This is all a grand shame. Yet the southern coast is a leaky sieve for any criminal, and they get the preferential treatment on arrival to the UK.
I have diverted a few times and you just phone them up.
Sure, but that was before the guidance changed. We will have to see if doing so in the future causes any issues. I can‘t really believe so, also because of that last paragraph. Anyway, I guess nobody will submit a new GAR at that point. And, playing devil‘s advocate here, if going to some non-designated airport, one might have to justify why one hasn‘t been able at all to divert to any properly designated airport.
Yes it is BS in reality. I have diverted a few times and you just phone them up. In fact last time they phoned the place I landed about 15 mins after I got out of the plane, and asked to speak to me on the phone, and all was fine.
But you will see BS printed, and this is normal because jobs self-select on personality, hence certain types of people end up writing this stuff.
Well, I for one don’t plan on using 2 or 3.
1 is fine if you change your plans before departure and I’m happy to do that.
Other than that, any diversion I make will be to the nearest APPROPRIATE airfield (not nearest available) and I would of course contact the police / Border Force at that point and deal with it then. I’m certainly not diverting into Stansted because it’s the nearest nor am I going out of my way in bad weather to find a customs approved field (and trying to look up a list of which is which when flying an airplane in weather that I’ve already decided is too bad to continue).
I would like to reiterate on this:
It is absolute BS. Almost every word of it.
It will be interesting to read of real world diversions now that this is official „guidance“.
Greatly relieved I was ‘April Fooled’!
But with modern bureaucracy and creeping State Control of all our freedoms, one can never be too surprised by new ‘innovations’!
Peter_G wrote:
I believe that the following requirement is now being asked under the new GAR System: Health Requirement: All male pilots over the age of 60 must also provide a recent Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test result. This is to ensure the safety and well-being of the flight operations involving senior pilots.
@Peter_G where did you get from? Hopefully not from Flyer, published on 1-Apr?
I believe that the following requirement is now being asked under the new GAR System:
Health Requirement: All male pilots over the age of 60 must also provide a recent Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) test result. This is to ensure the safety and well-being of the flight operations involving senior pilots.
Although I have recently renewed both my FAA and CAA Class II Medical’s which authorises me as medically ‘fit to fly’, is someone now in the Border Force making an aditional medical asssesment as to my ability? And if so, on what criterea?
Do the Regulations sitpulate what level of PSA for a specific age is/is not acceptable?
And/or what form of Verification will they accept?
Remember the maxim: ”Most males of 60+ will die WITH Prostate Cancer; Very few will die BECAUSE of Prostate Cancer”.
Likewise: Is there any evidence worldwide where a pilot, who has been deemed to be ‘fit to fly’, has become suddenley incapacitated because of his PSA?
The official guidance doc has now been updated: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/general-aviation-operators-and-pilots-notification-of-flights/general-aviation-report-guidance-accessible.
