Ah the UK....encountered some of that enlightened thinking recently.
Whilst doing touch and go's...closed circuits to the training area....the landing fee was charged for each time we "entered" the circuit. We are not considered to be a "training machine" despite the only thing we were doing is training. We pay a landing fee each time we go buy fuel which is 18 pence per liter higher than other places and when the airport is "closed"....no operations allowed. I just love having to call on the phone....and "book" my arrival/departure and/or fuelling. What really tops this off is the radio call for permission to start engines....now cmon' guys! We do not exactly fly out of Heathrow nor do we have an instrument clearance to pick-up or anything....just a simple VFR single engine helicopter.
Everyone I have met in the system are kind, nice, friendly and helpful.....but the system sure seems designed to counter all that.
I prefer the way we do it in the USA....preflight, fire up, call tower....depart....land as the case may be. Pay at the bowser....no walking all over the airfield to find the office to pay. No landing fees, no airway fees, no booking of landings/departures (when VFR).
Where did the Hi-Vis vest thing come from? We don't do that in the states and we do not seem to be losing folks to engines, props, or tugs?
British Aviation seems headed towards an Orwellian finish.