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LSA / UL accident rates, and French microlight license

If there were no governmental control of microlights, that would mean there is no law involved and anybody could ignore the grounding directive. What is actually the case is that the creation of law has been delegated to unaccountable private organization (s), and in this case apparently it’s law created by the decree of a single private individual.

Although this seemingly bizarre action involves arbitrary suspension of all microlight pilot certificates, it is also an object lesson in why the LSA system in the US has not been very successful: potential buyers are not stupid and when considering buying aircraft that are not directly FAA regulated many could see that delegation of FAA regulation to private organizations (including ASTM and aircraft manufacturers) will inevitably result in regulation outside of reasonable and accountable legal process. The only ‘out’ is to move the aircraft into ELSA (FAA Experimental) category, which is what many US LSA owners are now doing.

Last Edited by Silvaire at 29 Aug 21:19

Silvaire wrote:

If there were no governmental control of microlights, that would mean there is no law involved and anybody could ignore the grounding directive. What is actually the case is that the creation of law has been delegated to unaccountable private organization (s), and in this case apparently it’s law created by the decree of a single private individual.

I think sometimes Silvaire, you have to take off your FAA glasses and look at things just how they are, without inducing your own agenda. The governmental control exists by approving the “safety system”. This is a system consisting of how training is done, technical aspects and so on. There is no law, implicit or induced into this. We follow SERA (have to by law for any powered airplane), and a couple of directives by LT about microlight in general. The main directive by LT say that a safety system approved by LT must be in place for these operations. So yes, everyone is free to ignore this with no legal consequences whatsoever, but probably not without consequences in relation to the “safety system” (although I have no idea what that consequence should be).

If anything, this is a kind of contract. The license is nothing more than you accepting the terms of the contract. We are free people, and can make contracts with each other at any time, as long as those contracts follow the law. Everyone is also free to create their own safety system, and get it approved by LT. It’s just that no one has done it yet, because the one that exists works just fine (contract vise at least )

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Silvaire is merely describing the US aviation regulatory scene, which for historical reasons benefits from a lot of protection from people trying to make money on the back of the regulatory system, and which he understandably enjoys operating in In Europe it is very easy to set yourself up in a position where you can make money from the poor bastards who have to comply with the latest in a raft of regulations (mostly EU ones). For example, in the trade magazines which land on my desk every day (electronics manufacturing, industrial controls sector) guess what takes up more pages than anything else? Compliance… and people selling products for compliance. For everyone trying to make money in some manufacturing business, there must be several making money out of ensuring the mfg guy is compliant with x y and z. And it is easy money – because there is no escape! The whole scene gets IMHO pretty disreputable when you look at the hidden agendas of the compliance crowd – they have to be largely hidden because nobody looks good saying he’s making money out of others’ compliance!

What Norway has done is pretty aggressive but perhaps it was “brewing” for a long time? It is not merely anecotal (but is supported by real stats) that the microlight community has an institutionally different attitude to risk management If there was a US-style full Experimental regime then a higher death rate would be acceptable – as it is in any risky sport. Whether that is a good thing in terms of public policy is another debate… this gets you into stuff like whether there should be an entitlement to injure or kill yourself given that the general taxpayer has to fund your treatment and/or supporting your dependants because you are now dead.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The Norwegian Air Sports Association published this statement yesterday (my translation):

To holders of Norwegian ultralight aircraft licenses

With immediate effect, the Norwegian Air Sports Federation (NLF) suspends Norwegian ultralight pilot licenses until the holder has taken a safety training package under the direction of the operational management of his/her own club, and according to the Federation guidelines. […]

This measure is motivated by incidents and accidents with ultralight flying in Norway recently. It is emphasized that the final causal link in these events and accidents have not been clarified, but they are being investigated by commissions appointed by the Federation. The safety training package will be implemented in a short period of time, and together with its Ultralight section, the Federation will provide the operational management of the clubs with more information about its implementation during the day.

The theme will be knowledge, skills, attitudes, culture and review of relevant events.

PS. Ultralight aircraft pilots who are away from their home base may fly their aircraft back to the base

Last Edited by Airborne_Again at 30 Aug 06:11
ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

Peter wrote:

Silvaire is merely describing the US aviation regulatory scene, which for historical reasons benefits from a lot of protection from people trying to make money on the back of the regulatory system

I was actually describing the proper role of government, without reference to any particular country… you’ll note that much of what I wrote was in reference to the US LSA regulation, which I view as a way for the US (Federal) government to reduce its workload and dodge its duty. Other than limiting the growth of unaccountable non-governmental power, the advantage of not allowing such a thing, I think universally, anywhere, is that if you force regulators to do their job within the budget provided, and not ‘sub contract’ it, the natural motivation to reduce their own workload reduces silly bureaucracy. And here is where we do arrive at the FAA and also the political forces that more generally hold the FAA accountable, and therefore the regulations simple, and FAA employees properly repressed

Anybody who has managed a company or large project and (lazy) middle management knows this stuff. It’s universal. I am BTW a middle manager…

Peter wrote:

this gets you into stuff like whether there should be an entitlement to injure or kill yourself given that the general taxpayer has to fund your treatment and/or supporting your dependants because you are now dead

In other words, it gets you back to the proper role of government

Last Edited by Silvaire at 30 Aug 15:01

Well, I’m already un-grounded My PPL was not affected of course, but still.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

Was it a box-ticking exercise? So if you have a fatal accident, the Authority (whatever it is) has data to prove you knew the danger?

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

It was indeed a box ticking exercise and some foils with a few reminders. Within a month or so there will be real meetings for everyone. The thing is, it’s been “brewing” for a long time, as Peter said it, and the last accident was just the one that triggered it.

Maoraigh wrote:

the Authority (whatever it is) has data to prove you knew the danger?

What can I say. We are our own authority. Democratically elected, based on voluntary work and personal participation/social commitment among people. No more mysterious than that. A bunch of people getting together having fun flying. We are more like a family, or a big squadron or something. The “grounding” is called a “safety stand down”, a temporary (day or two) grounding initiated from time to time in air forces and airlines when accidents piles up. Not many of those lately, airlines don’t crash and the air forces hardly have any operational planes It’s the same also in accident prone sports. The cause of the accident is irrelevant at this point, it’s more of a heads up, try to avoid more accidents in the immediate future.

Nevertheless, reading between the lines there were several “un-regulated” things about the last accident. It took more than half a day after the accident happened before anyone knew there was an accident. Big rescue operation; two F-16s, two Army Bell helicopters, one Sea King and one ambulance helicopter. It was far into the mountains, large area to search, difficult terrain, glaciers. No flight plan, no contact with information, etc etc. I mean, if they had done the flight according to normal good practice, they would have been found in a matter of minutes with one single helicopter. Getting fast to the accident is vital when trying to save people. I would like to hear the phone calls the CEO of NLF got from the Air Force and Army and the rescue squad (Sea King) and the air ambulance and all ground crew involved in this rescue mission that evening and night …

Judging by the comments (“what gives him the right”… etc), it occurs to me you find all this rather strange With microlights there are no EASA or national authority “looking after us”, we do it ourselves, and we also like it to stay like that in the future. Believe it or not, so do the national aviation authority (LT). The gliders have always been organized like this. That changed with changes in EASA regulations (Part NCO I think) making it impossible to continue the way they did. EASA had however made another option possible. The glider association could become a competent authority itself. Today the glider association is their own competent authority according to EASA, and LT merely says “hello” from time to time

With homebuilt experimental planes, it’s a bit of the same thing, but there LT has it fingers involved. This works fine, but only as long as LT is not too “detached” from what’s happening at an “operational” level, and this is 100% dependent on the persons working there. At the moment it’s fine, but only 5 years ago it was populated with utterly detached lawyers messing it up, more like EASA.

The elephant is the circulation
ENVA ENOP ENMO, Norway

I fly below radar in the Scottish Highlands. My transponder is on, Mode S+C, but there is no ELT yet. When leaving Inverness ATC, I usually say " routing to xxxx area initially". I’m only able to contact Scottish ATC when across to the west, and often don’t do so.
When a rented C152, routing direct Inverness to Benbecula in winter, went into a hill about 15 years ago, the search found nothing, and it was weeks later a hillwalker found the wreckage.
With shower activity, making me stick to a planned route through the hills would be more dangerous – and make the flying pointless.
Why just flying? I’m 77. I walked 15+ miles on Monday, alone, part through a forest. Should that be illegal in case I drop dead, and an expensive search ensues?

Maoraigh
EGPE, United Kingdom

I don’t know if this is the right thread for this post but it might be of interest to others who like to fly in France. It is an email sent out to all clubs here in France by the DSAC/O which is part of the DGAC.
Rough and quick translation:-
“Recently there have been several occurrences of commercial aircraft, (quasi collisions with ULM, gliders and light aircraft) in class G airspace whilst on an IFR approach.
In these spaces the following rule is applied “SEE and AVOID”
Nevertheless it might be useful to remind pilots of the following regulations which can help all pilots apply the rule.
SERA 9005- Range of Flight information services more particularly 9005b) 2) provision of flight information to lessen the risk of collision.
SERA 13001 – operation of transponders SSR and in particular 13001a) and GM1 SERA 13001(c)
The DSAC/O goes on to encourage all members of clubs to:-
-systematically use transponders
- to contact the flight information services (SIV)

France
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