and at the same time continue to be everyone’s mate in GA circles, on forums and on social media
What I have seen is that these specific people who deal / have dealt with infringements (as distinct from the normal NATS/CAA staff posting on forums under nicknames) have done is the opposite: they have a long history of posting in an aggressive manner, and have made very few friends. I’ve “been” on pilot forums for most of the 20 years I’ve been flying and have seen this continuously. I recall, maybe 10 years ago when I still used to post on the UK sites, one of the senior NATS guys beating me up a few times. He ran two characters, one under his real name (for polite stuff) and one under a nickname (for other stuff, including having a go at people), but everybody knew who it was. I had absolutely no idea why he picked on me and sent him a PM asking why (no reply recd). The “one who must not be named” did much the same thing there (his posts are still there) and again everybody knew who he was, but this was years after I left the UK GA chat scene (I got sick of the dreadful moderation policies on all the UK sites, which one of the mods told me were deliberate to maintain traffic levels).
The CAA has a “social media policy” of some sort but in reality much of its senior staff (especially those in powerful positions which in the CAA is basically everybody ex RAF) have always been on the pilot forums under pseudonyms. I am sure this is true in every country. Social media is awfully hard to resist, especially if you are ex mil and enjoyed using your rank 
The forums have in turn allowed it, and continue to allow it, because “beating up” threads generate way more advert click-throughs – even if the resulting thread content is worthless because most people with a brain buggered off years before.
The CAA must have always known this was going on but they let it carry on, while resisting any official participation, explaining its policy in an open manner, etc.
This was posted by Timothy on the PPL/IR forum
The internet is big, and there is a forum for everything and everybody so I can’t say for 100% sure what it refers to, but it is pretty obvious the alleged target is [the name which can’t be posted] and knowing some of what went on I am damn sure that whoever was the source of this was making it up. Especially the bit about the signature, which after all appears on thousands of letters sent to mostly quite upset pilots!
It is certainly true that, lately, the various senior personnel moved to the countless forums on facebook. One of them got quite upset when, posting under his full name, he got identified as “CAA” in his Linkedin profile (most of the CAA is on Linkedin, because they are keeping half an eye on their next job) which took somebody about 5 seconds to google.
So you end up with a scenario where thousands of pilots have read these beat-ups, many had been a target, and then they get a letter from these chaps telling them they have infringed, etc. and the “sentence” is the ~£400 “day out” at Gasco.
The CAA needs to stop its employees participating on social media, in their capacity as CAA officials (pushing CAA policy but using nicknames). Very difficult!
Barton has been doing an ADSB trial with their AFISOs.
That was posted all over facebook also, and defended rather aggressively. I thought it was nuts for anybody to participate, given Barton’s record for MOR generation. However, this initiative got going well before the CAA was pushed into publishing the numbers and the whole thing getting blown into the open.
ADS-B is brilliant for getting done for busting CAS because a simple single system can monitor traffic over a vast area, compare it with a CAS / DA/ RA etc map, generate reports, and these can then be compared to radar data for busting people. I don’t think the CAA/NATS is running such a system but they could easily set one up.
FWIW, half the time in the off season there is nobody on the radio at our field, which is in an ATZ. Yet people manage to fly in, out and around it. Bad things can happen if they forget to call the ARO and close a flight plan, but from what I can tell it usually ends with someone from the ARO or FIS calling them on the number they gave when filing the FP, not SAR getting dispatched.
The stuff posted on PPL/IR is bonkers.
Scans of his signature? Trivial to obtain, and of course with them you could in theory forge documents in his name. But you could do the same by forging the signature manually – they are not exactly top-notch as a method of security. What matters is an intent to do so, and I’m not aware of anyone suggesting they might or to what end anyone could possibly want to do it.
Details of where he’s going so people can harangue him on arrival? For crying out loud, yes – if you know where someone is going you could harangue them on arrival. But has anyone suggested they might?
Using this same panic reaction I should be terrified that someone might steal my aeroplane because there is a picture of it next to my username. The bottom line is that he has made himself unpopular and having done so is now upset that people know more about him than he’d like. There are two solutions to that – either don’t make yourself unpopular or don’t participate in social media.
No-one has accused anyone of fraud or misconduct in a public office. People have just asked searching questions about whether the GASCo course was competitively tendered or not. People have suggested that there is a heavy ex-RAF presence in the CAA (there is) and suggested that there is something of a revolving door between the RAF, the CAA and NATS (there is). It’s the same stuff as Ben Goldacre writes in Bad Science about the pharmaceutical industry (my line of work) and its regulators and ancillary businesses, and it’s absolutely true.
If I was running the CAA I would write a single email to all staff saying that if anyone comments on anything even vaguely CAA-related on any form of social media, under their real name or a fake one, then unless it’s actually their job to do so (i.e. they work in PR) then they’ll be out the door so fast their head will spin. Unapproved public comment on your employer’s activity is gross misconduct – anyone in business knows this.
Can we perhaps stop this “he who cannot be named” business?
If we mean Mr Rob Gratton, his name is on the CAA website here, and as the CAA’s Principal Airspace Regulator and Chair of the Airspace Infringement Working Group he appears to be responsible for implementing the policy which is leading people to be careful where they fly with a transponder. He may or may not be partly responsible for setting that policy, but he is doing his job to the best of his ability and, presumably, to his employer’s satisfaction so shouldn’t we at least have the courtesy to call him by name?
Oh, and before anyone accuses “Jacko” of hiding behind a pseudonym, his contact details are at www.glenswinton.co.uk and his full name is on this cheque for legal expenses:
Jacko wrote:
Oh, and before anyone accuses “Jacko” of hiding behind a pseudonym, his contact details are at www.glenswinton.co.uk and his full name is on this cheque for legal expenses:
LOL
Jacko – my understanding is that he requested (or perhaps demanded) that his name be removed when it was used previously.
The picture of that cheque tells so many stories.
Well, that’s fair enough, but as aviation consumers and CAA fee-payers we pay for Mr Gratton to work for us, just as we pay for Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn with our fees and taxes – whether we like their policies or not.
It’s clearly the policies that concern us, rather the dramatis personae, but policy has no impact unless and until it is implemented by a person.
As yet, evidence that the CAA’s airspace infringement policy is deterring pilots from squawking close to controlled airspace is only anecdotal. That said, when flying in the south east last summer I was surprised to see how many new, fast-ish (and presumably transponder-equipped) light aircraft were flying just below CAS without squawking Mode C.
Hi all,
My name is Jonathan Smith and you can read all about me on, who I work for and jobs I have done at “www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-smith-382292182”
I was heavily involved in infringements when I worked for NATS as their General Aviation Lead but have had no formal involvement in policy or investigation for several years. I am also a GA pilot.
I have learned a huge amount, made many great friends and thoroughly enjoyed the GA forums since the very early days of the original FLYER List and passionately defend my right to participate in these forums, expressing my own views and opinions regardless of the post I hold.
The reason for me posting now is to ask you as one pilot to others to please stop targetting individuals in this debate. Regardless of the rights or wrongs of what any of us have done professionally or as part of our hobby, I do believe that we all have a duty of care as well as applying plain common courtesy to moderate the personal nature of this debate.
Regardless of what you may determine via people’s actions, behaviors or even contributions on the forums, please be assured that the vast majority of people I have worked with, over my many years in aviation, are absolutely passionate about trying to do the very best for their fellow aviators and aviation professionals. None of us are solely responsible for policy or procedures – that is simply not how any safety based operation can function, so for better or worse, what we do or say in our professional lives is corporately owned and supported until such time it is modified or amended by the same collective structure.
Being as passionate and involved as many of us are about our job and our hobby, you will appreciate that it is impossible not to feel very personally targeted by some of the postings and content. I speak from very personal experience, but our mental health is an extremely fragile thing and I believe that we all should at least try to be respectful and conscious of the potential for really damaging somebody’s health by what we say.
So, to sum up, I will continue to read this thread and others, here and in other places, sometimes smiling and sometimes holding my head in my hands but please, please try to remember that we are dealing with human beings, be they pilots, controllers or regulators who ALL deserve to be treated with a degree of compassion and respect.
Please don’t be offended if I don’t respond to the inevitable responses to this post and the on-going debate but please feel free to contact me off-line if you want to continue the debate one to one.
These are most definitely my views which may or may not reflect those of my employer ;-)
flybymike wrote:
The picture of that cheque tells so many stories
Which ones? appart from that “cheque has been chased and story closed”
