Elimination of unnecessary‘red-tape’ and ‘regulation’ affecting General Aviation.

A theme close to my heart. Even though I act in the capacity of "The Minister" (Canada) when doing my job, I am self employed. I am very frustrated by the intrusion of well meaning but moderately skilled, low experience in GA aircraft, bureaucrats involved with the project for no value added, and driving costs up.

Though I doubt I can help you with your UK quest, I can offer the following link for your consideration. If all authorities would start doing what Martin Eley (an Englishman, whom I know fairly well) is saying here, we'd be leaps and bounds ahead...

Whilst we have an MP who is prepared to listen, there is no point wasting this opportunity to highlight some of the nonsense that now prevails. Send in you evidence and swamp them!

Work Done = Force x Distance

They are pretty distant, so we need a lot of force!

Where to start? Best way is for all tax from GA to finance the building of a time machine to back to the year 2000 and stop EASA ever happening.

GA is being killed by over-regulation. Next we have the new requirement for annex II aircraft to be given Airworthiness Review Certificates in line with the EASA system. What was wrong with the old system?? This will cost everyone a fortune to implement. Maintenance Organisations (of which you all claim are ripping you off) are simply being regulated into the ground. The over-regulation is the cause of poor maintenance because too much time is being spent on regulation. It should be spent on your maintenance. Engineers for GA will disappear as Part 66 licences with appropriate ratings for GA are so difficult to get compared to the old BCAR licences.

The question is how to extricate ourselves from this mess.

Jude,

Did you receive any guidance on what areas are within their remit and which isn't?

I ask as I imagine that some (such as FCL) they can do nothing about even if they wish to because it has to go through EASA committees.

My pet peeve is that if someone has missed their 90 day currency, that we let them go off and fly by themselves (no passengers allowed) but won't let them go fly with another current on type pilot who might be able to help them (or take over if necessary) if they get a bit behind the aircraft.

I just can't see how letting a current on type pilot fly with them is less safe than letting them go by themselves.

But I suspect their ability to do anything about that is minimal as it rests with EASA.

dp

I was going to post something the same as dublinpilot, but then I cancelled thinking it may be coming across as negative. But guidance / remit is useful. I hadnt heard of the GAAC up until now, but they seem like a good cause. But on their site they mention planning and environmental issues, and can help with questions ranging from flying model aircraft to planning a new airfield. Thats quite a range. They also say they have supporters including AOPA, so I too wondered what the GAAC can actually do, and if there was some focus, then there may be worthwhile contributions.

Also Mr Shapps (who flies where I fly, but I wont claim to know personally), is the Conservative party co-chairman, probably still has some involvement in housing issues, and used to be (maybe still is) responsible for election campaigning, so he probably wont have much time to co-ordinate things that are hard to change (like the CAA processing questions or licensing applications, or anything requiring legislative changes to law).

But I will add my challenge, and that is for the CAA try and maintain more online forms. This link (http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=33&pagetype=90&pageid=8065) dated June 2007, said they are "gradually introducing [...] online forms", but even the most basic forms like rating renewals are still paper based 5 years on. I know some requests has to be counter signed by FI's but, it wouldnt be hard to get a FI authenticated via an online system and have it all done online now.

Permit aircraft in IMC and at night. Airfields not to be automatically considered brownfield (prospectively and retrospectively).

Permit aircraft in IMC and at night

Can you not do that? I dont fly at night, and in a SEP I would not risk intentional IMC at night anyhow, it would be outside of my comfort zone, but didnt realise it was not legal.

I think the IMC issue is with IFR certification, which is blocked for aircraft that don't have an ICAO CofA. In the USA they have the Experimental category which can do all this but AFAIK that is a world-unique concession.

The Night issue is (AFAIK) to do with the aircraft being certified for Night VFR, which most (all?) Permits aren't.

And if all night flight is by definition "IFR" (which it has always been in the UK, though I gather that will be changing soon) then Permit aircraft cannot fly anyway due to not having IFR certification...

The funny bit has been with helicopters that are VFR only (e.g. Robinsons) but which can fly at night, subject to carrying some extra kit. I don't how how the CAA squares that one up while banning night flight for Permit fixed wings.

And if all night flight is by definition "IFR" (which it has always been in the UK, though I gather that will be changing soon)

The UK adopted Night VFR from 17 September 2012....In fact what they have done is issue an exemption to the UK ANO which requires compliance with the IFR at night. The exemption will remain in place until the adoption of SERA or 31 Dec 2014 whichever occurs first