I may be a reactionary b*****d, but I am certainly not blinkered.
I want to see what are the real problems, yes the average age for a PPL maybe in the 40's, but is that any different from 20 years ago?
I will admit to a slight lack of knowledge about the BGA and BMAA, but I am certainly not unaware of their existance and my ignorance is compared to knowledge of current PPL issues.
My annoyance is with the peculiarily British disease of looking back with fondness and forgetting how crap things really were. If there are problems with the current system, lets find them and fix them, rather than go through the enormous hassle and expense to change a system that is working currently.
I for one am fed up with things changing every 5 minutes and having to explain these changes ad-nauseam. The change from UK to JAR being a prime example that is still causing mass confusion.
Why are there less PPL's than there were 20 years ago, simple COST.
Who is teaching is totally irrelevant. The current crop of FI's have CPL's, the last lot had BCPL's before that PPL's. So what. We all have hoops to jump through and this is just another one.
Do you need a CPL to teach PPL's, no of course not and in theory I agree that the current system is daft if all you are going to teach is ab-initio PPL, but many instructors teach at a higher level, CPL and I/R for example. How are they to get the experience if there are loads of 'cheap' PPL instructors around?
What you are proposing is a fundamental change in the whole licensing system and I don't feel it is likely or necessary.
G-KEST, you helped write the current rules, now you fall foul of them on a medical issue. It seems like bad grapes to try and change them to suit yourself, since I know plenty of others who can't teach any more for similar reasons. They understood why and accepted it.
I would NOT be happy to have somebody working for me who had had a Heart attack no matter how minor. The risk is not worth taking when you ahve a Trial lesson on board and if you were incapacitated they would have virtually NO chance. I couldn't ask someone to take that risk.
Basically you fail my Grandmother test. Would I be happy to let you take her flying? No chance. Harsh I know, but that's life unfortunately. Age and treachery may be true, but not if you are unconcious and that is the real nub of this argument for me.
If somebody wishes to risk their own neck by flying on a reduced medical, then thats fine by me, but taking a paying passenger who wouldn't be aware of the medical history of the pilot is totally a no-no. Class ones all round please.