Originally Posted by
WLIU
...That said, I will also point out that the language says "training", not "flight training". I believe that choice of language by a lawyer had to have been intentional. My educated guess on the "legislative history" of the rule is that the author(s) intended the requirement to cover "unstructured" flights where your route of flight might cover a large area. After all, it was the loss of a prominent politician in Alaska that caused the legislation mandating ELT's. How many readers here are old enough to remember that? So the writer of the rule likely believed that "training" flights that begin and end at the same airport would not pose the large search and rescue problem that flights to far away destinations do.
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It is unfortunate that the rule is actual federal law and we can not apply some modern technology and a dose of common sense to the issue. Another case of the untended consequences of "there ought to be a law".