen on a daily basis.

And this thread could open the FAA's eyes to a solution to correct a potential Tax Injustice!
I can hear Babbitt now: "Brillient, who gid you say came up with this idea?"