Originally Posted by Bigglesthefrog
BB.
I welcome your comments and certainly don't take them the wrong way at all. I would never suggest that my actions have always been safe and acceptable. We all know our limits and also know when we have exceeded them. Even though we may deny fault in ourselves to others, most of us know, in the back of our minds that we're fallible and this would include professional pilots as well as private!
I accept absolutely that a free-for-all would lead to many problems, but the point in my posting was to refute the explanation of safety as the driving force in the legislation and replace it with the need to protect the professional side of the industry from the competition of cheaper alternatives. But if you should disagree with me and maintain that it is safety that is in fact the issue, then surely delivering a parcel for reward on a good day from one part of the country to another, would be just as safe as any recreational flight for which a PPL is already licensed by the CAA and would therefore be OK?
Biggles, I believe you are over simplifying the issue by isolating the flying, it is not simply a case of whether the job can be done or not, it is much more complex and many of the reasons it should be so are not related to the actual flying. Yes there are the safety issues, but, rightly, in my view, there are also commercial considerations. As I pointed out in a previous post GA & PPL holders are not singled out for such treatment.
To me it simply would not make sense to have a free for all.