wow! Some heartfelt comments there!
I think that you will find that FAA comes under as much fire from the US flying fraternity as the UK CAA and the Austrians would kill for a CAA like ours, so can it all be explained away by' the grass is greener'? WWW makes some good points, things are better, no doubt about that, however I think it is possible to hold the position that our CAA is a bureaucratic (in the proper sense of the word) unaccountable organisation that is not set up in a way that 'promotes' aviation at the GA level (ie everything else after scheduled airlines) but merely to 'regulate' that is to say ensure 'safety' standards are met (And a bit of economic regulation on the side). The trouble is They also set the standards; so if imagine if you will, a regulator who had the choice of pushing for absolute safety and who wasn't paying, indeed had no real interest in the cost of compliance, and anyway it all seemed a jolly good idea sitting with a coffee in front of the computer terminal, with probably no experience of the real world, what do you think he'll do? He's gonna spend your money. Not forgetting the organisation has a monopoly, you don't have a choice and its income derives solely from the industry it regulates coming , of course, from the charges made whilst doing that regulating. So where are the checks and balances that stop the whole thing spiralling out of control, costwise?
Combine that with a natural British sense of superiority which pushes 'standards' sky high eg vision requirements, licensed fields for training, OPC and Line checks for freelance commercial pilots for each and every company he may fly for etcetc and it all gets very serious and expensive.
Almost every CAA employee I have met or had dealings with has been (genuinely)utterly helpful and charming, but pretty much all were completely oblivious to the harsh economic realities outside, very concerned about the 'system' whilst IMHO being a little blinkered about why we're doing all this in the first place.
I really do think that we didn't get to the moon first, break the sound barrier etc, that most of us fly US machinery, talk on US radio and navigate(aparently) with a US GPS etc etc because of this fundamental difference in attitude
Anyway if you've read this far, congratulations
