That can never happen in Europe, because it would imply the return to freelance instruction for ab initio licenses and ratings, which cannot be allowed in the "European scheme" which runs on approving / certifying an organisation, not an individual.
I understand that Peter, but "never" is a funny word. As before I'd suggest that in the fullness of time there will be a choice between 'economic stagnation through over-government' and principled revolution. I don't think EU evolution on its current track is going to work economically or in any way other than to reduce the historical European tribal warfare, which is an important but incomplete goal. I could be wrong, and probably won't live long enough to know either way!
I have to wonder what happened to the promise by the bigwigs of EASA to remove suffocating regulation on GA. They don't seem to be living up to their promise - questions need to be asked about how this is consistent with their promise to make regulation proportionate.
Well, they will sustain that it is proportionate...:-(
..and that it cannot be further reduced in the interest of...you guessed it...safety.
Gosh, did I mention that I hate "safety". Just as much as "standardization", "quality management" and "rule-making"...
over on pprune is says the caa template manuals are available 79 pages long which will no doubht increase in size.
I would really love to find out what the french requireç
> Of course, make them employees. Nothing prevents somebody working for multiple companies.
Peter, I don’t think you know what EASA demands from Nominated Post Holders, at least it doesn’t come across from your comments.
A “Nominated Post Holder” can not be your 5 yo son, 72 yo mother or any other such example unless he/she also meets the requirements for knowledge and experience. I’ve held multiple Posts in an airline operation and was involved with setting up an FTO, it’s not quite that simple.
What EASA are demanding is that one-man RF operations become companies more or less, meeting the same requirements as FTOs and TRTOs. The difference will be in the level of the organization, so for an ATO offering PPL and NQ several posts may be held by the same individual, and there may not be requirements for full time staff.
An RF was a loosely organized operation, typically a Flight Instructor and someone contracted to provide Technical Overview – that was all it took.
As with a number of recent EASA changes, the benefit/intention is difficult to comprehend.
OK I wasn’t aware EASA required specific qualifications for the post holders.
In that case there is still the remaining option of sharing post holders across nearby companies. Nothing stops a given person being a paid employee of several companies.
Does EASA require the post to be 37.5hrs/week and paid at the respective national minimum wage for that number of hours? That would be crazy because it would amount to setting the fixed costs of an ATO at a very high figure, regardless of the amount of business it is doing.
>the benefit/intention is difficult to comprehend
It’s always interesting to speculate who drove that proposal. Most likely it was driven by the existing FTO industry which did not want to lose business to smaller schools. It’s even possible it was a part of a quid pro quo for getting agreement on stuff like the CB IR, which let’s face it is sure to reduce FTO flight training revenue, so the last thing the FTOs would have wanted would have been the ability of a “PPL school” to train the CB IR… that would have really hit the FTO industry hard.
That’s quite often how it is done Peter, but it depends on the size of the operation. For a small company (airline in this case) the CAA may grant that one person has more than one position. I was Flight Ops and Crew Training at one point for example.
This would be the case also for an ATO (or FTO/TRTO in the past) where the Chief Flight Instructor could also be Head of Training or Accountable Manager etc.
I believe that the CAA understands that flying clubs are not companies and as such rely on the interest of individuals to spend their free time “working” for the club’s school. I would be surprised if they enforced employment requirements upon us, but they also need to ensure minimum requirements are met.
> Most likely it was driven by the existing FTO industry which did not want to lose business to smaller schools.
I do not believe that at all. An RF poses no threat to an FTO/TRTO because they are only allowed to provide PPL and NQ training, something many professional schools want to stay away from anyway unless the student intends to go through to CPL/ME/IR and ATPL levels.
The changes in Part-FCL to ATO level for all schools means that any previous RF who provided club training now must upgrade to a level where they are no longer limited, and could provide ME, IR and B737 Type Ratings if they fancy. How is that better for the FTO/TRTO lobbyists? I think it’s quite the opposite, legislators wanting flight training to be difficult, expensive, prohibitive and complicated, because they’re not really interested in flying anyway. In other words, lawyers…
Update: The UK CAA gave out CDs with the ATO template documents to RTF owners attending a Gatwick meeting on Friday.
Nothing in these templates contributes anything towards safety. Meanwhile, the experience requirements for instructor training and Examiner certification are reduced by 80%, a clear indication the Eurocrats have no idea what they are doing.
Are the templates useful to a small RF in their ATO conversion compliance process?
I have never been an instructor so can’t judge the instructor training requirement but the thing I have always viewed (as a customer) as the biggest “instructor experience” problem is that most of them have never been past the crease in the map, and they are unable or unwilling to pass on knowledge of how to fly somewhere useful. Consequently most people that get a PPL have no confidence about flying somewhere, and give up fast. The problem is compounded by the unwillingness of most schools to have experienced PPLs hanging around.
