To be able to have greater privileges, in consequence you need greater training. This costs more money, therefore instead of the cost of a PPL being 6000 it becomes 10,000. Look how many PPL (H) holders there are..... Not many, mainly because of the cost.
I think we all want the same thing, more people flying. In economic terms, more people buying a/c and training, brings the costs down for all of us by economies of scale. This allows people to fly more often bringing the costs down even further etc. etc...
The comments about the FAA IR are very valid. Why is it that the Yanks can have a system that produces safe and competent IR holders, whereas we here in JAA land are hamstrung by utterly ridiculous hoops to jump through?
I think the CAA are missing a massive point here, instead of kicking up a stink about N reg a/c being used in the UK, why don't they look at the reasons why they are being used here in preference to G plates.
Some of our club members have an Arrow that they keep on the american register as one of the group uses the machine to travel all over Europe in. It used to be a british reg a/c, but due to the complexity of getting an IR they went through the entire rigmarole of getting it changed over. An absolutely mental situation if you ask me.
Back to the point however.....
Some people do just like to 'bimble' about and that's fine, but many folks do want to use an a/c as more of a tool rather than as a pure plaything. We have to learn how to accomodate everyone into clubs and schools, at the moment I think we personally do that pretty well, but the vast majority of schools aren't interested in PPL's since there business is flight training NOT a/c hire.
This will not change, so the only other option is for other facilities to start up. We are one of those and are seeing real progress at the moment with members from every other flying club/school joining us. It's great for us and if you haven't got a set up like that in your area, why don't others look at setting something similar up. All you really need is some decent a/c and a couple of enthusiatic FI's to help keep everything going.
I've seen how the cirrus group down south are operating and that is exactly the sort of model we are trying to emulate (albeit with our own differences).
If we can get the costs down far enough (certainly with some of our plans you'll be able to get something like a DA40 for around £60 an hour wet) and give people some back up and expand their horizons all in a social atmosphere, then hopefully we can start to turn around this trend of people leaving GA in droves.
We're doing our bit, how about everyone else?