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

The first one I think their comment is valid. The guy took off and mindlessly followed his GPS, even though he was going in the wrong direction.
GPS is brilliant, but you can’t mindlessless follow it. You must keep your brain on and aware of what you are doing and where.

SD will allow you to print off a plog and as a student he should have been marking it up. It should have been obvious very quickly that the first waypoint didn’t match his plog.

This is no different to someone getting into their car in Lile and putting “Paris” into their GPS and being surprised, they end up in a tiny village in the south of Italy.

In the second case, it’s not the CAA comment, but the pilot’s own comment. Can’t blame anyone other than the pilot for his own comment! In fairness, they were probably trying to “say the right thing” to get the “don’t do it again” letter instead of the course!

I disagree.
SkyDemon isnt just “a GPS arrow you follow blindly” as was the case 10-15+yrs ago.
The likes of Skydemon and Foreflight are the ultimate flight planning and flight execution tools that are a quantum leap ahead of anything available back then. They are the solution to the infringement problem, not a contributor – its all there on the screen in plan and vertical view, and those comments are like reading a report form 10 or 15 years ago… Hell yeah, lets all go back to using an immediately out of date map, plog and a stopwatch….

regards, SD..

Maybe someone who is more familiar with FAA process can tell us if Elon filed the MOR ?

https://jalopnik.com/spacex-had-to-call-off-a-launch-only-a-few-seconds-befo-1847197135

I disagree.
SkyDemon isnt just “a GPS arrow you follow blindly” as was the case 10-15+yrs ago.
The likes of Skydemon and Foreflight are the ultimate flight planning and flight execution tools that are a quantum leap ahead of anything available back then. They are the solution to the infringement problem, not a contributor – its all there on the screen in plan and vertical view, and those comments are like reading a report form 10 or 15 years ago… Hell yeah, lets all go back to using an immediately out of date map, plog and a stopwatch…. 

But it doesn’t matter how good a gps/ flight planning system is, if you are following the wrong flight plan!

Peter wrote:

I wasn’t aware that SD can display an altimeter

It displays GPS altitude.

Airborne_Again wrote:

It displays GPS altitude.

Are you sure? Some phones/pads also have a barometric altimeter. To me it seems SD “sometimes” uses that, or at least has some filter going.

Just wondering. Could it be that the UK CAA has adopted this “ex RAF procedure” of busting to gather data showing that the whole “system” needs to change fundamentally?

I just saw this updated CAP 1404

and at the bottom of page 4 I read:

Only 5% of those having infringed then re-infringe, demonstrating the value of the Just Culture process.

Which is only valid if more than 5% of the pilot population infringe over a comparable period, e.g. a couple of years?

If, as I imagine, less than 5% of the pilot population infringe over a comparable period, then either:

1. Those who infringe were always more likely* (i.e. more than 5% chance) to infringe than the pilot population, and are now less likely to, or
2. infringers are representative of the pilot population and the CAA process actually makes them more likely to re-infringe than before!

I guess the CAA’s position is #1, but they really should show the comparable!

Note * “More likely” doesn’t imply they were all idiots, it could just reflect the insanely complicated airspace they fly in.