“This bill would prohibit the bureau, for the period July 1, 2010, to December 31, 2011, inclusive, from enforcing the act against institutions that offer flight instruction or institutions that offer Federal Aviation Administration certified educational programs in aircraft maintenance.

The bill would also require the Legislature to hold public informational hearings for the purpose of reviewing the appropriateness of regulating educational programs in flight instruction and aircraft maintenance under the act.”

If you’ve already contacted your legislators regarding AB 48 and perhaps AB 1889, thank you. However, we still need your help, so please contact them again requesting them to support AB 1140. Please forward this information to other California pilots. We need the help of all California pilots TODAY in generating letters, faxes and emails regarding AB 1140.

Background
California AB 48 levied large state fees, increasing costs to flight schools and flight instructors and goes into effect in August 2010. This will raise the cost for pilots to get flight instruction, and effectively put many instructors and flight schools out of business. In early June, I emailed you asking you to contact legislators and/or attend a public hearing in Sacramento on June 7. AOPA and dozens of flight schools and flight instructors showed up and testified. However the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE) said that they would still be implementing the regulations. Since new bills cannot be introduced until January 2011, efforts by AOPA, NATA and flight schools turned to finding an existing bill that could be amended with provisions delaying the new fees for a year, pending further legislative hearings.

AB 1889 was amended to include language similar to the wording in AB 1140 and it passed the CA Assembly on June 28th. However, some people feel that the Governor might not sign AB 1189, since it includes language that contains a requirement for the state to provide an additional $580,000 to fund the creation of BPPE staff. The Governor has stated he will veto any bill that increases the budget, which this bill does.

AB 1140 is a second, parallel effort. It was originally a health care bill that was “gutted and replaced” so that now it only contains the language above regarding aviation education providers.

Individual letters are more effective than form letters. Please write as little as a few sentences but not more than 1 page of comments telling your personal story and why AB 1140 should be passed. Explain the impact that complying with the new fees will have on you if AB 1140 is not passed. You can also use a sample letter provided by NATA.

If you know a Member or staff aide, say so at the start of your letter and state if you live in the member’s district. Be courteous, constructive, and not negative. Staffs are severely overloaded, so confine your comments to one typewritten page and address only one topic: implementation of AB 1140.

Contact Information
Please contact your California state assemblyman and state senator. To get contact information for your California state assembly and senate representatives, go to http://www.assembly.ca.gov/defaulttext.asp and click on “Find My District” in the left column.

Thank you for your help and please forward this information to other California pilots.
Sincerely,
Max Trescott
2008 National CFI of the Year
maxtrescott.com

California’s Bureau of Postsecondary Education (BPE) says all comments must be received by Monday, June 7. Even if you cannot meet that deadline, please send a letter, fax or email to the Bureau and your elected California state representatives as soon as possible. Their contact information is listed at the end of this email.

Background
California A.B. 48 was signed into law giving the BPE, part of the California Consumer Protection Agency, authority to levy new fees on flight schools. The bureau appears to be taking the broadest possible interpretation of the law and proposes to include all independent flight instructors and flight schools, including Part 141 and Part 61 schools. To quote a story by EAA, “Each instructor would be charged an initial application fee of $5000 and a $3500 renewal fee every three years. If the instructor has a second location an additional fee of $1000 would be assessed. Finally, they would be required to pay an operation fee of three-quarters of a percent of the CFI’s income (not to exceed $25000 annually).” Compliance includes providing the Bureau with audited financial statements each year.

Apparently, flight schools and flight instructors were included in an amendment to the law, due to the bankruptcy of Silver State helicopters, which left hundreds of students stuck with $50,000 loans and no flight instruction.

Previously, according to a BPE document, “Individual flight instructors not having an established place of business other than their residence also were fully exempted from the Reform Act provided they do not negotiate formal contracts of indebtedness or require any advance payments. Exemptions from some, but not all, provisions of the Reform Act also were provided for Flight instruction schools certified by the Federal Aviation Administration that were operating in California on December 31, 1990.”

If you can attend the public hearing in Sacramento on June 7, please go and express your concerns. You’ll find details here: http://www.bppe.ca.gov/lawsregs/propregs_notice.pdf

Writing Your Letter
Individual letters are more effective than form letters. Please write as little as a few sentences but not more than 1 page of comments telling your personal story and how these regulations will affect you. Explain the impact that complying with the new rules will have on you.

If you know a Member or staff aide, say so at the start of your letter and state if you live in the member’s district. Be courteous, constructive, and not negative. If the regulations seem to be the wrong solution to a problem, propose constructive alternatives. Staffs are severely overloaded, so confine your comments to one typewritten page and address only one topic: implementation of A.B. 48.

Contact Information
Please contact the following:
1.Joanne Wenzel Staff Services Manager III
Bureau of Postsecondary Education
1625 N. Market Blvd., Suite S 202
Sacramento, California 95834
Phone: (916) 574-7784
Fax: (916) 574-8652
Email: Joanne_Wenzel@dca.ca.gov

2. Your California state assemblyman and state senator. To get contact information for your California state assembly and senate representatives, go to
http://www.assembly.ca.gov/defaulttext.asp and click on “Find My District” in the left column .

3. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building
Sacramento, CA 95814
Phone: 916-445-2841
Fax: 916-558-3160
Email: fill in form at http://gov.ca.gov/interact#email

Thank you for your help and please forward this email to other California pilots.
Sincerely,
Max Trescott
2008 National CFI of the Year

Read the letter to Bureau for Private Post Secondary Education against the inclusion of California Flight Schools and Flight Instructors under BPPSE regulatory control. This would be bad for general aviation in the state and will no doubt cause flight school closure.

Date: May 28, 2010

To: Bureau for Private Post Secondary Education (BPPSE)
c/o Joanne Wenzel – Staff Services Manager III
1625 N. Market Blvd., Suite S 202
Sacramento, California 95834

Subj: AB-48 – Removal of BPPSE exemption for flight training facilities

I am writing you on behalf of the board, and the statewide membership of the California Pilots Association, regarding the ill advised removal of the BPPSE exemption for flight training facilities in the new implementation of AB-48. We are officially requesting that this letter be entered as stakeholder feedback in the public record on AB-48.

The California Pilots Association is a non-profit public benefit California Corporation formed in 1949. The mission of our statewide volunteer organization is to promote, preserve, and protect the state’s general aviation airports in support of the state’s pilots.

We are disappointed with the stealth technique used in the elimination of the flight school training exemption, secretly adding flight schools to this bill. Further, we are shocked at the proposed fees associated with this bill, and the complete disregard for the welfare of the fragile general aviation industry in the state. Frankly, the fees listed below are unreasonable, unnecessary and unfair to general aviation and the state’s associated businesses.

- Application Fee – $5,000 – Each additional location – $3,000

- Annual Fee per location – $1,000 – Five (5) Year Renewal Fee – $3,500

- In addition to the fees listed above, all facilities must also pay an annual fee equal to” three- quarters of 1 percent of the institution’s annual revenues derived from students in California, but not exceeding a total of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) annually.”

A quick review of these fees leads to obvious questions. Was there any consideration given to the administration cost to the flight school businesses? How can BPPSE justify $5000, as well as the rest of these excessive fees? And, when did the state government start to require a percentage of annual business revenues – and at what cost?

We believe that the inclusion of aviation flight training in AB-48 will become a financial and bureaucratic disaster for the state’s flight schools, flight instructors, and general aviation. I can assure you that the aviation businesses, pilots and aircraft owners in California are fed up with the ever escalating taxes, poorly disguised as user fees, which are the basis of the proposed funding of AB-48. Clearly, this fee structure is an attempt to fund more bureaucracy – which is the last thing the state needs given its bankrupt fiscal situation.

While we understand the requirement to protect flight students who might be required to pay for flight training in advance, this bill is akin to using a sledgehammer to insert a pin. It is common sense not to pay 100% in advance for services not yet rendered.

The state cannot legislate commonsense, and it must not punish and damage an entire industry due to the dishonest dealings of a few individuals. Nor can the state force fit these unique individual flight training environments into the traditional brick and mortar class room model with which BPPSE is most familiar. Frankly, in our opinion, including aviation flight training in AB-48 is an unnecessary and massive over reaction to an unfortunate past situation. This simply should not have happened had reflection of the dynamic nature and relatively small size of most flight schools, along with the federal based flight training criteria which is already in place been considered. The issue here is that it clearly was not.

It is obvious this decision was made without any stakeholder (general aviation) involvement. If stakeholders had been involved the bill’s author(s) would have been advised that the majority of the flight training facilities this bill affects cannot afford these excessive fees, or their associated bureaucratic processes. The majority of flight schools, and all independent flight instructors, are low volume, low profit businesses – they are not the high tech high volume training academies BPPSE is familiar with.

It is appropriate to educate all on the reality of the issues associated with the elimination the flight training provider’s exemption from BPPSE regulation. Here are the major points:

• Many of the state’s flight schools will close. It is that simple – they cannot afford it.
• If BPPSE is interpreting AB-48 in a way that will require it to regulate all flight training providers regardless of size – then independent flight instructors will cease to exist statewide.
• With a diminished number of flight schools and independent instructors gone, the state’s 70,000 pilots will be unable to comply with the Federal Aviation Administration Regulations (FAR’s) which require every pilot to complete an annual or semi-annual flight review.

• Our flight schools and flight instructors are critical to the statewide aviation businesses referred to as Fixed Base Operators (FBO’s) and are a critical link to additional flight training and the growth of state air commerce. FBO’s are the largest contributors of tax revenue on general aviation airports. Tax revenue growth will be lost.
• Aviation generates state tax revenues in the amount of $250,000,000 annually – 72% is allocated to local government and schools, 23% to the General Fund, and (a mere) 5% goes back to support state aviation infrastructure. AB-48 will cause irreversible harm and reduce these revenues as flight schools close their doors, further harming general aviation and state tax revenues.

It is the California Pilots Association strong recommendation that the state re-institute the flight training provider’s exemption from BPPSE regulation. We believe that there are simple, commonsense regulatory steps that can be taken to protect California students from predatory training providers that will not overly burden the vast number of flight training facilities that provide quality instruction to their students.

Respectfully Submitted,
Edward Rosiak
President – California Pilots Association

cc:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
Rep. Roger Niello
Aircraft Pilots and Owners Association
Caltrans Division of Aeronautics
National Air Transport Association
National Business Aircraft Association
Experimental Aircraft Association
CALPILOTS Board and Membership

This evening I found a solution and added some additional area airports to the list. I have kept them as plain coded METARs to keep the display compact and allow you to quickly at a glance get the information you need from it. If you have any comments, suggestions, or difficulty viewing it, leave a comment and let us know.

Link to the SCFC Weather page.

The first thing that made me want to join him on this short trip would be that I would get to fly one of their new Light Sport aircraft, the Tecnam Sierra, also known as the Tecnam P2002 Sierra. You can read more about my experience with the aircraft in my post at http://light-sport.org.

The other reason I was glad to join him was he told me about the grand opening of Jet West over at the Salinas Airport. We arrived in time for their ribbon cutting ceremony and got to meet a lot of great people and enjoy some of their food and beverages.

The facility itself is incredible, they put a lot of work and thought in to the layout and design of it to make it comfortable for those they would be serving. They had a variety of crew cars and vans out front, a well set up waiting room, pool table, pilots lounge, flight planning area, and even sleeping quarters and showers. Below are some pictures of their amazing facility.

I’m posting this message on behalf of Jolie Lucas and Mitch Latting. They are a couple of central coast airplane owners involved with Oceano Airport. They’ve been made aware of a developer’s desire to buy the airport property for redevelopment.

From Jolie:

Oceano, in addition to perhaps being the closest airport to the Pacific Ocean, is a vital link in emergency services in San Luis Obispo County. Life-flight, California Highway Patrol, Civil Air Patrol, Diablo Canyon evacuation, Beach rescues, Angel Flights all make use of Oceano airport. It is a great field for training and is used by regional CFIs.

The opportunities for recreation are bountiful, with on field camping and walking distance to the dunes/restaurants. Several businesses are located on the field including Banner Airways owned by JR Smith. He gives rides in his 1943 Stearman. JR’s father, and my father were both trainers in the Army Air Corps at Rankin Field in Tulare, CA.

Mitch and I organized a Vintage Mooney Group event in December of 2008. The event was a service event, as it benefitted Toys for Tots. We had 23 Mooneys on the ramp that day, loaded with toys. I was told by Toys for Tots, that because of our event, the children in our area got one extra toy under the tree. Oceano is a good neighbor!

We are fighting the closure of Oceano Airport! A developer is trying to close L52! We need pilots from all over CA to attend this meeting in a show of force. AOPA has been made aware and is on-board. Anyone flying into Oceano who needs a ride, please email us.

We are working closely with AOPA’s Bill Dunn, the airport administration, EAA, the FAA, NATA, and the San Luis Obispo County Supervisors.

Article in the Tribune:
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/2010/02/25/1045185/oceano-county-airport-future-in.html

Both AOPA and AVWeb have run the story.
AVWeb: http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/oceano_airport_developer_edwards_202087-1.html

A group of local pilots and business owners will be attending a San Luis Obispo County Supervisors meeting next Tuesday, March 2nd, at morning at 9:00. The Board of Supervisors meetings start at 9:00 a.m. in the County Government Center Board Chambers located at 1055 Monterey Street, Room D-170, San Luis Obispo.

A March 17th meeting is being planned by the developer at 5:00 p.m. at the Grover Beach Rabobank. We hope to have good attendance at this meeting.

Jolie Lucas
jolielucas@charter.net

Mitch Latting
sanluisjazzband@charter.net

To answer a few questions for the newcomers to aviation you might have after watching this video, I just wanted to point out that Santa Cruz Flying Club is a Part 61 school. What this means for you is it is a less expensive and less rigid program than the 141 programs such as you would experience at an aviation college. The training is based on your own skill level, and your Certified Flight Instructor (CFI) will tailor each lesson to exactly what you need most for that flight instead of following a rigid syllabus.

To get answers to any of the other questions he Jason brings up in that video I invite you to take a look around our website, give us a call at 831-722-4580, or the best option would be to just set up an appointment with one of our flight instructors and bring a list of your questions.

We started preflighting my Cessna 150, N88808, hopped in, and were disappointed to find a dead battery. No fear, that’s the benefit of being checked out in multiple aircraft at the airport! We put the 150 away and switched to a C172, within a few minutes we were airborn! The nice thing about the 172 in this case is it was faster, so even after our delay of preflighting two aircraft, we still beat the girls by about 10 minutes.

Below is an image I didn’t photograph, but I found it on Flickr and was licensed via Creative Commons so I thought I might share it here to give you an idea of the airport environment. That is the Half Moon Bay airport in the foreground. The restaurant is just off the South end of the field by the boats inside the harbor. Upper left of the image is San Francisco International, and the San Carlos Airport is on the right side, with Palo Alto Airport just a bit further South. Oakland International is directly across the bay from SFO.

My favorite restaurant up there is the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company, they’ve got excellent food, plus indoor and outdoor dining. We didn’t take the dogs this time, but if you eat outdoors, dogs are welcome. We had a great meal, walked the girls out to the parking area so they could see the plane, then departed back for Watsonville.

This time, since there were no delays in switching aircraft, even though we flew down along the coast, we still beat them by probably an hour, and got to see a great sunset starting along the way Here’s a picture of my wife Ellen and I, along with our daughter Daria.