Gengis: No reason at all, except that the drift earlier on in this thread seemed to be that folk would like glider pilots to call in situations that are more courtesy (airmanship if you prefer) and not mandatory.
The Upper Heyford MRA was introduced to great opposition from GA users, and the eventual deal was that, to minimize the impact on folk who'd been free to fly in that area beforehand, the call would be mandatory but the licence wouldn't. My guess is that something similar was in mind with the recent change to Brize Norton's airspace.
I certainly make no great pitch for this - I paid my money and got the licence! - but as I see it the choices are
- maintain strict rules about R/T licences, keep them pricey, make renewal bureaucratic and make a lot of noise about expecting polished procedures ... just don't expect light GA to make non-mandatory advisory calls
- push the flight safety / airmanship aspect, and advertise that if the call is valid then a blind eye will be turned to licences; better still, formalize it with an exemption
- change the rules so that the calls become mandatory and, in effect, we no longer have the non-radio option.
The chances of dropping the R/T licence altogether ("eliminate the thing and adapt to the consequences") are nil. Of the above, the second seems most consistent with the views expressed in this thread.
My suggestion was a little flippant, but in terms of fairness to those poor power pilots, I didn't suggest that any exemption would apply where the glider pilot stood to benefit from it (entering class D airspace and so on), only where the calls were of a non-mandatory, advisory nature. Oh, I did suggest DF calls, but if they keep lost pilots out of CAS...
Tim
Last edited by Windrusher; 15th July 2002 at 18:43.