Originally Posted by callum91
This links into the post about abolishing MATS part 1–why don’t we just use Doc 4444? It’s actually far more comprehensive and more up to date in many aspects.
While I can't claim to be fully up-to-speed with either 4444 or MATS 1 (particularly the EASA and Brexit years) I find it hard to understand the suggestion that the ICAO doc is more comprehensive or up to date than the UK manual.. When I was involved, much of MATS 1 was a reproduction of 4444 with supplementary, interpretive and amplifying material added where experience, often gained through incidents, showed that it would be beneficial. Having grown up with, applied, and subsequently written bits of MATS 1, I can't help feeling that relying on 4444 alone would lose a lot of hard-won and beneficial extras. I don't know how much might have been lost with the introduction of SERA, maybe much of the additional stuff has already been lost, but as CayleysCoachman says, the UK does seem to be heading for the lowest common denominator.
Maybe it's a generational thing, I remember being a young trainee controller and hearing the old hands complaining that things used to be better when they started out in the business. Of course, some things need to change as the world evolves, and I'm sure there's an element of rose-tinted glasses in places, but we seem to be taking backward steps in the aviation business at present in some ways. [/OLD CODGER MODE OFF]