Eee Bye Gum................this thread has woken up a treat. Many thanks all of you though please read the other forums as well. Lady in Red - nearly had you as my background music to an aerobatic glider airshow act once. It was but 15 years ago when the BCPL came in. We had a safe system prior to that largely where remunerated PPLs did the instructing. I do have a shrewd idea that overall safety in the private, sporting and recreational aviation field has not changed all that much but it has got ridiculously expensive. WE NEED MORE FOLK COMING INTO OUR HOBBY. It has ever been the case that the junior BALPA members have seen instructing as a route to the jet's right hand seat. Those who take up flying for a future career are a very small proportion and that MUST be appreciated by you all. Sorey if I am talking down to you but I do feel you all miss the point - or at least a fair proportion of you do. In any case I am 65 and a seniur citizen so there - a self confessed member of OFFA (the Old Flying Farts Association) - but not yet in my dotage; putting plus 5 and minus 2 on the G meter regularly. I only want what, in essence, the BGA in SLMG and the BMAA in microlights have had for the past 25 years at least. Is there some moral barrier between them and us???? I think not.
Trapper 69