I’d say the data set will be miniscule because infringements are 100% MORd.
So 100% of infringers will have already made reports to NATS, then to CAA, and then waited for the “sentencing”, hoping it will be just the warning letter.
So both NATS and CAA already each have a report from the infringer.
If this chap is NATS/CAA then he will already have the basic data, and if the pilot phones him up on 07914 815857 (the number he publicly posted elsewhere) he will have to pretend he hasn’t already seen it.
This “research” sounds like a Masters. Hard to see it could be a PhD – you would have to bang away at it for years, bouncing it back and forth to the supervisor until they get tired… My GF is rather familiar with the idea; she used to supervise PhD students. The general concept of doing an aviation related grad or postgrad academic subject at a London college is a standard CAA staff activity to get promotion, especially if you spent many years in the Forces. The more feathers in your hat… There is a variety of easy options for meeting the entry qualification for these adult courses. The colleges love it too; it’s easy money.
And if somebody did a bust which didn’t get noticed then he will be keeping his mouth extremely tightly shut. Unlike me, who phoned to apologise in 2019 for one they didn’t MOR, and got busted to gasco 
I don’t want to belittle a chap if he is actually using his pension and savings to self fund a phd. However, from what I’ve gathered it appears to have no great value whatsoever. Perhaps like the majority of humanities papers it will never be cited. It does seem that there’s more to it than he has indicated.
This bloke has popped up on a few forums and social media with his research project.
The content, focus, tone, language and general ‘look and feel’ make it fairly obvious to me that he is connected in some way or another with the CAA, NATS or some other part of the UK airspace/regulatory system.
I don’t buy the idea that a random academic suddenly wants to look into such a specific aspect of aviation for reasons entirely unconnected with the furore around CAA policy on this.
Apart from anything else it’s bound to be pretty poor research. At best he is going to get a handful of one-sided accounts of entirely separate events. The dataset will be very small and it’ll be almost impossible to quantify any aspect of it or draw any conclusions beyond the very obvious.
Ibra wrote:
That may not be obvious to even pilots…
That’s why many research studies show something different from what an uninformed reader (or the media) think they show,
But in research it is well known that the exact way you formulate questions is crucial.
Airborne_Again wrote:
The difference between the two research questions may seem subtle but is actually fundamental.
That may not be obvious to even pilots…
A google on the email address posted openly in post #1 immediately shows the person is/was “on the student list” of the institution. What this means, we don’t know, but we do know that roughly 100% of the CAA infringements enforcement dept. has a Masters in Air Safety Management, albeit from a different London college.
However any regular EuroGA reader cannot avoid noticing a number of people popping up, posting basically the same stuff in the same language, tone and general attitude, and then disappearing. Like the guy claiming to be a pilot who sails from Jersey, who vanished as soon as somebody asked him about anchorage off Sark. Last year, they just kept popping up… and always in the same 1 or 2 threads related to pilot criminality, and always with zero interest in anything to do with flying a plane.
It reminds me of a great line from Sea of Love where Al Pacino is chatting up some woman; she asks him what he does; he replies “a printer” and she says “my ex was a cop; if you’re a printer, I’ve got a dick”.
James_Chan wrote:
If we are well and truly willing to help reduce infringements, then contributions to research projects should help with that.
It depends on the research question. The question that should be asked is “why do infringements happen”. Instead this particular project asked “why do pilots infringe” and “why pilots continue to make mistakes”. The difference between the two research questions may seem subtle but is actually fundamental.
I quote myself from the second post in this thread:
Airborne_Again wrote:
It seems that your research is pilot-centered — indeed, you seem to make the implicit assumption that infringements are primarily or even solely caused by “pilot mistakes”. In reality the design of airspace and ATC/FIS services are major causal factors in causing pilots to make “mistakes” in the first place. Any research in this area should use a systems approach — not a pilot-centered approach.
I genuinely don’t know why some people are being so harsh here.
If we are well and truly willing to help reduce infringements, then contributions to research projects should help with that.
Not sure I agree with some suggesting there are darker ulterior motives behind this project when it comes to dealing with prosecutions and the like.
He’s just posted elsewhere " I do agree there will always be those who simply can’t be bothered and I am not sure how we can legislate for them." [my bold] which gives the game away a bit…
When we drilled into it sounded highly suspect to me.
