So why did they remove this page from newer FAR/AIMs?

The article in question is a brief, informal forum-style post rather than a traditional aviation news piece, and it lacks substantive detail about which specific page or content was allegedly removed from newer editions of the FAR/AIM. The poster references an image of a page they modified for printing purposes and speculates that the FAA or the publisher (typically ASA or Jeppesen, who compile the commercially available FAR/AIM volumes) removed the material to prevent students from selectively skipping portions of the regulatory text. Without additional context, image content, or a named section, it is difficult to verify the claim or identify the exact regulatory or advisory material in question. This underscores a broader challenge with crowd-sourced aviation discussion: claims about regulatory changes circulate quickly on forums like Reddit's r/flying, but they often lack the source citations pilots need to act on with confidence.

For working pilots and instructors, this kind of post is a useful reminder about the importance of using current, authoritative source documents rather than relying on annotated, edited, or reprinted versions of the FAR/AIM. The FAR/AIM is republished annually (and the AIM itself is updated on a rolling basis, roughly every six months, directly by the FAA at faa.gov), and commercial publishers occasionally reformat, condense, or reorganize supplementary material—such as summary tables, historical notes, or study aids—between editions. These are typically not changes to the regulatory text itself (14 CFR parts) but rather to ancillary content that publishers add for readability. Pilots studying for certificates and ratings, and CFIs building curricula, should always cross-reference the FAA's official AIM and eCFR (electronic Code of Federal Regulations) rather than assuming a printed page is complete or authoritative on its own.

This matters more broadly because aviation training materials are increasingly consumed in fragmented, non-official formats: PDF excerpts, forum screenshots, mobile apps, and printed cutouts optimized for personal study rather than regulatory fidelity. While this democratizes access to information, it also creates risk of pilots operating on outdated or incomplete guidance, particularly around AIM content that addresses procedures, phraseology, and best practices that evolve based on NTSB findings, safety recommendations, or airspace changes. For instructors and DPEs, this is a recurring theme: checkride failures and knowledge gaps sometimes trace back to applicants studying from secondary or tertiary sources instead of the current official FAA publication.

Finally, this episode reflects a low-stakes but persistent pattern in aviation forums where pilots crowdsource explanations for perceived changes in regulatory guidance, often without FAA public affairs confirmation or documented rationale. For flight schools, Part 135 training departments, and check airmen developing recurrent training materials, the lesson is to treat such forum speculation as a prompt for verification rather than as settled fact—always tracing questions about FAR/AIM content changes back to the FAA's official change bars, revision history, and Federal Register notices rather than secondhand printed excerpts or social media threads.