Regulations which are possibly completely pointless

You need some concrete examples: a currency rule was invented by an ATO on their airfield that you need to have a recurrent sign-offs on each runway number before flying solo, this was introduced without much thinking after a student accident

The drawback one may have to wait 6 months to have your/aircraft/instructor availability to get a south-easterly wind check, so it did not generate that much “training business” actually it “killed business” but at least ATOs have incentive to keep some “safety-business” balance unlike other puritanical agents…

Also,
- What a check flight have apart from cross-wind/short-field landings that every PPL knows already?
- What to do if wind changes while in the air: call Mayday? Land with tailwind? Divert to another AD?

Most of them?

I don’t think the 90 day rule is good but I accept that some rule has to be in place for airline pilots.
On longhaul with augmented ops it is sometimes difficult to get 3 legs as pf within 90 days due to other’s check/training sectors etc..

I can accept such a rule for nco but I don’t think it is adequate that a non current pilot flying his 3 flights to get current can’t take another pilot along (or that this pilot would be deemed a pax by regulation). A person qualified to operate a sep sitting in the front right with access to the controls is never just a passenger.
Technically, if the left pilot dies the right pilot could not fly because he is just a passenger. That doesn’t make sense…

Snoopy wrote:

I don’t think the 90 day rule is good but I accept that some rule has to be in place for airline pilots.

I can accept such a rule for nco

The real “bitch” IMHO is the “per class” requirement. It doesn’t bite a large part of small/club GA, since they fly SEP only, but it is frustrating that if you have been flying a “light” MEP or SET a lot, you cannot hop in a “light” SEP and exercise your privileges to the full. I can understand that one cannot transfer:

• SE currency to ME currency
• multi-crew currency to single pilot currency and vice-versa
• currency between vastly different classes of performance (say, an airliner and a light aircraft)
  but the current rules are an unnecessary PITA when you fly multiple singe pilot light classes. Part of the problem is the EASA system which chops up light GA into more multiple classes than the FAA system (where single engine is single engine, whether that’s a piston or a turbine).

Part-NCO, IMHO we can largely trust most pilots; if they feel non-current, they will get refresher with a CRI. It is not like their employer will pressure them into it. The currency requirement could be abolished, or a far more lax legal requirement would IMHO be completely adequate; it could for example be a rolling version of the SEP revalidation experience criteria (12h in a year). Yes, any rule will have “unsafe” corner case (what if the the 12 are all > 11 months ago, etc), you can try to fix these (12h of which at least 1h in the last 3 months?), but again we can largely trust most pilot’s judgement.

How about the rule that NDB fix substitution may not be used in the Final Segment? Yes, it creates a tiny risk, but it eliminates much, much bigger ones.

The same goes for the UK CAA switching off the SBAS glidepath on LNAV/VNAV approaches. Pure, narrow minded bureaucracy trumping sensible aviation safety.

Then there is the rule around much of Europe that IFR is not permissible in Class G.

And the requirement for PBN sign off.

I wonder if the root of the problem is that too many regulators are air traffickers rather than pilots?

My favourite is in the Rules of the Air 2015:

Order of landing
9.— (2) If the commander of an aircraft which has previously been given permission to land gives way to another aircraft that is making an emergency landing at night, that commander must not attempt to land until the commander has received further permission to do so

Every time I give way to another aircraft that is making an emergency landing at night, I always forget what I have to do…

Not that it troubles many on here, but RVSM qualification is complete and utter drivel

You can’t beat local laws by French municipal mayors: “Any aircraft, known as a flying saucer or flying cigar, which should land on the territory of the community will be immediately held in custody.” (law that was intended to ban UFOs landings in the 50s)

Out of aviation topic but still from another mayor: “It is forbidden without a cemetery plot to die on the territory of the commune”