Yes I am fairly sure the FI gets to spend some “time” on it. I say this because
“a solo student is flying on the FI’s license so the FI is certainly responsible”
This is actually a massive urban myth that many instructors perpetuate- there is no such thing. Pilot in command is pilot in command, it’s just a student on an approved course does not need a licence.
Peter, are you suggesting EuroGA flyers should use “student callsign”? 
Peter wrote:
I doubt FIs bust much CAS due to the highly local nature of the flying
On the other hand, focus on the student and perhaps dealing with one who struggles can be very distracting, think “two-crying-babies-while-the-wife-is-using-the-sick-bag” level of distraction.
a solo student is flying on the FI’s license so the FI is certainly responsible
Almost. The responsibility of the instructor is to only send the student solo when the necessary training has been given, and the student meets the standard. So the instructor may have to demonstrate this using the training records, but that would be all.
Peter wrote:
Yes I am fairly sure the FI gets to spend some “time” on it. I say this because on the Gasco course there appeared to be several FIs, and I doubt FIs bust much CAS due to the highly local nature of the flying
Did you ask what was their circumstances?
This may be entirely accidental but the session was organised so that talking to others in an “off message” manner wasn’t really possible. Even over lunch, you were sitting at a table with one of the presenters sitting right there. People did have a good laugh in the toilets though.
You could have a chat afterwards but with most people having very long journeys, most were keen to get out and get back on the road.
As I wrote earlier, it was a pity that individual cases were not discussed. They should have been, without giving personal details of course. Then people might have got something out of it, instead of sitting there all day and listening to generalities like needing to allow 2 miles around all CAS. I strongly suspect however that such a route would have revealed that the course content was missing the point, with most delegates being experienced pilots who did a brief screwup. Certainly all those I spoke to did exactly that.
I am interested about the length of the course. I gather the comparable (in some respects) speed awareness is usually around 4 hours. Is a full days course useful?
Is a part day’s course useful?
Well, that is another question!
At least if everyone arrived at say 11 and left at say 4, thats a good five hours with a working lunch, I suspect everyone could manage without anything more. That would enable a sensible days outing for most. Might save the instructors some money as well.
The Gasco course started 09:30 and ended 15:30, with half an hour for lunch.
I don’t think a later start helps because most people travelled for hours, and nobody can take a risk on the traffic. The terms state that a late arrival is a “no show”, and with the CAA stating that you must do it within 90 days of their “judgement”, and with most people being able to do maybe only two of them within that deadline, you don’t really want to blow one away. Especially as a “no show” is going to be reported to the CAA as such, so you have to sort that out even if you do make the next one. In this business nobody wants to stick their neck out. For the extra 100 quid, people will stay the previous night locally.
A shorter course would not cover the subjects presented. The presentation was already very fast. I could barely make notes. Whether it is relevant to the delegate profile (mostly high hour pilots with Mode S, and with poor ATC services OCAS complicit in many/most cases) is something I have posted my views on already 
I had a meeting with another pilot today who has been flying for many more years than I have and who thinks this policy is going to be a disaster for UK GA.
Interesting to report that ATC is also pretty concerned. I flew within 4nm of the Solent Class D, within a dead straight line, and they got so worried they wanted to take me over from Farnborough. Of course getting better service from ATC is always a good thing but I get the feeling that a lot of sh*t is getting kicked up around the place. Individual ATCOs are obviously not stupid and they don’t want to be complicit in some cock and bull scheme which decimates GA in the UK.
