I am far safer in my cub at 100 feet over these east coast uninhabited beaches than 2,000 feet over miles of forest. Regulation for regulation's sake?
Not sure this is necessarily true. One could argue you are 'safer' at 2000' over the coast than at 2000' over the forest, but I think your argument is flawed.
Are you 'safer' at 100' over the coast or at 100' over the forest?
If arguing about height, you really should keep the other variables constant, otherwise your argument looses validity.
As to low flying. I think some people might be confusing low level 'cruising', ie a nice 50' jaunt up the beach, with 'low level flying', ie, mustering, Vallely flying etc.
I would argue that LL flying, requires the pilot to be truly 'in tune' with their aircraft and surrounds (WX etc), and as such does require some form of training.
To argue that you can Solo in 5 hours but can't low fly in that is distorting the argument. After 5 hours of flight, a student will fly at a safe height (except for the takeoff and landing bit
) where, errors in speed, G or general aircraft handling are more forgiving.
That luxury is not afforded at low level.
I am not arguing for any particular training scheme, or recurrency time frame, however, wanted to make the points above.
Statements of 'safer' or such, need to be examined.
Coolnames