Originally Posted by
ivor toolbox
But, I was a member of ALAE ( as well as SLAET at the time) so.... it was my interests too that he should have been defending. It was pre JAR btw as you rightly surmise ; he was trying to argue that we A8-13 certifiers were less safe , some of us pointed out we were members, only to be ignored.
Ttfn
In general terms they were less safe the statistics proved it. Of course in amongst all that there were some very good certifiers. It has been a source of debate for some time. Industry doesn't want to accept the truth as it would increase costs and they successfully lobby NAA's to keep this discussion off the radar.
Draw your own conclusions from several events. Back in the late 60's the CAA proposed a non licensed system. Legislation was submitted to make the change. When the A8-13 certifer trials ran in the late 60's early 70's incidents increased significantly. This resulted in the formation of ALAE and they successfully fought to keep the licence. The government official statement at the time was that the increase in incidents was not because of the A8-13 certifiers but because of the introduction of the 747.
My own personal experience of european unlicensed systems is that they are definately less robust, open to abuse and result in more incidents. This may be due to culture I don't know. For me safety without compromise comes first, therefore licence.