Private Pilot Training -- FAA Looking for Comments

As those who have been involved in the development and growth of Sport Pilot and Light Sport Aircraft (SP/LSA) know, the number of FAA regulations that were changed or affected by the new rule were voluminous.  It is amazing that the changes have been as free of errors as they have been.  But while the number of errors were few there were some areas overlooked and industry, EAA, AOPA, and the FAA have worked to improve the ruling over time (not sure the effort has always been successful, but for the most part the changes have been improvements).  As a result the SP/LSA rules have been updated a number of times since they were first published.  Well, now it is time to update them again.

The current problem that the alphabet groups above are working on is the issue of Private Pilot training.  A couple of years ago someone discovered that the way the rules are written Sport Pilots could not count their dual time towards a Private Certificate if their instructor was a Sport Pilot CFI.  That was never the intent of the rule.  The EAA and FAA have provided a work-around for trikes and PPCs (since there are no other types of instructors for those aircraft types) that allows Sport Pilot CFIs with a private or commercial rating another aircraft type (such as airplane) to provide training that counts towards Private Pilot ratings for trikes and PPCs.  Training provided by Precision Windsports has been covered by that work-around (called an exemption) since it first came out, so anyone trained by us can have their Sport Pilot training applied to Private Pilot WSC dual hour requirements.

Now the FAA has proposed a rule change allowing any instruction given by Sport Pilot CFIs to count toward advanced ratings, and we are now in the comment period.  I urge you to go to FAA comments and tell them you support this change.