EAA Welcomes Back the Department of Transportation's TSI for Annual Course

June 6, 2019 - EAA kicked off the Experimental Aircraft Accident Investigation course on Tuesday. The three-day course is one of four that EAA is hosting through the month of September in partnership with TSI, a research and educational arm of the Department of Transportation.

EAA Government Relations Director Tom Charpentier started the conference by providing information and answering questions about regulations. EAA Flight Training Manager Joe Norris provided information about engines in experimental aircraft. EAA Technical Aviation Expert and Technical Counselor Tim Hoversten, and EAA Member Program Specialist and Ultralight and Lightplane Community Manager Timm Bogenhagen talked about the technical side of construction techniques and the EAA community and diversity of aircraft seen during EAA AirVenture Oshkosh.

The group also participated in other activities during the week such as touring Myers Aviation, Basler Flight Service, the Sonex Aircraft factory, and receiving a tour of the EAA museum from EAA Aviation Museum Program Representative Chris Henry.

Tom said the overall goal of the conference was to provide information and answer questions.

"It's very important to the EAA community that these guys are properly informed so that ultimately they are familiar with what they are investigating when they actually go out on calls," Tom said. "With these programs, I hope that they don’t have to use these skills that often, but it's really important that they have background, understanding, and familiarity when they actually do go out there and have to investigate accidents."

TSI Course Manager Kevin Zemetis expressed his gratitude toward the EAA course speakers.

"Extremely knowledgeable, professional instructors with great depth of knowledge in experimental aviation," Kevin said. "We appreciate EAA's support."

Tom said the purpose of talking about regulations is to make sure that everyone is on the same page.

"It can get a little technical," Tom said. "This is part of the rulebook that not every FAA inspector uses on a day-to-day basis. So this serves as a refresher, reinforcement, and taking a look at how are these regulations actually being applied in the field."

This conference is a great example of the working relationship between EAA and the FAA.

"They send their personnel to EAA to train," Tom said. "That is a pretty major manifestation of the relationship we have — the mutual respect that we have going back and forth. It gives us a really great opportunity to tell our story and to tell the story of our members and the people that are actually out there in the field and what they are concerned about on a day-to-day basis."