Yep, I hear ya belowradar.
But I do not know whether it was actually the CAA that made this decision, or whether their hands are tied by the JAA as to what they can do etc...I'm really not pointing the finger here, I'm not looking to blame anyone, just to establish what the current state of affairs is, and how we could possibly move things in a more worthwhile direction, should the potential to do so arise.
I really think that there is hope yet. The powers that be, wouldn't have to discard the CAD test and all that's been invested in it's development, it could still be used to assess CVD. However, to give the unfit/fit final stamp a practical/real world based test would be required. This would bring us inline with other developed countries across the globe...who realised the farcity of CVD in professional flight many years ago.
So if we could ALL agree the need for something like this to be in place, then it would just be a matter of devising such a test, and I can imagine that's quite daunting for the said organisations. Obviously they do not all agree with the tower signal test, and maybe they think a practical 'in the cockpit' type test is too costly and impractical, afterall, it's much easier to just test the subjects in-house.
I really think though that we need to start practical testing asap, if we don't do it now, we will end up doing it sometime in the future anyway, so why not make the change sooner rather than later. They do it abroad, they have no safety issues, their systems work, what are we so afraid of??? Come on, this is the 21st century, let's innovate! CVD pilots are flying into our airports Europe wide anyhow on the basis of passing practical tests abroad, so really how different will it be to just adopt such testing here? There's been no safety issues due to foreign CVD pilots in Europe so far.
Seriously, I just don't get it. I really don't, it's so dissappointing.
To prevent someone from following their dreams on the basis of some computer screen/lantern test, and not give them any opportunity to prove themselves in anything remotely close to a real world environment, is flat out unfair, and this needs rectifying immediately.
It makes me cringe to think of all the poor people who've had to just give up on this, and go into something they didn't enjoy doing, for the remainder of their lives, always looking to the sky hearing the thunder of jets above, and 'sighing'...as they are reminded of their failed attempts to be fairly assessed fit for flight...or if we carry on as is, they'll simply be reminded that 'The computer said NO'.