In 1956 you could get a balloon rating just by asking for it?

RussR

RussR

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In the Jan 2024 issue of AOPA Pilot, Barry Schiff writes in his column that in 1956 he found a loophole in the regs, and went into an FAA office and requested a balloon rating. The inspector looked it up and found there were no requirements for the certificate, just that you were a pilot with a current medical. So he issued Barry a balloon rating without him actually ever having been in one.

I'd love to see the 1956 regs that contained this loophole. I get that the regulatory culture was a lot different back then, but this seems so 1) humorous and 2) unsafe, that it's hard to believe. But I've had no reasons to doubt Barry's claims before, so this would be interesting to see.

Anybody have the 1956 Part 61 (or whatever preceded that)?
 
Obviously an over inflated story ... :biggrin:
 
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"The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind."
 
Well, I know a guy who was giving flight instruction, and hopping passengers for a penny a pound, with a whole 10 hours in his logbook. Also flying the mail, and charging to carry guys to their hunting camps.
 
That's only slightly easier than what it took to get my remote pilot certificate a couple of years ago. No requirement to ever have flown a drone. Take a written test with something like 30 questions and if you get one wrong it says "wrong answer, try again" until you get it right. It was impossible to fail.
 
bluerooster said:
Well, I know a guy who was giving flight instruction, and hopping passengers for a penny a pound, with a whole 10 hours in his logbook. Also flying the mail, and charging to carry guys to their hunting camps.
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Was his name Orville? Or was it Wilbur?
 
Here’s a link to the NPRM that closed the loophole.

Transportation related historical records

Transportation related historical records
planeandtrainwrecks.com

Apparently at that time hot air balloons didn’t use onboard heaters to maintain the air temperature in the balloon.The air was heated before take-off and then cooled quickly in flight resulting in very short flights. The “pilot” had very little control on those short flights so “experience” wasn’t very helpful.
 
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pdonahue said:
That's only slightly easier than what it took to get my remote pilot certificate a couple of years ago. No requirement to ever have flown a drone. Take a written test with something like 30 questions and if you get one wrong it says "wrong answer, try again" until you get it right. It was impossible to fail.
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I, too, padded my entry in the Airman Registry with that certificate without ever having flown a drone. It was even easier than Ground Instructor, and cost a lot less. :lol:
 
pdonahue said:
That's only slightly easier than what it took to get my remote pilot certificate a couple of years ago. No requirement to ever have flown a drone. Take a written test with something like 30 questions and if you get one wrong it says "wrong answer, try again" until you get it right. It was impossible to fail.
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I did this too.
 
RussR said:
there were no requirements for the certificate, just that you were a pilot with a current medical.
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Balloons required a medical in 1956? I had the impression that wasn’t required until 2022, and even then only for commercial operations.
 
Wheels said:
And here is a link to the amendment that created the loophole in 1952.

Transportation related historical records

Transportation related historical records
planeandtrainwrecks.com
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That is very interesting as is exactly what I was hoping someone would post, thank you. It's still amazing, though - the FAA decided that the existing rules and experience were not necessary for a hot air balloon pilot to know/have, so they just exempted them from having to know/have any at all.

I can hardly say that this resulted in "unintended consequences" like the loophole Barry Schiff mentions. Rather, this seems to have been completely intentional, and not a loophole at all. I mean, if you specifically remove any experience requirements for a rating and don't replace them with anything else, you have purposely created the situation where no experience is necessary to get the rating. I.e., walk in, ask for it, and walk out. What else did "they" expect was going to happen? In the preamble for the new rule requiring some experience, they mention that many pilots have received a hot-air balloon rating as a novelty, with no intention of ever flying a balloon. Well, yeah, of course they did. I would too. Just like many of us did with the Part 107 certificates.

Wheels said:
Apparently at that time hot air balloons didn’t use onboard heaters to maintain the air temperature in the balloon.The air was heated before take-off and then cooled quickly in flight resulting in very short flights. The “pilot” had very little control on those short flights so "experience" wasn't very helpful.
Click to expand...

That is interesting, and I saw that in the preamble too. What I also think is interesting, is that at the speed government works, it's highly likely that people were starting to use airborne heaters even before the experience requirement was eliminated in 1951, meaning for a while there we had people flying "modern" hot air balloons, with heaters, perfectly legally with zero training or experience. I wonder what the accident rate was? Then it obviously became a big enough deal that the rule was rewritten in 1962.
 
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