I have received this email from Terry Holloway who is well known to many of you and MD of the Cambridge Flying Club.
I have campaigned for quite some time for jockeys to use a safer means of transport locally, since I watched Franki Dettori crash. They regularly fly from the grass strip at Newmarket in all sorts of aeroplanes and I have encouraged them to use a proper local airport such as Cambridge! Rightly you raise the Haydock Park accident which you and I discussed at the time. The fact of the matter is that jockeys are not particularly well paid – unless they get a winner – and that they are looking for flying on the cheap, and I do know that Dave Henderson has been flying jockeys in that very aeroplane.
My understanding is that it is not necessary to have an AOC to conduct that sort of flying. A pilot - however inexperienced – with a CPL is able, as I understand it, to transport anyone and be paid for doing so. Frankly, Dibbo with a PPL and 3700 hrs was probably much more competent, and safer, than a newly qualified CPL who only has 250 hours, and is hours building before he can get into an airline job. However, everyone has to start somewhere, but the issue for me with the jockeys is putting too much risk in the process: poor weather/inexperienced pilot/inadequate landing strips.
Wingly is a different matter, and as you know I have banned its use at the Cambridge Aero club – or rather banned our members using our aeroplanes for Wingly flights. I believe the intention of the CAA was to provide opportunities for young inexperienced holders of PPLs is to gain experience by flying more - to be safer - which is why they introduced the cost sharing scheme. Unfortunately, Wingly has exploited that, and you get the ridiculous situation where a PPL holder with maybe 50 or 60 hours is taking people for what is effectively a commercial flight. It goes rather deeper than that, because Wingly pilots are also allowing their passengers to handle the controls and that is strictly forbidden unless you happen to be a flying instructor. As the holder of an ATO I can teach people to fly, but because I do not have an AOC my highly experienced instructors cannot take people for passenger/charter flights in my aeroplanes – they can only be used for training! Another idiosyncrasy in the rules, Is that the CAA has placed very clear restrictions on PPL holders taking members of the public for a charity flight - de facto a commercial flight - but then Wingly runs roughshod over that as well! The Wingly pilots are not being supervised or controlled, and there are no weather minimal in force. It’s all very dangerous
Wingly needs to be stopped!