From here
Sorry to continue hijacking the thread about the ramp checks in Switzerland…
I found an insightful PDF from our Birrfeld neighbours: Ramp inspections Vortrag
As a proper “Suisse romand” my German is not stellar but one can read on p31: “Kenntnisse über eventuelle lokale Luftraumbeschränkungen sind
notwendig. (DABS, NOTAM)” (knowledge of potential airspace restrictions is necessary/mandatory (DABS/NOTAM)) . Furthermore, the PDF-enclosed ramp check’s “Protokoll” includes KOSIF as an item, which actually refers to the national CAA’s (FOCA) coordination office for firings and safety of air navigation. I believe that KOSIF is also the former name of the DABS.
Graham wrote:
Does anyone actually have a reference to the regulation which (apparently) says that a pilot in the NCO environment must be able to produce evidence of all these things for any given flight on demand?
Is this Ramp Inspection Programme relevant or does it only refer to Commercial?
This link gives the details.
The old UK wx briefing firm Avbrief.com (who I have been were at one time doing most business producing briefing packs for Netjets) told me they log all briefings, in case of an incident. And similarly NATS UK were logging all notam briefings done via their ais.org.uk (now owned by some betting outfit !! and I can’t find their narrow route briefing site on google – the main one is here) also log briefings, against your login credentials.
So, at some level at least, there is either a perceived need, or a need based on actual investigations, to log briefing data, in case the pilot didn’t log it, or it went up in smoke during the accident.
You cannot fix stupid.
Not after you have implemented a law enabling stupid people to cause trouble. But you can do it before. It just takes real balls, because it needs to be done in the face of an army of people telling you to do “something”.
Peter wrote:
This cannot be solved by legislation.
You cannot fix stupid.
As far as W&B goes, I also (a) never do it for my normal flying since I’m well within the limits and (b) use a spreadsheet. But in my flight bag I keep printouts of the spreadsheet done for 1, 2 and 3 “generic people” on board, so if anyone ever asked, I could produce it.
Does anyone actually have a reference to the regulation which (apparently) says that a pilot in the NCO environment must be able to produce evidence of all these things for any given flight on demand? Or is it just anticipatory obedience, as @Thomas_R suggests?
A requirement to do something is very different to a requirement to produce evidence of having done it. Of course I don’t argue with officials in foreign countries, but if a UK official asked to see evidence of me having checked the weather I would respond that, to my knowledge, I was under no obligation to produce such evidence.
If one really is under such an obligation, nearly all my flights are illegal.
Weather is a quick look at some METARs and TAFs on SkyDemon, and perhaps the general synopsis if going further afield. It is probably technically possible to produce evidence of the data having been accessed, but not in a quick “here, look at this” kind of way.
W&B and performance I rarely calculate, simply because the majority of the time I know by eyeballing the situation that I am well within limitations, i.e. well under MTOW and much more runway than I could ever need. On the rare occasions I do calculate it because it’ll be closer to the limits, all I do is open up a spreadsheet, run the particular numbers and having noted that I’m still within limits close the file without saving. Again, probably one could technically establish that it was done with forensic IT, but not in a way that facilitates easy inspection.
Especially as Germany has the concept of gross negligence which is different from “just making a cockup”.
I generate a pdf briefing with autorouter for each and every flight, even VFR. That comes to my inbox with minimum effort and in case of such a check it ticks many boxes. This is not just ramp checks. Also insurance might ask for your briefing if you have a claim etc.
I wish more countries would do that, even for VFR flights. Especially if it’s polite and properly frameworked (otherwise abuses are likely in many places).
The reality of GA accidents is more complex. I think in most accidents where they just flew into bad wx, the pilot was simply the type who gets the wx a) by looking out of the window and b) checking the BBC 
Ultimately the PPL training sausage machine is to blame for teaching mostly WW2 methods while collecting ~15k from every customer and telling him “now you have a license to learn” and all the other BS, while not having taught him how to plan the trivial flight from Shoreham to Le Touquet…
This cannot be solved by legislation.
The other thing is that if you place power in the hands of an individual, you need to have a system in place to make sure it doesn’t get abused. This is a hugely important principle. Abuse of power is widespread, probably because most people love abusing their power And here you are talking about placing very specific powers which require considerable intelligence and training (beyond PPL training level) in the hands of people who will be awfully hard to recruit, train and retain. And they will have huge powers – enough to ground the flight, as a starting point.
Hence all the ramp checks I have had in my 22 years were done by complete muppets who, thankfully, were not really bothered about looking hard at anything.
And forget the general police – they definitely can’t do meaningful ramp checks.
I wish more countries would do that, even for VFR flights. Especially if it’s polite and properly frameworked (otherwise abuses are likely in many places).
As I noted here, up to 30% of fatal accidents could potentially be prevented with a proper (legal) briefing, and the threat of such a detailed ramp check could encourage more people to do a proper preparation. Even today I hear reports of pilots checking NOTAMs and weather when already airborne.
