The puzzle is that Grant Shapps is obviously not clueless in aviation. He is a GA owner-pilot so knows how it works, and how it doesn’t work.
He does have to be very careful otherwise the press will attack him – because he is a pilot. So if you write to him about some GA issue, the letter just gets passed to a DfT guy who lays down the “company line”. God knows how many complaints about the barking mad CAA infringements policy went down that line.
He apparently doesn’t know much about physics otherwise he would know that UAMs are fundamentally infeasible and basically just a device for consuming research and VC money. But then most of the technology commentators, and vulture capitalists, have not yet realised that, either 
Jacko wrote:
But when each of 30-odd CAAs proudly contributes its own pet rules to EASA’s stinking snake-pit of regulation, pretty soon the result is toxic.
You seem to imply that the EASA regulations are put together using the most restrictive parts of the previous 30 national regulations. That is patently not the case. E.g. witness the abolishment of cross-country VFR minimum altitudes in Germany, and the permission of IFR in class G in many countries as well as night VFR. From a Swedish perspective, part-NCO was a major step in simplifying and liberalising operating rules. And Sweden was not known for overregulating its light GA sector before EASA.
Case in point: many EU member states managed very well for decades without EASA’s ridiculous aerobatic and glider-towing ratings. The former has produced zero safety benefit. The only result of the latter is that gliding clubs have scrapped their tough, trusty, crash-worthy Pawnees and bought turbocharged EuroFoxes…
Please explain how the introduction of a glider towing rating results in clubs scrapping Pawnees. You still need a glider towing rating if you tow with a EuroFox. My club (and many other Swedish clubs) happily tow with Pawnees. Of course Sweden had a glider rating already in its previous national regulations so maybe the Swedish Pawnees are used to it. :-)
Peter wrote:
He is a GA owner-pilot so knows how it works, and how it doesn’t work.
Now I remember you wrote that in some other thread, However, I tend to have bad opinion about any person who was president/member of any youth organisation with nationalist/religious sign.
Out of interest and maybe a bit off-topic: for those of you who have their licence with Austrocontrol:
- How is it going so far?
- I know they’re on the expensive side but have heard they are quite customer oriented.
Tug pilots can fly permit aircraft on a national licence. No EASA licence or rating required. Same for Pitts S1 or RVx and aerobatics.
Question for the EASA and its acolytes: what is the point of these ratings? We managed for many years without them (and we still do in permit aircraft) so why do we need them now?
How much evidence is there that non-rated Pitts drivers kill themselves more often than CAP232 jockeys when practising torque rolls and tail slides?
Airborne_Again wrote:
You still need a glider towing rating if you tow with a EuroFox
You don’t – the EuroFox is a non-EASA nationally-regulated machine and (in the UK) the CAA does not require a glider towing rating in non-EASA aircraft, and nor does the BGA.
I think most clubs switching to the EuroFox have really done it for fuel saving (they are a lot less thirsty than a Pawnee), but the extra ballache of needing glider towing ratings is why our club will always tow with a non-EASA aircraft.
AF wrote:
Absolutely did not see that one happening.
It was clearly going to happen the moment the UK said the jurisdiction of the European court was an absolute red line not to be crossed; the UK couldn’t be in EASA without that happening, therefore it was extremely unlikely (despite the CAA’s desires) that the UK would remain in EASA.
I’ll have to break it to my friend that he is unlikely to get a job with the CAA because of all the Brits returning from EASA. He will be genuinely disappointed, he really had seen an upside in Brexit.
Here the ubiquitous Rallye has long been replaced by aircraft like the Ikarus C41 for glider towing but for cost reasons and nothing to do with the EASA glider tow rating.
Aerobatics here is more under threat by people complaining about the noise than about the EASA aerobatic rating. At LFFK the mayor is trying to stop aerobatics altogether because of the number of noise complaints. The problem is that for the most part it is not aerobatics at the airfield that is causing the problem but the military practicing dogfights in their Epsilons or Slingsbys. For my part they are great fun to watch.
I am concerned about the anti EASA tone of many of the Brit posts on this forum but for many of us in Europe we see things slightly differently.
In the first place we recognise that the reason we are now so different from the FAA started because Britain and the USA could not agree on how aviation should be run when the Chicago convention and the ICAO annexes were drawn up. Most of the countries in Europe followed the UK side except perhaps for things like the quadrantal rule, the IMC rating with IR in class G with no flight plan or communication.
France too had its own rules mirroring its culture eg the Brevet Base, the French CBIR before EASA adopted it. EASA is an attempt to find a compromise to bring all these different rules together so that pilots could move around European skies in a much more free manner. Witness how much less freedom we have to fly around Europe in experimentals, home builts and ULM’s, all governed by national CAAs.
In formulating the EASA rules the UK has had a major say. Yes in some areas the CAA has been restrained by other NAAs who want to fight their own corner. With Brexit the UK CAA can deregulate or regulate to its heart’s content, and the rest of Europe can do the same, free of the contraints put on it by the UK CAA.
No one is going to agree with everything that comes out of a committee of around 30 countries, we can’t even agree on this forum and we all have one thing in common, we are for the most part pilots who fly GA in Europe.
The more we attack the opinions of others and the more aggressive those attacks are the more people will move away from GA.
the UK couldn’t be in EASA without that happening
That, however, is still no more than a negotiating position adopted by Brussels. There is no law of the universe that to be in EASA you need to follow the ECJ. A whole bunch of countries which are in Eurocontrol would exterminate their neighbours given half a chance and they will absolutely not follow ECJ rulings 
It is simply a case of Brussels digging their trench in a particular place and London digging their trench in another place.
And clearly not following ECJ rulings is worth more to the UK Govt than being in EASA. The two concepts are not even in the same ballpark.
I am concerned about the anti EASA tone of many of the Brit posts on this forum
I think EASA is perceived differently in the UK for historical reasons. The UK had a fairly well working system, despite a bunch of the expected weird attitudes in the CAA. When EASA arrived c. 2003 they made a massive mess of everything they touched. And they did so with world-class arrogance and pomposity, and Brits particularly hate that sort of thing. I was involved in a campaign to save the IMC Rating and recall going to some unbelievably cringeworthy conferences… About the only thing EASA did early on which was a good idea was grandfathering all the old national CAA certification, but even that was crippled by a lack of databases of previous approvals so actually most people could not make use of it. Since then, EASA has got some sensible (less madly ideological) people at the top but it has taken years to undo the damage.
Of course, the classic thread is here
I am occassionally asked to explain to somebody non-aviation what this EASA stuff is about; it made the national news here yesterday. There is a lot of useful stuff in it but it is not easy to convincingly explain the world shattering advantage of e.g. a German keeping a G-reg on a Hungarian license and medical. Especially if the G was to avoid having to inspect the wing spar.
Alex wrote:
Out of interest and maybe a bit off-topic: for those of you who have their licence with Austrocontrol:
- How is it going so far?
- I know they’re on the expensive side but have heard they are quite customer oriented.
I can only speak highly of my personal experiences with AustroControl.
They are typical Austrian, in that they don’t have much tolerance for mistakes or ignorance, but are very proactive and constantly trying to improve things.
