What has EASA actually done for us?

Rwy20 wrote:

Isn’t that really some achievement?

That’s a good point. We all need to join AOPA!

It’s early days, but in due course, the Common Rules of the Air (aka SERA) may well be seen as a significant improvement. Some national CAAs have done their best to scupper the concept, but they haven’t been entirely successful – and the tide of pan-European regulation may be against them.

For instance the utterly subjective Rule 6(a)(ii) “when landing and taking-off in accordance with normal aviation practice” exemption to the old UK “five hundred feet rule” has been replaced by “except when necessary for take-off or landing” in SERA.3105.

The new wording deserves 12 gold stars for combining clarity with brevity and a subtle but significant relaxation of the previous UK rule.

On the other hand, I’m struggling to understand how some of Part-NCO applies to a poor Galloway farmer… Do we need dangerous goods operator approval to carry a scatter-gun and a heap of ammo when visiting a neighbour to help thin out his pheasants and partridges? Or a pit bike, or (up to three) 20-litre jerrycans of petrol? I guess not for an ELA2 aircraft, and I’m certainly not saying that the previous (UK) rules were any better or clearer…

Some of these rules will always be disregarded by some people and that’s perfectly normal… not unique to aviation.

Peter wrote:

Any more specific offers on what else EASA has done which is good or bad?

I’m very happy about part-NCO which in some places have major improvements on Swedish regulations that have been around for at least 30 years.

Posts moved here from elsewhere

mh wrote:

+1. Especially since EASA has proven they are serious about create easier rules for GA.

You understand of course that their method is the way of brain washing. First break them down, then build them up the way you want them. The last 20 years EASA has done nothing but to destroy GA. Now, they start to make things easier, so it ends up similar to the the way it was before EASA started their destruction. So what exactly is it we should be happy about? 20 years of destruction? Or do you mean we should thank them for finally opening their eyes? I guess we could view EASA as a kind of tidal wave we cannot change in any way. We just have to live with it, and be happy when the tide is low.

LeSving wrote:

it ends up similar to the the way it was before EASA started their destruction.

Both part-NCO, the coming part-ML and indeed the current part-M for ELA1 aircraft are except for a few cases considerably less restrictive than Swedish regulations were at than time – and have been until now.

Now part-FCL is another matter, particularly for the IR. No doubt about that. But even that is getting better than it was pre-EASA with the LAPL and the BIR.

LeSving wrote:

The last 20 years EASA has done nothing but to destroy GA.

EASA started to become operational in 2006. That was 10 years ago, calculating the way I was taught algebra. And I have not seen any destruction yet around me. The number of GA aircraft at my base, ranging from Katana to executive A319 has remained completely stable, everyone employed in that sector (instructors, pilots, handling agents, mechanics, aircraft cleaners, …) still has their job and is paid better than ten years ago. “Destruction” would look different, wouldn’t it?

Airborne_Again wrote:

Now part-FCL is another matter, particularly for the IR. No doubt about that. But even that is getting better than it was pre-EASA with the LAPL and the BIR.

How many different rating and licenses are we going to have to fly a light GA aircraft? How many reiterations of various licenses and ratings are we going to have? and for what purpose? It’s like there are a bunch of bureaucrats in Germany somewhere making up stuff, just for the fun of it without any idea of what they are doing. In addition one have to spend days and days, just finding the regulations and understanding what they mean. Maybe lots of Swedes were in EASA earlier, making it the way it was?

When I got my license in 1992, there were only one license, the PPL. In addition there was an IFR license. The IFR license (a “proof” literally translated, more like a rating), was a separate thing. Lots of people had PPL and IFR licenses, it had nothing to do with CPL or ATPL. With that license I could fly anything with MTOW below 5700 kg. Laws and regulations were in 6 "BSL"s, everything orderly and tidy arranged, easy to find, straight forward to understand.

At ENVA there were 3 private schools, and dozens of light GA aircraft. Light aircraft could be fixed and maintained by any mechanics, no requirements for “authorized organizations” nor “authorized flight schools”.

Things were much easier. Flying here is difficult enough with weather, light (lack of), cold and long distances. We just don’t need clueless regulations in addition to that. During the last 20 years, the PPL community has been destroyed. Only a fraction left. Microlights are blooming, there are more private experimentals here now than private certified aircraft. For all practical purposes, EASA has made themselves irrelevant for the majority of GA.

Peter wrote:

Posts on EASA moved here

mh wrote (in the “other” thread):

Anyway, EASA hasn’t have the alleged negative impact, you’re just distributing gossip and intimidate new pilots

Which new pilots are intimidated? Seriously mh. There have never been more people flying, in Norway for instance, than today. There have never been more aircraft around than today. There have never been more airfields with aircraft distributed all over. At the same time, there have never been so few PPLs, never been so few certified light GA aircraft. I mean, who has a problem? The GA community in Norway does not have a problem. EASA has a problem. EASA has made themselves irrelevant to the very people they want to “serve”. That is the problem, but it is first and foremost a problem for EASA. I, as many others here, stand with one foot in each camp. We are all wondering what the future will bring, and our only way to see, is to look at what has happened in the past.

EASA is changing, and that is good. It’s a step fwd in the right direction here, a step back in the right direction here. I see some change in peoples attitude, it is more positive than in a long time. Ultimately it is too little, too late, it seems to me, at least for the majority of GA pilots. Building up again the certified/PPL community that once was? Why even try, when there are RVs and Lancairs everywhere, super advanced microlights everywhere, minimal bureaucracy. In the UK, you can even train to PPL in your own RV that you have built yourself – and – later on use it to cruise around Europe IFR. That IS the present, and the future. That and lots of Annex II vintage types.

Microlights will get a bump upwards in MTOW from today’s 450 kg. It may be to 525 kg or 600 kg, or something in between, but it will come. CS-LSA – a huge flop, CS-VLA also. What we will be left with is microlights up to 600 kg (but I bet EASA will go for something more arbitrary, like 542 kg or something, just to make a statement of who is in charge or some other similar nonsense, and make it different from US LSA). CS-LSA will be gone. CS-VLA will also be gone, it will become part of ELA.