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National CAA policies around Europe on busting pilots who bust controlled airspace (and danger areas)

I would be very worried giving the CAA any more powers. Infact, I suspect a great deal more oversight of the CAA should be put in place. The CAA appear unable to grasp the need for regulatory impact assessments, representing the whole of aviation fairly and equally, communiciating in any adequate and meaningful way with those they represent and meeting the requirements of public office to be more than open and transparent. I also doubt they have adequate quality of staff. It has been widely reported that since EASA all the “good” people left, and I suspect this is a claim not entirely without substance. In short if Grant Shapps is returned, which I hope he will be, I shall be asking for far more oversight and scrutiny of the work the CAA undertakes.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

representing the whole of aviation

those they represent

The CAA doesn’t represent anyone. They regulate.
The only way we could use “represent” is in the “protect” sense and to say that the CAA represents the third party member of the public or that they represent the passengers of commercial aviation.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

[lack of] adequate quality of staff

Indeed

Nympsfield, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

The problem Grant Shapps has is that he is a pilot too and must not appear biased.

Hasn’t been a problem so far, and he has done a lot of pro GA stuff, including creating a big budget and employing a big team.Peter wrote:

Half the world is trying to dig up dirt on him,

I think that those interested in digging dirt on Tory ministers have bigger fish to fry and richer seams to mine. I imagine that little friend Jenny will provide endless fun for the dirt diggers. Spending a few transport bob on, er, transport is pretty small fry by comparison, and he survived the Twittergate scandal.

Peter wrote:

I have read of cases where a judge was forced to stand down from hearing a particular aviation (GA, IIRC) case because he had a PPL.

Well, I read different things from you, evidently, but I personally have sat, as a member of the judiciary, on CAA cases where I had been specifically asked to do so by the Chief Clerk just because I have extensive aviation experience. On one occasion, one of my colleagues was a BA First Officer. This made the case quicker and simpler because much less basic stuff had to be explained.

Most members of the judiciary drive, and yet sit on traffic matters.

EGKB Biggin Hill

Just come across one data point from mainland Europe; this time a UK pilot in Spain:

I recently flew 200 meters inside a National Park boundary in Lanzarote and was fined nearly €800. Tried grovelling but my Sky demon trace confirmed it. Also if I didn’t settle within 20 days & any appeal was unsuccessful I would have to pay 40% more.

The pattern I have heard over many years is that almost nobody (outside the UK) is enforcing minor CAS busts but there is sporadic enforcement of restricted etc areas.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Xtophe wrote:

The CAA doesn’t represent anyone. They regulate.
The only way we could use “represent” is in the “protect” sense and to say that the CAA represents the third party member of the public or that they represent the passengers of commercial aviation.

Your semantics are accurate and justified.

My point, which for ease I did not make accurately, is that the CAA’s role is to regulate in such a way that the regulations are fair and proportionate to the needs of the public and the industry, and in this way they should tread a fine line to achieve both. In other words it is vital the industry is safe, but also vital that individual parts of the industry are not discriminated in a way as to place an unfair burden on that part.

As I have siad before, GA and the commercial component of the industry have a very good record of self regulation. Even more importantly, it is vital this should continue, as it is vital that standards are maintained and improved. The reality is continuing education falls to the industy’s instructors and examiners, be that on line training, sim training or PPL renewals. Incredibly the CAA has decided that its own instructors are incapable of providing infringement refresher training and allowing their own instructors to determine that a case may be closed without further “black marks” hanging over the pilot – a system I might add that is pretty universally accepted. The CAA are also incapable of distinguishing between minor infringements, which here and every where else in the world, have been left to a firm word between pilot and ATC unit, but would rather use a process the CAA accept is predicated on filling course places, if it so happens the course is short of a few attendees that month. Of course we have never been told the details of the commercial arrangement between the GASCo and the CAA, but the CAAs reluctance to come clean would make most of us very suspicious that the contract includes an undertaking to provide a certain number of attendees each month / year.

So lets look at the evidence. You infringe. At some point many months later you may end up on a GASCo course. On the course there is no discussion about the specific circumstances that lead to your infringement. So much time has passed you have also probably forgotten the detail. You receive so general guidance on how to prevent a future infringement that may, or may not, have some relevance to your specific circumstances. You are inconvenienced by the need to spend potentially two days on a course the contents of which could be provided in a few hours, and incur the cost of a wholly unproven course, delivered by lecturers who may or may not have any qualifications or experience in this field. In the alternative you receive relevant training and the opportunity to discuss the particular circumstances of your infringement with ATC or a local instructor either and both of whom are familiar with the exact circusmtances of your infringement which is still current in everyone’s mind, and almost certainly from those involved with the immediate airspace in which you spend most of your time flying. The cost invoved in the case of local instructors goes straight back into the industry, rather than a dubious charity who has no business in the first place running a regulatory course that is closed to all, other than those who are “sent” on the course by the CAA.

Surely, you couldnt make it up, if you tried. By any analysis it really must be very revealing that the CAA has so little faith in their instructors that the CAA believe the very instructors they have licensed and set the standard for, cannot be trusted to deliver a better and more effective course.

I will be making a formal complaint to the Charity Commissioners in due course asking them to investigate the full circumstances of this arrangement, as well as taking up with the minister how it came about that the course was awarded to GASCo without any evidence of competitive tendering and without any disclosure of the terms of the contract that has been awarded. At least we might then feel happier that whatever has taken place has been properly scrutinised and can be reassured that whatever the arrangements are, they are capable of standing up to scrutiny.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

I will be making a formal complaint to the Charity Commissioners in due course asking them to investigate the full circumstances of this arrangement, as well as taking up with the minister how it came about that the course was awarded to GASCo without any evidence of competitive tendering and without any disclosure of the terms of the contract that has been awarded.

I doubt you’ll have much luck with the Charity Commissioners. You might not like this arrangement, but it is entirely normal these days for charities to bolster their income by providing various services – usually training or education in their area of interest – on an essentially commercial basis. It is very lucrative for them because they can charge commercial rates for what they are doing but their human resources are usually volunteers which gives them a significant advantage over a business delivering the same service. Before somebody steps in to tell me that most if not all charities employ paid staff, yes they do, but the point here is to deliver a particular thing that you get paid for using volunteers, thus making that activity in itself, viewed in isolation, very profitable. The charity can undercut commercial providers to the point of completely cornering the market whilst still making a nice profit on the activity.

I don’t know what the rules are about competitive tendering, but I would be surprised if there were not some. In all probability the CAA quietly wrote up some small piece of due diligence confirming that they’d scoured the market and concluded that only GASCo was capable of delivering this. One can always pay lip service to the rules in a situation like this.

Last Edited by Graham at 25 Nov 14:28
EGLM & EGTN

Graham – I very much doubt as well, but sometimes you feel the matter should be on record.

I also have no doubt that there was some obscure piece of due diligence done, but for the same reason I feel the point should be made.

Bringing such matters as this to task is very difficult, but sometimes the strength of feeling does result in those in a psoition to do so to bring pressure.

Quite clearly the CAA is unwilling to do anything about this matter themselves despite the extent of the criticsm from pilots which has been so well made here and elsewhere.

Anything can be said here and the CAA might well read it. But until the matter is taken formally to the CAA, they will deny it being anything needing to be investigated as they haven’t received any complaint.

Nympsfield, United Kingdom

Incredibly the CAA has decided that its own instructors are incapable of providing infringement refresher training and allowing their own instructors to determine that a case may be closed without further “black marks” hanging over the pilot

Surely, you couldnt make it up, if you tried. By any analysis it really must be very revealing that the CAA has so little faith in their instructors that the CAA believe the very instructors they have licensed and set the standard for, cannot be trusted to deliver a better and more effective course.

Perhaps that is because instructors and examiners themselves make up a significant percentage of those required to attend the courses, proof if it were needed that infringements are in virtually all cases caused by inadvertent human error and not by carelessness or recklessness.

In short the problem will never be eliminated, it is part of the human condition.

Last Edited by flybymike at 25 Nov 16:29
Egnm, United Kingdom

flybymike wrote:

proof if it were needed that infringements are in virtually all cases caused by inadvertent human error and not by carelessness or recklessness.

Far from it, I’m afraid (and very sadly.) Quite a few are the result of the instructor/examiner not intervening (sometimes quite recklessly) when they can see that there might be an infringement, often it’s simply planning to get too close and very often it’s a similar set of causes to non-instructors, just lack of attention.

Instructors and examiners are not gods, they have feet of clay.

I wish it were possible for more people to read more reports. It might change some perspectives.

EGKB Biggin Hill
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