I thought if an establishment by design does not bring income to shareholders, i.e. spends all money on personnel and other expenses, it is charity…
Xtophe wrote:
We have been through that in the other thread. Fuji doesn’t accept that a charity can have a commercial profit-making side which then subsidise other loss-making sides of the charity.
Where did I say that?
Many charities have a commercial arm that raise funds for their other charitable work.
Of course in fulfilling a regulatatory enforcement role I think we all understand that this is not what GASCo do, and nor is it a model that has been adopted by any other charity, in any other setting, of which I am aware.
arj1 – you are of course also correct. GASCo claim that they are accumulating funds at the rate they are so they can invest in further infrastructure. There is no indication they have made this investment, and no justification is given why they need to, I have no idea in what way they believe it would enhance their charitable work. Of course we shall see, and they will be closely watched in the mean time as the Charities Commissioners do not take well to any charity that absuses its privileges if it is found that they have.
When I know a large number of airline and corporate aviation employees who have lost their jobs
Have some jobs in airlines and other mass transit systems gone for ever?
Will future generations weigh the harmful effects of airlines and mass international tourism in the same way that we now do for coal, sugar and tobacco?
Many people working in aviation are disciplined, intelligent and tolerant of corporate structures. Is it in the wider interest of society to help them find something better to do?
I am certain that the CAA “team” will eventually bust just about everybody who actually flies for real in the UK.
They have busted maybe 5k pilots so far under their new policy and since there are about 20k PPLs in the UK, and most of them hardly fly beyond the well practiced Blackbushe-Sandown burger run, etc, the CAA “team” will bust almost all the higher hour pilots – as well as a lot of instructors.
Maybe half get the warning letter; only time will tell. I see May/June data has appeared in the usual place so I will update the other thread. Gasco numbers are well down and I wonder whether the “team” has been told to stop stuffing everybody possible into Gasco like they used to do in 2019.
Peter wrote:
I am certain that the CAA “team” will eventually bust just about everybody who actually flies for real in the UK.They have busted maybe 5k pilots so far under their new policy and since there are about 20k PPLs in the UK, and most of them hardly fly beyond the well practiced Blackbushe-Sandown burger run, etc, the CAA “team” will bust almost all the higher hour pilots – as well as a lot of instructors.
Maybe half get the warning letter; only time will tell. I see May/June data has appeared in the usual place so I will update the other thread. Gasco numbers are well down and I wonder whether the “team” has been told to stop stuffing everybody possible into Gasco like they used to do in 2019.
I am a optomist, but still fear you might be correct.
Unfortunately, GA is totally fragmented and so is an easy target. In the States, I have to say the pilot population would very simply say we have had enough of this nonesense, and that would be that. In the UK (and possibly some parts of Europe) we have enough prima donnas who will support this nonesense and such a lack of unity that GA simply gets picked off.
It must change and we must come together and force change.
You can guarantee that these people are complete jobs worths, they have absolutely no idea of real world operations and they have been bought out by commercial interests which are now on the floor as a result of Covid. They hide behind the little towers they have constructed and arent prepared to justify anything they do, becasue they dont need to. In that much, we only have ourselves to blame.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I have to say the pilot population would very simply say we have had enough of this nonesense, and that would be that
How does that fit together with the US being the only country where AOPA offers and advertises a “pilot protection service” that claims to support pilots with hundreds of cases of “pilot deviations” prosecuted by the FAA?
Why would any reasonable pilot in the US spend any money on legal protection against the FAA if all it would take to avoid FAA prosecuting transgression would be a “no” by the pilots?
Peter wrote:
They have busted maybe 5k pilots so far under their new policy
Problem in the UK seems to be a really deep one, illustrating the challenge with any transformation but it’s not right to one sidedly blame the CAA!
As far as you can see from the outside (with the obvious downside of being a little further away but the upside of being unbiassed) there has been a very long development in the UK – like in many other countries: Neither pilots nor CAA has really cared too much about airspace infringements in the past.
That has not only lead to some sloppiness of pilots when it comes to airspace borders but (tragically) to very complex airspace systems. As no-one really cared too much, the pushback against “unflyable airspaces” was not as strong as possible. Why waste time to prevent such airspaces if practically it doesn’t matter if one scratches them.
No the CAA has changed policy and it does matter – and the hangover is hard as now pilots need to really stick to the rules they only accepted because they did not expect that!
Avoiding airspace infringements for pilots is extremely easy: Just stay away 500ft vertically and 2NM horizontally from any airspace you should not touch and you will never infringe (and if you still do, there should really be some additional training…). That, however, would require an airspace structure that allows recreational flying with these margins to airspaces.
Yes it is for the pilot to avoid infringement of controlled airspace. And yes if you infringe controlled airspace you should expect to get “busted”. But it is what happens after that that matters. It’s a bit like the difference between a police officer who politely asks someone to get out of their car to explain to the driver that he has committed or might have, an offence against the police officer who drags, physically, everyone out of the car with batons (coshes )drawn.
It seems to me, from this thread, that the CAA have chosen the second method.
Pilots, like anyone else in this world, do make mistakes.
Malibuflyer wrote:
How does that fit together with the US being the only country where AOPA offers and advertises a “pilot protection service” that claims to support pilots with hundreds of cases of “pilot deviations” prosecuted by the FAA?
Why would any reasonable pilot in the US spend any money on legal protection against the FAA if all it would take to avoid FAA prosecuting transgression would be a “no” by the pilots?
Chalk and cheese I think.
In this case we are discussing the introduction of a new policy that potentially impacts on all pilots. My point is that in America the introdcution of the policy change would have met with far more resistance in the first place, and, IF it was pursued, it would have them met with subsequent and collective resistance. In the US the pilot lobby is very strong, and, unlike here, they are certainly not worried about litigating, so at least a few of these cases would have been taken to Court.
As to your subsequent post you are absolutley right – pilots should essentially stick to the rules, I doubt that is seriously disputed. The debate is mechanism of enforcement does not achieve the desired result, is not proportionate, is not subject to any form of appeal and transparency, and is cubersome at the point of delivery. All in all there is nothing to its advanatge, which is in itself quite an achievement, other than a money making operation for GASCo, which I guess suits them nicely, although it would seem even they dont know what to do with all the money.
It has all the hallmarks of a scheme set up by a jobsworth, who wanted to be seen to have done something, but did not have the ability to think through the consequences, was and is blind to any crticism and has no experience of the proven techniques for providing refresher training.
All in all, a complete disaster.
There’s also the issue that if you’re easy to see and track electronically there’s a higher likleyhood of you getting in trouble vs those with the transponder off. I think there was a mutliple bust (perhaps manchester?) Where one had a transponder on, the others didn’t and he was the only person to get busted.
I think we’d all agree this doesn’t help safety.
