Sad Trend: YouTube Pilots Reported to the FAA

A year or so ago, Steve-O down in South Florida was reported to the FAA for potentially recording videos while he was flying passengers. As far as I know that wasn’t happening, he took down a bunch of videos, and there wasn’t any enforcement action.

Recently, Brian with a ‘y’ (justplanesilly) has been reported twice. His channel is 100% satire. Last week another guy Premier1driver, a former F-16 pilot was reported by a student pilot after challenging him in the YouTube comments about a radio call at a non-towered field. All three of these incidents resulted in no enforcement action.

It’s a damn shame and one of the things I don’t like about the aviation community. It’s actually similar to other hobbiest communities where people want to point out where others are wrong. Unfortunately with flying it involves the Federal government.

 

No one likes a tattle tale.

 

There is nothing wrong with safely and legally taking videos of yourself flying, if you choose to do that. However, taking videos of yourself doing illegal and dangerous stuff and then posting it publicly is both wrong and bad. I have no idea who the people you are talking about are, or if they did anything bad, but I have seen plenty of dangerous and illegal stuff posted to YouTube.

If you do something dangerous, stupid, and illegal, and post it to YouTube, I really can't feel sorry if the FAA comes after you. If they get a complaint, the FAA is obligated to investigate.

 

Also, if thy earn compensation from a video taken while flying, you must have at least a Commercal Pilots License. IOW a private pilot cannot earn money using an airplane.

 

So you can't earn compensation taking a video while driving car, too, right? Because at that point you need some form of license right? I doubt it...

 

Hope lubee is not affected by this.....

 

There are some regs that apply and there are also a lot of people who apparently like to look for violations, anything from breaking flying regs to wearing unauthorized patches or even just to complain about something they don’t like. A couple weeks ago someone complained about a pic someone posted on their social media of a plane that had the flag below (Stripes are for mil, police, fire) flying out of one of the escape hatches while it was on the ground. Nothing against regs but some guy wrote an email saying it was offensive so nothing more than regular US flag now. I run all of my stuff through Public Affairs... when stuff gets active I will post some links in the subscribed section.
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Some I will post here... a couple pics Public Affairs took during a flyover of local hospitals a couple months ago. In the first pic you can see one of my cameras in the window looking out.

The other thing is that widespread ADS-B Out has a lot more flight paths getting looked at... kinda puts a little more damper in drawing giant sky penises. I thought it was kinda funny when the USAF kinda had the oh **** moment when they realized it allowed everybody and their brother to see who was flying where.

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A lot of that stuff is official footage from cameras that public affairs puts on the planes, it looks like some variety of gimbal mounted GoPro has become a standard item.

 

In the olden days of Tactical Air Command (likely Air Combat Command, too), you got court martialed for taking a photo while flying in a fighter. Result of several accidents with recovered film showing an imminent collision. No such restrictions in USAFE, for whatever reason.

 

There was a semi famous memorandum about “discipline in the cockpit” if memory serves?

I’m sorta lucky with what I do that public affairs solicits crews for footage... just from a practical standpoint it’s a heck of a lot less distracting having a few GoPros in the window than a TV news crew on the flight deck trying to do an interview in flight.

 

Cockpit discipline was firmly announced when you boarded if you flew right seat with Ernie Gann. There would be no talking when he was going through the check list or when the take off was in progress. Same for the landing. The landing check list was printed and adhered to the left side of the instrument panel of his C310 and he touched the item on the list and then touched the noted instrument. If one spoke at the wrong time, a hand appeared in front of your face. I didn't use my camera, either.

 

It’s still a big deal during critical phases of flight, there is also a big safety push going on as there have been a number of crashes lately.

 

A Northwest MD-80 crashed on takeoff from Detroit in around 1987 because the pilots forgot to configure the flaps and slats for takeoff; they were discussing other things while going thru the pre-takeoff checklist. The plane clipped a light pole at a rental car lot where I had myself rented a car just about a month earlier, and then crashed on the road leaving the airport that I had used on that occasion. Amazingly, there was one survivor.

 

I remember that vividly, Jim, because when I saw the news videos I immediately noticed that one wing was in the foreground laying there in the parking lot bottom side up with the flaps still retracted. I burst out what I noticed and my wife said that I was imagining things but the exposed three bar flap linkage was still closed up . Many months later when a preliminary report was released, it had a transcript of the chatter in the cockpit and the pilot went through the check list , " Flaps 20." and the co-pilot answered ,"Check", and continued the ongoing conversation. He never deployed the flaps.

 

One of Doolittle's B-25Bs barely made it on take-off when they forgot to set the flaps. Probably a bit more tension involved that time.

 

I don't think that it was this one with Doolittle at the controls. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Steve-O (stevo1kenevo) was hit by the FAA for something like violating the sterile cockpit rule, while carrying passengers. The problem flight was empty, and there were no paying passengers, but the FAA got out of wack because Steve-O made the statement "Hello everyone, and welcome on board". The FAA interpreted that as he was speaking to paying passengers! If I remember correctly, he had to take a checkride with the FAA.

Bryan (justplansilly) has been reported to the FDSO twice now. Both for stupid, silly reasons.

And now, Premier1Driver, was reported (by a student pilot) to the FAA for apparently announcing that he was clear of the runway, before his plane was fully across the hold-short line. Which at an uncontrolled airport, is not an issue or violation of any type!

 

The pilots on this flight had also pulled the CB to the take-off config warning!

Sid

 

I remember that vividly, (NW flight 255, MD-80, from Detroit - '87) had a friend possibly on that flight to Phoenix (she wasn't).

They totally missed their gate on arrival, went right past it, had to taxi away from the terminal and do a 180 and go back.

No only the flaps and slats NOT deployed by the FO as Bob noted, and a CB probably pulled so the TOW alarm did not sound (it did not).

But the FO also did NOT set the radio frequency as instructed by the tower, resulting in them getting 'lost', making wrong turns while taxiing for TO.
Lot of off-flight conversations.
As FAA said, cockpit behavior way below acceptability.

Killed a LOT of people.

 

I wonder how the young lady who survived is doing. Being a sole survivor can be devastating emotionally.

 

One of two YouTube videos about the crash:

 

There is an interview of her done much more recently.
She's married, has a degree.
She's pretty. shows scars on her arms.
So she was only 4, so memories would be less than if she was older.
Has absolutely no memory of the crash.