The CAA seems to be reluctant to act against
any interests of the flight training business.
It would be difficult, for example, to include GPS in the PPL syllabus (simply because most schools would raise hell over the necessary mandatory fitting of the equipment in planes used for training) but it would be easy to make schools teach internet based notam briefings.
I suppose that some schools are still bound to vigorously complain, on the grounds that the £25/month they will be forced to pay for an ADSL connection is going to drive them out of business
Does anyone know what fees, if any, does the CAA get from the flight training industry? They don't (normally) get the very lucrative AOC fees.
However, as I said already, I suspect (do any surveys support this?) that most c0ckups like this one are done by "old pilots" who don't hang around within the school/club system, and infrequently, for many years. Perhaps it happens on the rare occassions they venture outside their usual bimbling area. If the data does not support this, then the blame is squarely on the flight training business.
In any event, the blame is on the instructors/examiners who do skills tests and bi-annual checks. But if the CAA doesn't require this to be tested....??
The notam delivery system will never change. It's international, it has countless d1ckheads all over the world feeding rubbish into it, and you have to learn to live with it. GA doesn't count in Europe. The Narrow Route Briefing works perfectly well. The problem is if you want to bimble over a large area; then you just have to read through a lot of stuff but again most of it is obviously rubbish and doesn't take a long time to scan through (minutes). Far less time that a preflight check.
The AIS website has frequent problems but one can phone them with a list of waypoints and a fax number and the man will instantly fax you the data. Not satisfactory I know (not many pilots have a fax) but better than nothing. I suppose they could read it to you if you press them?