Mechanics (without pilot license) taxi aircraft around airports everyday.
Understand. I was talking about if they went after a pilot's certificate for an activity a lawyer could now easily say wasn't "aviation" at all.
The mechanics have to have a company taxi checkout and certificate in the 121 world too, don't they?
I remember ours did in the early 90s... Never asked if that was company or FAA issued but I assumed it was company under whatever rules they wrote into the company ops spec.
I figured it didn't matter much anyway... The insurance company would have demanded it if the FAA or the Company didn't. FAA or Company requiring it just saved the insurance company the hassle of creating a taxi checkout requirement.
What was more interesting was there wasn't an official (paperwork) trail for push-back. My gate lead just decided one day that I was driving the Paymover and told me to shove an A-300 out into the aisle, carefully. He had a technique for teaching which included picking a day when the alley was clear, no snow/ice on the ramp, and an admonition to go slow, but about five pushes later I was doing it in glycol-covered ice.
I just remember thinking about how informal it all was compared to the rest of aviation since I was also training for the PPL at the time. He was on the headset, with the requirement to watch him for hand signals like a hawk, and there were a few folks he never trusted pushing since they had zero attention span. But it was basically all his judgement call. No test, no paper, just "hop in" one day, "here's how to shift it, here's two wheel steering, here's four wheel crabbing, go slow, watch me, don't hammer the brakes and shake all the passengers up or the cockpit will complain, be careful."
I do miss driving the Paymover. Pushing MD-80s was a bigger pain than A-300s. The MD-80s length and a small alley made it "entertaining" when we were deicing at the gate. I remember uttering a couple of "holy ****"s a couple of times that winter.
I just see possibilities there in that wording for an industrious lawyer to make the argument now where there wasn't even a crack of light around the door in that rule prior to the "after landing" change... If it truly was a change.
Be interesting to see what Tim finds on that.