robin
the best thing for GA is to speak with a single voice. Dividing us up into small interest groups means that we can be picked off and ignored by the authorities.
Very true, but UK GA has never had a single voice and this isn't about to happen. There are too many different kinds of groups around scraping out the bottoms of too many different barrels.
I know some of 'top-end' GA who have already had to fit Mode S don't have a lot of sympathy with low-enders 'barging around the sky invisibly.
If you mean me, I would agree but you perhaps
still fail to see what I don't like about it. I don't like getting a RIS with many of the reported contacts being something like "traffic at 12 o'clock, reciprocal track,
altitude unknown". Totally f*****g useless. Especially when I know that a lot of the time (having caught a glimpse of him afterwards) he either does have a transponder and has deliberately turned it off, or the sort of plane it is (a new one) cannot possibly not have one.
As mentioned earlier, the £1500+ or £5000+ for Mode S has to give the owner something back worth that sort of spend - and it doesn't for microlighters, glider pilots or PFA pilots.
That's right, the benefit is "only" to all the other people in the sky. This illustrates why UK GA has no single voice
Actually I don't think it will be forced onto unpowered microlighters and gliders, anyway.
A&C
I would support the PPL/IR lot but I can't because I don't have a PPL
Perhaps you mean you don't have an IR? The group is open to IMCR pilots too, and anybody else can support it anyway. A lot of the members don't have an IR.