Can second this. A couple decades ago the FAA was pretty tyrannical in their approach to compliance. Among other things they'd commonly stick inspectors at ra

Can second this. A couple decades ago the FAA was pretty tyrannical in their approach to compliance. Among other things they'd commonly stick inspectors at random airports and run through everyone's paperwork as they came in, handing out incredibly harsh punishments to anyone out of compliance. This garnered a lot of distrust from the community and lead to people devising ways of avoiding them as well as a general sentiment of hiding errors so they wouldn't get aggressively sanctioned. Unusually for federal agencies, the FAA actually reversed course on this behavior and generally just tries to come down on egregious cases. People are encouraged to report on safety slips and near-misses using NASA as an unbiased intermediary. They've been known to be lenient towards minor negligence (ie. unintentional mistakes, airspace/runway incursions, etc) if the pilot recognized it and reported on it for the sake of providing stats for policy decisions. All that said, more recently where the FAA has stopped, insurance has picked up. Insurance companies have been quick to jump on the availability of more sophisticated flight recording/tracking and the prevalence of social media to enforce their own views on aviation safety. Rates have been skyrocketing and it's becoming much harder to insure anything that isn't a simple fixed tricycle gear utility category certified 2-4 seater.