Why has it taken so long ?
About ten years ago the chair of the parliamentary select committee for transport ( the late G Dunwoody ) described EASA as unfit for purpose and an accident going somewhere to happen...... Little has changed !
The paper trail for maintenance under Part M is driving up the cost of maintenance to a point were it is making general aviation unaffordable and at the same time the constant paper chase is keeping the engineering supervisors in the office and not keeping an hour to hour watch on the work in the hangar. It is the worst of both worlds EASA has put in place a less safe more expensive system.
The very pinnacle of EASA stupidity is the abolition of the UK's IMC rating, a qualification that has clear safety benefits that has been stopped by EASA politics and ego.
Flight crew licensing is now so complicate that it is very easy to fall foul of the mountain of rules, flying clubs are being over regulated out of existence by turning flying leisure establishments into mini flight schools and the latest gem of stupidity is that if a rating expires by just one day you need retraining to get the rating back not just an LPC.
Why BALPA have taken so long to wake up to the EASA paperwork gravy train ? I am pleased that they have but they need to look much further than the flight time limitations otherwise the regulator will strangle the industry from the ground up.
Last edited by A and C; 18th Jul 2013 at 15:19.