On reflection my AME has just done me a favour

gallois wrote:

So in answer to many of the comments on here if GA is not going to self destruct the regulations governing it need to move more towards those which govern ULMs.

Pilots are there own worst enemies regarding these things. That’s my experience. I think most of that is due to PPL instructors being ATPL folks (kids) straight out of the sausage factory, while UL instructors (like myself) are seasoned GA pilots. These ATPL “kids” don’t know about anything but regulations. They have no experience of GA and zero interest in any of it, and this includes zero interest in the community. There are honorable exceptions here for sure, but in general that is the case. UL instructors, and the whole concept of it, focus from day one on freedom and personal responsibility, having fun and the community.

It’s like certified GA lives in a dream where the ultimate goal is to cruise at 30k in a biz jet. No matter if that goal for all intents and purposes is unobtainable, anyone and anything jeopardizing that dream is a potential enemy. UL is the complete opposite. Less regulations is the opposite. Both are potential enemies. I’m putting it on the edge here, but IMO it’s not the regulators that are opposed to a less strict regime. It’s mostly pilots speculating about what will potentially be lost if such a regime is to become true.

I don’t believe that the aircraft and medical certification regulatory workload has changed all that much in the last 50 years. Airspace yes. Pilot certification yes.

Thinking back, the effort to obtain and maintain a medical 50 years ago vs today wasn’t that much different. The same applies to owning and maintaining certified aircraft.

What I think has changed is that many people, old and young, are less prepared to suffer the effort to start (young) or maintain (older) such flying in an increasingly complex airspace and licensing environment and that is the reason behind the behaviour being discussed here.

As far as the medical requirements mentioned, that hasn’t changed much or is perhaps less onerous than before and in any case is something to be expected with increasing age. We can debate and agree or disagree on some of the specific details.

All the pilots getting and using an IR without having the need for it, are putting uncontrolled flight at jeopardy. The wet dream of ATC is to have all flying objects under control, period. The simple fact of using an IR in VMC is playing on their side of the field.

In light GA, the IR is mostly used to get ATC to work for you (IFR default position) rather than against you (VFR default position).

Most actual flight is in VMC, with occassional bits in IMC and these are mostly limited by limited ice protection.

Is that bad? It’s what we have, per ICAO, and it will never change.

Occassionally I meet a pilot who gave up IFR many years ago. We talk about how things have changed and it turns out that IFR is mostly exactly the same as say 20 years ago – certainly since Eurocontrol got going, 25 years ago? The differences are in minor tactics like IFR route development, and getting around CTOTs like this.

VFR and IFR remain both as tools in the toolbox.

Maybe if aviation was invented today, and in the hugely unlikely scenario that it was not immediately banned as dangerous, we would not have the VFR and IFR categories. Air transport does not have that, after all, because everybody knows it is useless. The whole “VFR” edifice is born out of

• a desire for a cheap PPL (a fully usable PPL would cost 30k+, and schools would need to operate decent planes, so the whole business would collapse due to lack of demand)
• a desire to keep flight in “professional airspace” difficult to access (regulatory elitism)

The present ICAO-based system is far from perfect but

• it works for airlines (well, they drive it so they will always get what they want)
• it will never change
• it does give GA access to places which would otherwise never allow it.

On the last point: Some 90% of the world; even in “free Europe” the countries which would have permitted a dangerous, decadent and threatening freedom like GA flight could be counted on fingers of one hand, and if you think I am kidding, look at European history of nationalism, dictators, theft of freedoms, just during the 100 years of flight. Do you think Germany or indeed Europe would have GA if Hitler won WW2? The main reason Germany has a great GA scene is because Hitler lost and a lot of runways were left behind. Do you think Norway would have GA if Hitler won? What about Switzerland? It would have been a private banking and manufacturing centre for Germany, and no GA either. Same for Sweden, minus the private banking.

The US does not have these arguments. US AOPA represents all segments. Europe has been stabbing itself in the back ever since it came to be, and this is evident in European GA.

It’s like certified GA lives in a dream where the ultimate goal is to cruise at 30k in a biz jet

Bunk. Maybe true in Norway, where light-GA IFR is unviable due to extreme wx, so GA is squeezed into narrow gaps when the sun shines and they can get great photos of the scenery, and a part of the year they are all safely locked up in hangars. Understandable, but most of the world isn’t like that.

I don’t believe that the aircraft and medical certification regulatory workload has changed all that much in the last 50 years

Aircraft certification is ICAO-based and is run from the US (where most items are made) and the FAA rarely changes anything unless really necessary. European bodies, from time to time, lift US text and if they feel really on the ball they renumber the paragraphs Then they spend a few years tightening up stuff, and then spend the next 20 years reducing the tightening while claiming credit for being pro-GA

Aviation medicine is the most powerful department in every CAA. It still amazes me that the UK achieved the PMD regime, the NPPL, etc. A master stroke.

Actually, it’s the reverse. All flying was initially visual. Instrument flight came later .

Peter wrote:

a desire to keep flight in “professional airspace” difficult to access (regulatory elitism)

I think the desire was to keep it safe not difficult to access, and to attempt to ensure a more consistent way of flying and communicating than exists in the VFR world. I think the elitism came as a result of the regulation, not as a reason for implementing it.

Peter wrote:

In light GA, the IR is mostly used to get ATC to work for you

Which is rather logical considering the need lust of most IR pilots have to go and play in the top league… the IR gives the wonderful privileges of flying controlled in controlled airspace, but none of those are free, nor guaranteed for ever.
Each his own, view unaltered

And again, (trying hard to keep the thread drift within tolerable bounds ) the problem of VFR vs IFR regime shows similarities to the certified and the non-certified (and medical requirements) world.

LeSving wrote:

Pilots are there own worst enemies regarding these things.

Absolutely, proof given in the above posts

Dan wrote:

A mirror case is the IR rating. All the pilots getting and using an IR without having the need for it, are putting uncontrolled flight at jeopardy. The wet dream of ATC is to have all flying objects under control, period. The simple fact of using an IR in VMC is playing on their side of the field.

And the same principle, yes syndrome, applies to certified flying against the rest… and medical or none…

@Dan, I’m afraid that might be true to some degree in the mainland Europe, but in the UK it is just an instrument for a license survival in the South – it is the only way to have a flight without too much hassle and stress (because of the UK infringement policy).

Thanks @arj1, yes I’m very aware with the no-prisoner taken policy of the UK, having had a certain mini-experience with it last year… unfortunately this UK’s policy is also setting a trend in other EU countries now, as I have been made aware of some cases that made it to justice, in France!

Let’s go back to the medical requirements, or lack of, we sure don’t wanna @Peter to be cross

Amongst pilots I know, including in Europe, the main reason to do an IR is to be able to fly when you want, or at least more often.

In California, where I learned and flew for 20 years, without an IR there will be many days where you can’t do even the simplest $200 hamburger because you need to take off or land through a thin cloud layer.

In Provence, where I live now, the weather is hopelessly unpredictable. In summer, when icing isn’t a big deal, you can get a decent dispatch rate with an IR. Less so if clouds or the risk of clouds anywhere on the route will keep you at home.

Of course an IR won’t help if there is icing (unless you have FIKI, which almost nobody does) or serious convective weather. But it’s a whole lot better than nothing.

In the US all the “serious” pilots I know (by which I mean people who keep on flying for a long while) have an IR, and mostly keep it current.

Europe with its crazy airline-driven gold-plated IR makes it a lot harder, and in France less than 10% of PPLs have an IR. That creates a feedback loop, because even if you want an IR, you’ll have trouble finding anyone to teach you without going to an ATP school.