More than a (yes not truly brilliant, but improving) magazine yes. A superb technical library with free access, access to technical committees monitoring and influencing virtually every level of aviation, access to many independent professionals in other fields of aviation, a free careers centre, discounted entry to conferences, a nationwide free lecture programme, a place to hold meetings for free and get a cheap lunch in the middle of London - for example.
Having said all that, I'm not convinced it is good value for money at £140/year. I pay it because I think it's the best thing there, I get involved in it's committees because I think it can be made better.
But this actually was never my point. My belief is that Engineers working at CEng level should have been through an independent assessment process, of a known standard, before being allowed to work at an independent researcher / design signatory / senior engineering manager level. What we have at the moment is the CEng.
The actual Engineering council fees of around £30/yr are about the same as the American "Professional Engineers" license and although I do believe in membership of the RAeS / IMEchE / etc those are not what I personally feel should be compulsory.
Concerning "weeding out" versus "eliminating vast swathes", does anybody know what happened when a license to practice became compulsory for doctors, accountants, osteopaths, pilots, etc? I don't actually know, but I'd guess they were given a reasonable number of years warning, the powers that be geared up to handle lots of applications, a lot of people did some fairly rapid learning and training they should have done before, and a few rotten apples dropped quietly from the bottom of the barrel - but in that I'm guessing.
G