It would be useful to know the bounds of what is going to be acceptable here.
At one end of the scale one could simply state that the CAA should be disbanded and that the UK Govt should contract the FAA to do its job. That would work perfectly well, would be FAR (no pun intended) better for most UK pilots, but is exceedingly unlikely to be adopted!
However, even if the above was on the cards, where does EASA come into the picture? EASA has already taken over certification and the CAA does little more than give its opinion to EASA and then pass bits of paper across. EASA will take over FCL from JAA soon, which will leave the CAA as nothing more than the UK office of EASA.
So, the CAA is now largely irrelevant when it comes to making big rules. It is just a bunch of people left to fight various turf wars, between themselves and EASA, and between themselves, while waiting for their jobs to gradually disappear, while deciding whether to charge £50 or £150 for renewing a PPL.
Now, one could shut down EASA and contract the FAA to do the work and that would be absolutely brilliant. Or one could achieve the same result by setting a European agency (EASA?) which is told to adopt FAA regs lock stock and barrel. How likely is this? EASA is going to have to take on board FAA certification anyway, if it wants to have any hope of evicting the several thousand N-reg planes parked around Europe, and a pretty full acceptance of FAA licenses and more importantly the IR is going to have to be a part of that.
But EASA isn't listening here (or anywhere else perhaps). This is a purely CAA matter.
What am I missing?
Beagle - it was actually Winston C who decided the CAA should be self funding. Maggie T merely made paying for things a less dirty phrase
