Nick,
You aint wrong, but I'm afraid that it may well be worse than you perceive from over there.
In the last few years, we (UK industry) were doing a reasonable job of forcing the UK-CAA to be reasonably user-friendly, and one particularly beneficial way of doing this was the government imposed requirement for a Regulatory Impact Assessment as part of any proposed regulatory effect, where basically the working level staff at CAA had to prove that any change had to either have a neutral or reducing effect upon industry cost and effort, or a justifiably large increase in safety.
In addition, we had this generally benign situation where as somebody senior in the industry, I could always go right to somebody at Gatwick and argue out any problems. I didn't always win the argument, but generally I'd get something I could live with.
Then, our friends in the European Union (of which very few Brits are fans) voted for the creation of EASA, the "European Aviation Safety Authority", which has basically sidelined UK-CAA (and many other national authorities) to the status of a regional office with no real power.
So, if (say) I need to certify a change to an Islander now, I can't drive down to Gatwick and talk through what we're doing - I have to deal with Eurocrats in Cologne who probably don't know the type, may not speak English fluently, and in all likelihood aren't competent enough to make a reasoned decision - all they'll do is blindly follow the rules whether they make sense or not!
Allied to that the UK has just rolled over and accepted new European insurance rules, despite EVERY British government, CAA and industry representative, at every level, voting against them. Speaking for myself, the insurance bill on my private 2-seater has gone up by 380%, which hurts!
Even in the areas where Euroland hasn't taken over yet it's chaos. CAA has just closed down it's radio approvals section so that EASA could handle it - but EASA hasn't set one up, so you can't get a new GA radio certified for UK use at the moment. Also, because of EASA CAA has frozen recruitment for a couple of years, and most of the good people have either got fed up and left, or gone to work for more money in better weather to the South - so we have the least competent CAA since before WW2.
The UK is not, right now, the best place to be an aviation professional. If you know of any good Certification Engineers jobs or Professorships of Aeronautics going stateside at the moment, please let me know - I've about had enough. (That said, we keep trying - I'd like to feel that I'm doing something to keep British Industry on its feet for the time being at present.)
/rant !!!
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 8th Jul 2005 at 12:00.