Graham wrote:
But there is inertia in these things and old habits die hard. Are they not responsible for producing a generation of pilots who think that using GPS is not the ‘proper’ way to navigate?I learned to fly during that time, and I was certainly told loud and clear that GPS was not how one should navigate.
I agree. But which is more useful, to complain about history or support changes for the better? The whole point about learning from history is that you change things for the better. I have to say, blowing my own trumpet for a second, that I think that the Causal Factors reports I wrote made a big impact on that process; but the credit should go to a CAA that listened.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
(1) Promulgate the fact that enforcement action will be less severe for those pilots who have been using such a device effectively.So the reports says.
Is it less severe?
That recommendation of the report has not been formally adopted, though I expect it forms part of the individual discussion about what happens to each infringer. But that misses my original point, which was that we should encourage adoption of new behaviours (primarily VFR moving maps and using Listening Squawks) with a very clear carrot and stick policy. Apparently the Legal Department stepped on that one, but I don’t know the details.
Jacko wrote:
Maybe likewise for pilots who are squawking mode S?
Ditto
GilesM wrote:
On the face of it the current approach of an online course with an exam and a follow up seminar if the test isn’t passed seems quite light touch.
That is the idea and, like Speed Awareness Courses, most attendees arrive disgruntled and feeling hard done by and come away having enjoyed and benefited from the day and glad that they did it. Only a few of the most arrogant “there’s nothing about me that needs improvement, it’s all the system’s fault” types come away carrying a grudge.
There is a queue of people who want to attend and pay for the course voluntarily, many having heard from attendees how good it is. GA representatives on the AIWG simply don’t understand why the CAA obdurately say “no”, so I can’t justify it.
GilesM wrote:
Second, the exam and online course need matching and updating.
The reason so many fail is another bugbear for the AIWG. As I said above, the CAA justify keeping the details of the course and the testing from us to preserve the integrity of the question bank, though we did all have the opportunity to sit either the training or a prototype (I forget which) many years ago when it was developed.
GilesM wrote:
On a much longer third track, there must be a review of the current airspace layout, particularly in the hotspots around White Waltham and Barton. If the busts at Barton, for instance, are related to the proximity of airspace overhead or the LLC, then the local procedures and airspace design should be reviewed.
This is a much bigger question, which I raise at lobbying all the time.
The problem is that no-one is responsible for the curation of our airspace. By law, the CAA has no role in proposing any changes, they can only allow, disallow or suggest changes to Airspace Change Proposals that arise from others. Thus most ACPs come from airports or NATS and are then consulted on (by the proposer) and adjudicated by the CAA.
An ACP is a very expensive and time consuming process and will only be launched if it is to the financial advantage of the proposer. That is the joy of privatisation. Thus there are some very obvious changes (like the removal of the airspace which protects operations at the disused runway at Glasgow) which, under the present regime, will never happen, because the only the airspace owner is in a position to propose it and it is not in their interests to do so (not because they need the airspace, but because they don’t benefit from its removal and it would cost them a six figure sum to propose doing so.)
The CAA have an annoyingly smug way of saying “but anyone can propose a change, and we’ll consider it” but they know, as does everyone else, that no-one else has the resources or knowledge to make the proposal. That is the CAA at their most disingenuous, and they know it. I don’t how they can keep saying it without blushing.
But there is another confounding factor in complexity, which is the constant demand from GA (and military) to keep airspace as small and tight as possible.
The obvious example of complexity in this context is the northern end of Solent:
It would be much “simpler” to drop the Class D to the ground from Chilbolton to HANKY. But that creates real issues with the CMATZ. Is that what we want?
Peter wrote:
It is mostly good stuff, well written.
A rare compliment, thank you. But remember that it dates from three years ago and much water has passed under the bridge.
LFHNflightstudent wrote:
Yes, good idea. I buy that :-)
I have given up trying to understand what is going in in the UK about this stuff. I can only think about this sketch
(sorry)
Timothy wrote:
Thus there are some very obvious changes (like the removal of the airspace which protects operations at the disused runway at Glasgow) which, under the present regime, will never happen, because the only the airspace owner is in a position to propose it and it is not in their interests to do so (not because they need the airspace, but because they don’t benefit from its removal and it would cost them a six figure sum to propose doing so.)The CAA have an annoyingly smug way of saying “but anyone can propose a change, and we’ll consider it” but they know, as does everyone else, that no-one else has the resources or knowledge to make the proposal. That is the CAA at their most disingenuous, and they know it. I don’t how they can keep saying it without blushing.
Has anyone tried (as a half-facetious and half-serious exercise) submitting the world’s shortest and simplest proposal which basically says in one sentence: remove this block of airspace because the runway it protects is disused…..?
I also thought the paper was pretty good.
Timothy wrote:
ut that misses my original point, which was that we should encourage adoption of new behaviours (primarily VFR moving maps and using Listening Squawks) with a very clear carrot and stick policy
I couldn’t agree more. What I particularly think they should be doing, and the data & analysis in the paper makes this blindingly obvious, is shout from the rooftops that the single best thing you can do to avoid infringing is to use a moving map GPS. I would even go further and put the message out there that, as far as the CAA is concerned, anyone flying anywhere near controlled airspace without one had better be damn good at whatever other method they use.
On the stick, I’d make it clear that if you infringe and are not using a GPS then sanctions will be tougher.
Graham wrote:
Has anyone tried (as a half-facetious and half-serious exercise) submitting the world’s shortest and simplest proposal which basically says in one sentence: remove this block of airspace because the runway it protects is disused…..?
Among the many barriers are:
There is a queue of people who want to attend and pay for the course voluntarily
At £200 plus a hotel stay plus travel, and given the widely dispersed locations, I find this utterly unbelievable.
Well, I have personally seen a good number of "safety evening groupies " who queue up afterwards to get their logbooks stamped, so, like plane or train spotters collecting serial numbers, it is possible, the human character takes “many varied forms” otherwise the psychiatry profession would be out of business, but I don’t think these are pilots who actually fly anywhere.
Speed Awareness Courses, most attendees arrive disgruntled and feeling hard done by and come away having enjoyed and benefited from the day and glad that they did it.
Isn’t there a much bigger reason? If you accumulate 4 speedings in 3 years you get banned for 6 months, which is a huge inconvenience. This potentially avoids that happening. For many years I was accumulating just 3 every 3 years so never got banned for this, but when driving a lot around unknown places (I was doing a lot of sales driving, up to 30k miles a year) it is difficult to avoid. To get a speed ticket wiped I would gladly waste a day somewhere, not too far away.
Also you can’t compare a speed awareness course with the Gasco course. On the former, no participation is required (as I know from one recent attendee) while on the latter a report goes to the CAA afterwards on the behaviour of each attendee.
But remember that it dates from three years ago and much water has passed under the bridge.
What was the water? The indications are that somebody has simply decided to simply hammer all infringers, with the maximum sanction the CAA has which is not (well not unless somebody has huge balls and probably is about to stop flying anyway) going to trigger a legal challenge in a court. This looks like a political decision, maybe to make somebody in “middle management” look good. It happens in all big organisations… and runs until it results in bad repercussions. In this case, GA, there will never be repercussions, because ultimately GA activity will fall (even faster than it does already), CAS busts will fall (despite all efforts to inflate the numbers by making the reporting process very slick) and it will be hailed as a success. The fact that few will be flying will not be noticed at the CAA…
As I said above, the CAA justify keeping the details of the course and the testing from us to preserve the integrity of the question bank
That would be disingenuous.
The indications are that this is no longer used and people are sent straight to the £400 fine. The QB has no integrity because anybody doing the online exam at home can screenshot all the questions. The QB is bollocks anyway; it appears to be a PPL QB from around 20 years ago, with some questions specifically from back then which not valid now, and some bogus questions which may still be in the current PPL QB. Can anyone say whether the current PPL QB has any duff questions?
Where do you get the “two years before repeat offender” from Peter?
I know someone who was told the black mark would remain on his record indefinitely (if he correctly understood what he was told)
Is the “two years” written down somewhere? Do the CAA actually have the software facility to accurately record ongoing licence action, and removal of previous transgressions? Is licence action actually recorded on the licence itself or available for viewing over the internet like driving licences? or is it information stuffed in a paper file somewhere which only comes to light if and when someone gets the file out of the drawer?
(All probably rhetorical questions)
Graham wrote:
I agree it’s serious. But there is inertia in these things and old habits die hard. Are they not responsible for producing a generation of pilots who think that using GPS is not the ‘proper’ way to navigate?
This is true. There is unbelievable resistance to change in some quarters.
Recently there was a discussion on infringements on the Northern Aviators group (and of course, Barton – the #1 infringement hotspot, is right in the middle of the NA’s stamping ground) and more than one person added a comment on the form “It’s all these pilots who are obsessed with their moving map GPS devices, everyone should be navigating with a stopwatch and compass then they wouldn’t infringe”. I pointed out the statistics that Timothy has provided (that those making effective use of a VFR moving map product were a very small fraction of the infringers, and the vast majority of infringers were not using any kind of GPS) and despite the cold hard figures, these people were still going on about “pilots with their heads buried in their GPS are infringing”. True clue resistance and worse still, the loudest one of these characters was an instructor.
Even pointing out that if you have a moving map GPS mounted near the top of the panel, you’ll spend a LOT more time looking out the window than if you’re trying to navigate with a chart on a lap board was met with incredulity.
Hopefully their students have a good enough bullshit detector.
I would say that it’s worth doing some ‘old fashioned’ navigation from time to time (it’s actually quite good fun once you get good at it) but it’s probably best to practise this away from controlled airspace boundaries!
LeSving wrote:
I have given up trying to understand what is going in the UK
That’s easy. Forty years of low tax, low spend, during which nearly all public infrastructure has been sold off to for-profit companies who are answerable only to their shareholders and have no remit to engage in the public good; and the little that remains in public control is starved of funds until it is no longer able to function.
All of this is true of the CAA and DfT, but that is the least of our problems. It is much more salient that the education, social security, criminal justice and transport systems have been wrecked (and health, but less so).
Do you now understand? 
Where do you get the “two years before repeat offender” from Peter?
From the FOIA response PDF posted further back here.
I know someone who was told the black mark would remain on his record indefinitely (if he correctly understood what he was told)
I am sure that is the case
Is the “two years” written down somewhere?
Not AFAIK in any CAA website document.
Do the CAA actually have the software facility to accurately record ongoing licence action, and removal of previous transgressions?
Extremely unlikely.
The CAP1404 process is documented too vaguely for the 2 years to mean anything. They can legitimately give you “extra” as a repeat offender after say 5 years, if they don’t like you for some reason.
I believe the PNC auto deletes minor stuff after specific times, but I have spoken to police officers who say that actually it all remains for ever and is simply not visible to routine searches.
Recently there was a discussion on infringements on the Northern Aviators group (and of course, Barton – the #1 infringement hotspot, is right in the middle of the NA’s stamping ground) and more than one person added a comment on the form “It’s all these pilots who are obsessed with their moving map GPS devices, everyone should be navigating with a stopwatch and compass then they wouldn’t infringe”.
The bullwark of this was always the CAA Safety Evenings, which are run by, guess who, Gasco Mentioning the banned word G-P-S in one of them was like walking into a catholic church and saying virgin mary got pregnant by casual sex. And since nearly all new pilots give up within a year or so, most of the flying community dates back many years so this is the environment they “grew up” in.
alioth wrote:
the loudest one of these characters was an instructor.
One of the most depressing conversations I’ve had in recent years was with an instructor of mature years, towards the end of her long career, who taught PPL and IMC, proudly telling me that she had never touched a GPS in her life.
