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

Fuji_Abound wrote:

It seems at odds that they cant be bothered to publish their accounts with the charities commission until literally the very last minute. (2 days before the legal deadline)

For any reasonably-run organisation, this usually means that they are having a battle of some sort with their accountants. A grudging agreement on the accounts to be published is only reached at the very last minute and because it has to be.

Fuji_Abound wrote:

BTW I cant seem to find that GATSCo is registered with data protection – perhaps under a different name – or perhaps they dont receive any personal relevant information relating to the infringing pilots?

If they are the ones running the courses on the day then it’s hard to see how they would not get personal information on attendees.

Timothy wrote:

So this has gone from a request for basic stats, which seemed reasonable, to a full audit of GASCo?

You have succeeded in losing the support of someone else who is essentially on your side. Good luck guys. I wish you well in your endeavours.

Timothy, sorry, but that’s a ridiculous position to take and you’re increasingly coming across as someone who will not tolerate anything but blind trust.

People aren’t demanding an audit of GASCo. People are investigating information available in the public domain to try and counter your suggestion that no money is being made from this. That information suggests that actually quite a lot of money is being made from this. But instead of engaging with the point you tell them that they’re being unreasonable and exit the discussion…..

If you were actually withdrawing your support then you’d go into the meetings and tell them to hang us all high, which somehow I doubt you’ll do because like any of us you are a moment of inattention away from an infringement.

Peter wrote:

and your dietary requirements

Is there a special fish deal?

I find this bizarre.

Timothy – I have gone out of my way to state that I thought your position was reasonable. I have never believed in playing the person. However, on this occasion I will say that you have always come across as a person that would support scrutiny, after all that is the bedrock of our judicial system. If we must blindly accept these processes, then we are all lost. It is really no different from Boeing telling us there is nothing to worry about, until the next Boeing crashes.

Do you not understand that if processes such as this are not robust and fair (and they may be) then you ruining everything you have ever done for GA, because pilots are effectively and arbitrarily paying a susbtantial fine (£200 + a days loss of business, or income, or holiday) and far more importantly, may lose trust in the regulator and even given up GA all for what?

I simply dont understand your position – and I am genuinely very sorry to have to say this.

The truth is every public body, charity, quango etc that is being paid for by the taxpayer should stand up to scrutiny, and should be prepared to answer any reasonable questions otherwise our trust in the system is broken and we may as well all go and live in a banana republic.

I know in the big scheme this is a totally trivial storm in a tea cup but it is symptomatic of a far wider problem. All your fine words about the way immigrants are treated by the system (from which I learnt one hell of a lot) and your very good suggestion of a book about our judicary recently mean nothing if we are selective about public scrutiny, and bury our heads because we dont want to upset certain people or believe if we rock boats we may well end up with something we like even less.

So sorry for the rant.

and as for GASCo – its a charity, it was set up to promote safety in GA, and do good work for GA pilots, and I have no doubt at least one member of its committee might read this, and one member of its committee have the courage to come forward and tell us we have it all wrong – but I wonder?

I am sure we would all like to read the other side of the debate?

I don’t know whether there’s a difference between a warning letter and a no further action letter?

But if there were something like 1300 infringements in 2018, and 209 went on the course, assuming there were very few actual prosecutions or other courses of action then that does seem like approx 80% getting nothing serious?

Stansted (CTR/CTA/TMZ)103 Southampton CTR/Solent CTA103 Manchester CTR/CTA/TMA68 Luton CTR/CTA67 Birmingham CTR/CTA34 Gatwick CTR/CTA36 London CTR37 Liverpool CTR/CTA33 Doncaster/Sheffield CTR/CTA23 London City CTR/CTA12 Other UK airspace659

One might well ask why the two zones most often crticized as being unhelpful achieve the highest number of infringments, but then one might think that there isnt any real interest in addressing any other issue than harassing GA pilots.

I recall an infrigement or was it that I was responsible for. I had my clearance from Bournemouth all buttoned up and correct, something like straight through the middle West / East. Burnmenouth directly abuts Solent, so one might have thought that given there was no possible way out of the zone without passing through Solent, the two controllers might have managed to co-ordinate a handover. Of course not, that would be far to simple, so I was accordingly chastised. It was a long time ago, and perhaps now I would be on the course.

Now, I always ask for that explicit onward clearance, usually to be met with a certain incredulity, as to why I would be insisting on a handover and squawk retention. There was even the occasion when I was told a handover was not possible. I wonder to this day whether I should have requested to take up an orbit or backtrack, but fortunately we sorted it out with a call to Solent even though I was still in Bournemouth class D which suggests that they actually do co-ordinate.

I know we have all been there, but the number of times I have been “refused” a service due to controller work load or radar performance – how you can really claim many infrigments could be avoided by communicating with ATC is beyond belief.

We probably should file a MOR every itme we hear those immortal words – controller workload or radar performance – that should result in some interesting statistics and engage the politicians that try as we might we cant get a service, even if we want it.