Airworthiness Surveyor UK CAA

[Capot]

Coopervane

That was well said and a necessary reminder that it is only too easy to go too far.

And to woptb I acknowledge that I allowed hyperbole to take charge. Mind you, I believe that the reality lies somewhere between your numbers and my exaggerations.

But so far as the training business goes, my essential premise, that the unassailable bond betwen the CAA and those 2 companies is wrong, holds. I know that more than one good training company has approached the CAA in fairly recent times to join in the party, ie to start a process to get onto an approved tenderer list, to be met with amused disbelief that they should even think there is such a thing. And the fact does remain that both companies are owned and controlled by ex-CAA people, and employ ex-CAA people. I too have been on their courses, invariably run by ex-CAA instructors from whom I got the impression that BS, for example, employs many more than 6, even if part-time. Excellent courses and super instructors, but that's not the issue.

The problem we have with the people is that although we can blame Government for allowing/making the CAA to become a process-oriented auditor, doing so has attracted the wrong people into the CAA.

Far too many Surveyors, Inspectors and the like combine a lack of operational experience in management of an operator, maintenance company, training school, whatever, with a superficial knowledge of what the Rules say but not what they mean, and a staggering amount of arrogance. These people (I have 5 in mind from personal experience over the last 3 years, in different areas of regulated activity, of UK or EU origin) are actively dangerous because they force their "clients" to suborn good, safe practice to implementing the minutiae of what pleases their Surveyor or Inspector, sometimes in contradiction of the intention of the Rule being enforced.

The senior management, in Aviation House, have in many cases been there far too long, with far too much latitude to develop their personal idiosyncracies, and of course must bear the responsibility for poor performance of their staff in the field.

The very top management, parachuted in from outside, are where the buck stops. But I suspect they don't even realise there is something wrong, and those who report to them certainly won't tell them.

Do we blame these people for being what they are? Or do we blame the system? Take your pick; I blame both.