172driver wrote:
So you’d like some policeman to randomly check your drivers license every time you pull up to a gas station or supermarket?
If it’s a 5 sec thing? Why not?
In my opinion this is much better than the very same policemen block the road and do a thorough document check and FST on everybody who passes by, causing a hug traffic jam and hrs of delay for all drivers.
And yes: In 2022 there could be even a better solution. All relevant data could be stored electronically and you simply don’t get a clearance if one of your papers is not as it should be. Could all be fully automatic without any hassle for pilots at all.
Snoopy wrote:
How many accident investigations revealed „expired rating“ as contributing?
This is not the question! If we believe that ratings, medicals, etc. are irrelevant for flight safety, we need to fight against the necessity of these. But as long as there is a legal requirement to have these, there need to be checks and they should be organized in a way that we do not have any hassle with them.
Setting up the requirement for certain licenses, ratings, paperwork, etc. and then not controlling it is in my opinion the worst a government can do!
Peter wrote:
I can’t believe somebody wants more police / surveillance activity!
I don’t want more, I want it better spread – rather than participating in the “it could cost you an hour to be checked”-lottery, I’d rather have a slim process that doesn’t bother me at all. They can check my medical every time I board a plane if they want to – I don’t care, they have my data anyways. As long as it is no hassle for me, they can do what they want!
Like I said, no matter what is done, it needs to be paid for, and it’s clear that in some/much of aviation this cost is resented (objected to, by the funding body, which mostly sees the airport as a facility for the filthy rich).
The problem is that the issue is not simply sidestepped. The problem is that it is solved by withdrawing the airport facilities.
As a comparison, imagine that the general police budget was cut to 10%. It would be great for criminals. But would the govt impose a curfew from sunset to sunrise, to restore crime levels to previous numbers? No, because the public would not stand for it. But in the aviation context, that’s exactly what does happen. Airport facilities (for international flights) get withdrawn, airport traffic drops (by some variable amount, in some cases a lot) and the airport economics is negatively affected. Over years, we get a reduction in facilities. Hmmm, that’s funny, that’s exactly what is happening, isn’t it??? Why is everybody flying to Le Touquet now? Because most of the rest of the N French police don’t want to go to work!
And the cost rises sharply once you move up the food chain from “simple police” to “somebody smart”. A policeman can just about read the text on a license. The pilot’s name. He will know how to use his 9mm (on a good day) 
but he won’t have the brainpower to realise that the lack of the words INSTRUMENT PILOT (on the FAA plastic card) together with the METAR (what is a metar??) showing OVC002 might just possibly suggest some crime was committed To do such a check you need somebody from the CAA, and not just anybody (most people in the CAA licensing department here barely know what an instrument rating is, too, IME); it needs to be somebody on at least 50k.
And this “50k guy” will need to sit on his bum until the conditions are OVC002 and then, perhaps also watching FR24, he will quickly drive down to his local non-IAP non-ATC non-whatever airfield to see if he can catch somebody. I would predict that he will catch absolutely nobody for a year, because in such conditions there is almost nobody flying, and far fewer are doing DIY IAPs, and those are legal in the UK anyway
There are countries in Europe where GA is strongly taxpayer subsidised but this is doomed in the long run, and the activity will gradually collapse into ULs operating off grass strips, under the radar.
Malibuflyer wrote:
I don’t want more, I want it better spread – rather than participating in the “it could cost you an hour to be checked”-lottery, I’d rather have a slim process that doesn’t bother me at all. They can check my medical every time I board a plane if they want to – I don’t care, they have my data anyways. As long as it is no hassle for me, they can do what they want!
Is that like saying: it’s good that France has finally restored its internal borders, so now we can occasionally in a random fashion fine some dodgy German, Belgian, Dutch, Spanish pilots who go to big airports without PN but that is not enough it’s good that have that done regularly in small grass strips as well, for every landing…
Seriously??!!
Fines are becoming a sensitive topic.
I had a CAA “ramp check” at my homebase when I was a PPL student. I was about to go fly solo, so they checked the written authorisation by the instructor (he was standing there anyway) and such things.
I don’t remember any other “ramp check”. I mean, I’ve had the UK Border Force accost me as I stepped out of the plane (the local office didn’t get the GAR sent to the NCU apparently), and also (shortly after the “Bataclan terrorist shooting”) French customs officers on a flight to a Paris area airport, but I wouldn’t call these “ramp checks” but “border/immigration control”.
You got a very funny one at EGHQ
If you have filed a FPL, they MUST arrrive in time and proceed with all the ramp check with enough time for you to comply with the EOBT. I happened to me once, I had an slot, the sunset was approaching and my destination was VFR day-time only.
speed wrote:
If you have filed a FPL, they MUST arrrive in time and proceed with all the ramp check with enough time for you to comply with the EOBT.
Few weeks ago when I had ramp check at LIEA, I arrived to security check (and passed it) 45 min before EOBT then I waited 30 min for handling agent to arrive then ENAC agent was waiting for me in front of handler’s office then he took me 30 min, so I had to postpone my flight for some 20-30 min. I clearly explained that the police is waiting for me at my base airport in Croatia (immigration there is 2 hrs PPR) but that didn’t speed them up. So I called the guys at my base and let them know I’d be late. Whoever thinks ramp checks are useful obviously wasn’t in situation where this bureaucracy causes shitty delays.
And yes: In 2022 there could be even a better solution. All relevant data could be stored electronically and you simply don’t get a clearance if one of your papers is not as it should be. Could all be fully automatic without any hassle for pilots at all.
Could be expanded. „Your tax return is incomplete. Your house will remain locked with you inside until it is corrected.“
No thanks.
