Dozens is more accurate?
The (statistical) point is that if you ask say 20 people and all 20 say that X happened, then the probability of Y happening to the N+1 is really very low. It is at most 1/20 and generally far lower due to peripheral factors.
It is like looking at the CAA stats and seeing that 20 got Gasco and 1 got the old online exam. It is safe to conclude that almost nobody gets the online exam, especially if this is the pattern over some months.
I tried to be very detailed and analytical (of myself, why I decided what, what were the factors that impacted me) in my MOR. Maybe that helped.
Xtophe wrote:
In a thread where transparency and (lack of) useful statistics have been a important subject, that’s suitably vague.
So is the ‘many want to’ with regards the GASCO course ;-)
I would probably give up a Saturday and go voluntarily, just out of interest. I don’t think I’d pay £200 for it though.
I can sort of see that some people want to do the Gasco course. Why? In 2002/2003, when I was just starting out going places, it was known that the CAA Safety Evenings (also run by Gasco) attracted a load of " safety evening groupies " who went to one after the other, following the venues around the country, and getting their logbooks stamped at each one. The “groupie” link is a really hilarious parallel with that 
GA is a broad church…
Also Brits can be a bit strange. Go to Le Touquet and you may see Brits eating lunch with their yellow jackets on. In the trade mags I get at work, the biggest adverts are related to compliance related equipment i.e. vermin living off the few who are actually generating wealth.
Also PPL training has to be squeezed in for the £10k or whatever and is thus really really basic, especially historically (i.e. what most currently flying pilots went through). No notams, F214/215 for the wx (almost totally useless), nothing outside the UK… it really was rubbish.
I went to one in 2003 and I have already posted what happened when I mentioned “GPS”
So there will always be some ~5hr/year pilots who feel they get value.
To anybody who can read the maps, get wx, google for the AIP, plan a flight, etc, and is capable of doing some suitably epic expedition, say from Lydd to Le Touquet, the Gasco CAS bust course is a total waste of time and money. It is a fast moving, almost totally one-way, patronising talk, aimed at 5hr/year pilots who basically can’t even read the map.
The people at the CAA I was talking to today had never heard of EuroGA. I had to spell it for them. They expressed no intention of reading it.
The people at the CAA I was talking to today had never heard of EuroGA. I had to spell it for them.
Well, one of them [whose name we are not allowed to mention] knows about it for sure, and you posted you had a meeting with him today
His email requesting removal of his name was at 7:43 am, probably 8:43 local time. Your meeting must have started really early.
BTW, the largest number of posts with his name in them were from you It took me a while to dig them all out; I sincerely hope to have achieved full compliance.
They expressed no intention of reading it.
It would be a breach of CAA policy to post on it openly, so that is to be expected. Thank you for the mention!
This Monday, whilst flying up from York to Glenforsa (btw, one of the most beautiful flights I have ever done, and I have done a few) there was an aircraft on Scottish, which, I think, was operating (continuously) below the Glasgow TMA. Each time he changed course or altitude, he advised Scottish of his position, action, and that he would remain outside of controlled airspace, subsequently asking Scottish to acknowledge this. It sounded really silly. Don‘t know if this was a consequence of recent events or just his way of trying to make the Scottish FISO an accomplice of his doing. Was ridiculous.
Anyway, this thread is getting (actually, has been for a while) ridiculous, too. Is there a way for us „Europeans“ to hide if (permanently) from the „Recent threads“? It is really not a topic for most of us, plus most of the posts are now Timothy against a few others anyway…
I must admit that I too have heard another aircraft, before leaving the Leeds frequency, ask the controller to confirm verbally that he had not infringed controlled airspace at any time. I suspected that he may have been recording the RT.
Even my wife, a non Aviator, (although experienced passenger) remarked on his unusual request.
Perhaps we are all becoming paranoid.
The people at the CAA I was talking to today had never heard of EuroGA. I had to spell it for them. They expressed no intention of reading it.
Depends what you mean. There is a subtle difference between them stating that they had no intention of reading it, and them not stating that they did intend to read it.
With regard to the former, I would be surprised if they had zero interest in what their “customers” thought of current policies.
I can see why pilots would want to deviate from standard phraseology now that litigiousness has finally permeated it’s way into the cockpit.
Many years ago I requested and got a zone transit through Stanstead. After accepting RCS I was asked to steer a course that steered me straight at the airfield. After some time, I began to wonder if I’d been forgotten about when I was asked if I was aware I was heading in the wrong direction. I could almost hear the controllers cheeks flush when I reminded him I was under a RCS. He gave me a new heading and shortly after terminated RCS. I wonder how that would play out now.
