wbardorf wrote:
A legal expert with EU/international law experience should comment…
Or: “Let sleeping dogs lie . . .”
Qalupalik wrote:
The Basic and Aircrew Regulations, and the rest, will be incorporated into UK law as “retained EU law” on exit day. See the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018.
I know someone (legal sort) who, within the civil service, is involved with putting all this in place. Not aviation specific at all, but the stuff that gets incorporated into UK law as retained EU law.
The principle sounds simple on the face of it. Copy and paste. EU law becomes UK law.
The reality is not so simple when you start to examine the text of those laws. The text obviously contains many and frequent references to the EU itself, its institutions member states, third party states, things like that. It also contains lots of text relating to how the law interacts with national law and national governments.
If you just paste this into UK then it soon becomes apparent that the text will neither work in practice nor even make sense. So your people have to go through it line by line, editing it such that the meaning is kept but making it make sense as the law of one state rather than a conglomerate of 28 (or 27).
The nature of it is that some things will need to be almost completely re-written. This then threatens to increase the scope of the project, because you start thinking about what you really want the law to do rather than just editing it to make it UK-relevant. Enormous potential for scope creep. What started as a simple concept becomes one of the most complex legislative projects ever undertaken.
Good post.
Plus the fact that in UK legal practice, any ambiguity is supposedly construed in favour of the defendant.
Much of EASA FCL doesn’t make sense unless re-written to some extent.
I thought that it will be left to the courts to decide on the “intention”, as and when it arises.
I will wait and see if Brexit changes anything, but at the moment I still don’t think I’ll try to get myself an IR.
Reasons:
Graham wrote:
The principle sounds simple on the face of it. Copy and paste. EU law becomes UK law.
That simple CTRL+C/V exercise does not apply to some generous UK derogation to the EU law, so one end up with heavy stuff (ironically called “The Great Repeal Bill”)
Take for example gliding, the UK community complained about how heavy Part-FCL on it: not just UK but many EU countries, but the feeling has been amplified by Brexit in the UK
The UK CAA & UK DfT has secured a 3 years derogation to Part-FCL for gliding (easy to negotiate as no one in the EU cares that you get winched on a 3min local flight around Norfolk)
Meanwhile, the feedback got back to EASA from members on how heavy Part-FCL was for gliding and something lighter is now coming in next few years (light Part-Gliding is a slow story as was CBIR, BIR…)
On that simple CTRL+C/V from DfT, the UK will end up with Part-FCL “as-is with no derogation” while in “brexit transition” for its Gliding administered by own regulators. For aviation in general, this means a huge loss as regulation gets politically driven rather than technical (this was the case of EASA in early days, but less of a case now)
The UK was far more excellent in getting concessions while being a rule maker in the EU, not sure how much of this will apply in the “copy & past rule taker era”…I am not sure if 5 years of regulatory pain from national regulator is worth the independence :)
Graham wrote:
Enormous potential for scope creep.
From the soft despotism of the Commission to the soft despotism of Whitehall.
Graham wrote:
I really do not want to do any theory exams – I find them painful and frustrating because of how irrelevant they are and I’m not very good at them. I do not want to be held over a barrel by an ATO – access to the test should not be in their gift.
A Canadian IR followed by a Part-FCL one under the competency-based process meets these needs. The experience requirement is largely met by your IMC/IR(R) training and usage. The knowledge burden is substantially less onerous. There is only one written exam for the IR. There is no need for a visa, a TSA-like assessment, an ATO evaluation or course completion certificate, Part-FCL written exams, and admin fees (on the Canadian side) are low. The rating is easily maintained and eases the hassle of renewing a Part-FCL IR, again reducing ATO-dependence. The rating (and parent licence) may also be converted, by written exam and application made in person, to a US equivalent and a US IPC is accepted by Canada for maintaining the validity of its IR. There are about fifty Canadian medical examiners in Europe concentrated mainly in London and Paris.Graham wrote:
I can see it being a hassle to define/prove a lot of my logbook time as IFR
That’s not your problem. The regulator has facilitated your flying under the IFR outside CAS by merely adjusting your state of mind.
