ICAO is a necessary evil, much like any organization that attempts universal oversight of any activity
Excuse me to disagree, Silvaire: ICAO does not attempt to oversee whatever. It doesn’t even attempt to regulate: its purpose is solely to define terminology and procedures, so that all local authorities use the same toolset when setting up their own regulations. It is up to national authorities to set up their own laws/rules and to oversee their correct application.
As for the THRE/TDZE example: I heartily agree it is a stupid story (or for the tender souls: I couldn’t suppress a slight smile when reading that…) but there is only one party to blame and it is not ICAO…
So, if ICAO in it’s unsexy partnership with the ill-favored UN is not a good platform for common grounds, what is? If the US in fact “initiated” the ICAO, why the animosity?
In general there isn’t any animosity, and the FAA has an ongoing and very active effort to achieve the greatest level of compliance with ICAO. However, complete harmonization is not always practical. That is why each country publishes an AIP with the differences.
However, there are a few changes that are difficult to swallow, particularly when the US has adopted and implemented the technology and practices long before ICAO agreed on a specific topic. An example in point is GPS approaches and use of GPS in navigation and substitution for ground based Navaids. We were fat dumb and happy using our GPS stand alone and overlay approaches, when we had to learn all new terminology. We changed to RNAV (GPS) with LNAV, LNAV/VNAV, LP and LPV minimums. So we relearned the terminology, at least some of us have. Now ICAO has renamed these approaches as RNP 0.3 and is working on renaming it once again to PBN. The US did not see a benefit in renaming the 13,000+ procedures that it had already fielded and noted that they would not be complying with the new naming conventions. The US has implemented almost 3400 LPV approaches and another 550+ LP procedures. I haven’t done a count of the rest of the world, but doubt it exceeds several hundred procedures with France being in the lead for the number 2 spot with 64 LPV approaches as of 3/15/2014.
So to answer your question, sometimes when the US invents a technology, implements it, operates if for many years and then has to change its terminology to satisfy an international standard group without there being a clear improvement in the system, it is not always well received.
Yes – I think that is a good example of where the USA has been ahead of ICAO’s slow adoption of new stuff.
I think ICAO has brought good things and bad things.
The good things for us – and this won’t apply in the USA – are supporting private aviation in so far as no country has completely banned it outright. There are countries where if you landed there there is a fair chance the locals will boil you up into a soup, but you can still file a flight plan there (having obtained the various permissions, via an overflight agent who bribes their officials) and land there. Nearer home, in Europe, there are countries where I am sure private GA would have never been permitted without ICAO.
The price paid for this is the ICAO component and airframe certification system. A lot of people, flying non ICAO CofA planes, don’t like that, but they do have the choice.
The bad things about ICAO is that like much of aviation regulation it seems to have become the last place of refuge for people with nothing better to do than inventing pointless new regs – like the PBN garbage which just plays into the hands of Garmin and looks like forcing most European IFR pilots into spending loads of money for zero new capability. I can fully understand the USA is not interested in this stuff. If I was them, I would stick a finger up to ICAO and file a difference.
Back to Vx and Vy, if that is OK with the rest of you?
I defer to those with specific type experience on ground grippers, and admit to having flown some early microlights which felt at all times as if they hated being in the air. I still maintain that the majority of light aircraft will talk to the pilot if he or she will relax the death grip, remove the clogs and boxing gloves, look out of the window and relax in the seat. At any phase of flight the aircraft will communicate how it feels. Às pilots, we then communicate what we want it to do via the same controls that we feel.
We can’t ask an aircraft to break the laws of aerodynamics. If we do it will not be able to obey our unreasonable demand and will tell us so. Those of us who listen attentively will notice this before anything approaching a disaster occurs. The rest will probably wait for the stall warner, or the nosewheel shimmy, or the crunching sound that reminds us we should have lowered the wheels prior to landing.
Noise avoidance…..Don’t make me angry. As I was once told by my cheerful Polish instructor as I turned to avoid the town centre, fully fine pitch and all 260 horses galloping away “they don’t like aeroplanes they go live somewhere else. We got here first.” How about being a bit less defensive about the fact that we fly? We don’t need to deliberately beat up the barbecue, just use a sensible flightpath and a sensible climb angle. And maybe invite the neigbours to come see what we are doing. No cringing.
I might mention that my POH, approved at great expense by the Campaign Against Aviation, is for the wrong wing, wrong propeller, and wrong engine. The redline speed for the engine is given in two different places, at two different rpm. I have given it no attention for the last twenty years, as the only correct information appears to be the aircraft registration, the total fuel capacity and the number of seats.
Don’t get me started on three degree approaches in light aircraft or I might get rude.
This is, unless I got it wrong, a General Aviation forum. Please can we bury under a steaming heap of horse apples this pseudo airline nonsense, and get on with an activity that is supposed to be fun?
This is, unless I got it wrong, a General Aviation forum. Please can we bury under a steaming heap of horse apples this pseudo airline nonsense,
Please allow me to disagree. Every airline pilot has started his flying life in general aviation since flying schools are part of it. Business aviation (piston, turboprop and jet driven), ambulance flying, aerial work, crop spraying and a few more are all general aviation. And have their place on this forum.
There were a seemingly endless number of Cub variants.
Silvaire, so true – while airfoil on the J3 is different, wingspan is similar to the PA18. I am not aware there was ever an official J-3-95, but many have been re engined this way.
Hopefully this ends the thread drift on this topic!
Silvaire, so true – while airfoil on the J3 is different, wingspan is similar to the PA18. I am not aware there was ever an official J-3-95, but many have been re engined this way.
Wingspan similar? Um, no. Nearly 2m more on the Super Cub. I did once try to get my Cub into a space vacated by a J3. Two more ribs per side. And as for thread drift, I will just say ICAO and leave it at that. I think the J3 95 is a Pa11?
Please allow me to disagree. Every airline pilot has started his flying life in general aviation since flying schools are part of it. Business aviation (piston, turboprop and jet driven), ambulance flying, aerial work, crop spraying and a few more are all general aviation. And have their place on this forum.
Yes, they do. But when we teach on a light single it is not appropriate to teach airline practice.
But when we teach on a light single it is not appropriate to teach airline practice.
If it is described this way in our approved training manual it is appropriate. I didn’t write the manual and I didn’t approve it, but either I instruct according to this manual or I better look for another job.
Piper.Classique,
There are some who fly micro-lights or light planes, and the feel of the plane can be a good guide. Some fly heavier types, and no, the aircraft will not tell you it’s ready to fly at a speed where it definitely can (and where the POH says you should make it fly). The Take-off trim position gives you the right attitude after liftoff, but does not cause it at the right speed (if anything in my plane I need to trim nose down fairly soon after take-off as speed builds up).
As for the “we were there before so too bad for the NIMBYS” attitude, guess everyone’s got the right to be rude and careless towards others, doesn’t mean we should.
The challenge with my aircraft is that it will tell you it is ready to fly before you have enough rudder authority to counter torque.
