NOTAMS - Something amazing happened here!
Perhaps for the first time in history, a group of concerned citizens joined together outside of the central bureacracy to materially change the course of events in a (quasi) government department.
I refer of course to the change of heart in AIS/Nats/CAA whose deliberate stonewalling of pilots has given way to actual change and accountability under remorseless pressure from unconnected individuals.
As a result, we are almost back to where we were in August 2002, instead of being fobbed off with the pup that the bureacrats wanted to stick us with.
All of this happened because of a single engine of change - the Internet, or specifically, Pprune. Of course many others including some excellent MP's have had a hand in it, but it is Capt. Prune who made it possible.
But I don't mean to minimise the dedication and determination that Mike, Russell and others have put in to this grand adventure and wish to add my own sincere wishes of respect and gratitude to those already expressed to them.
I well remember many years ago that during a debate on CB radio that a government minister said that the authorities "would have to think seriously about the implications of large numbers of people being able to freely communicate with each other". Well, he was right, but not for any reason that he or any other elitist could have thought of.
I think that history might well show that this has been a turning point in the affairs of government. Concerned citizens, who happen in this case to also be experts in the field, have directly influenced policy without going through the endless machinations of bureacracy that stifle conventional policy making. (These same machinations, incidentally, force up costs so vastly that administration costs more than actual service in many areas of government).
Perhaps we can see through the courage of Mike, Rusell et al and the frictionless medium of the Internet a new way of conducting public affairs without these suffocating costs.
What has worked for NOTAMs could work for health, education, local government and most other areas presently mired by the dead hand of civil service lethargy.
(It can be no co-incidence that the only part of our public service that actually works well is the military, and that only because they have short lines of internal communication and splendid indifference to the civil service.)
What has been achieved here is unusal, perhaps unique. To my mind, it points the way to a different future where government responds quickly, effectively and above all efficiently to the wishes of the people.
Well done all! You might even have saved a life or two in the coming summer, but you can never know that now...