CAA - Does the right hand even know the left hand exists?

[Nipper2]

One of the members of our aircraft owning syndicate has left. Can anyone please explain to me why I have to advise both the Aircraft Registration Department and the Radio Licensing Department individually of this fact? Can it really be the case in the early 21st century that they do not have a single database?

The Registration Department want a fee (the guy who left was the trustee so fair enough) but the Radio Licensing Department are quite happy for the radio License to continue so long as one of the owners who's name was on the original form is still in the group (and I inform them).

Am I losing it or........

[mad_jock]

Nope neither dept care or even know about the other one. Its a tick box of paper work which you have to comply with and thats the end of it.

We are into job invention time now so every bit of paper work means they get a tick in the box for a "customer interaction". Every sodding deptment will get you to interact as much as possible in the hope they won't sack the job creation empire building jobs worths. I really do hope that all the pilots will get invited to the leaving do's when half of them go on job seekers.

Personally I think all pilots should attend with there knobs hanging out or tits as the case maybe. Maybe then they might remember who actually manages to get the survivers wages payed.

[flybymike]

I would be willing to attend the ones where tits are hanging out...

[Tinstaafl]

Poor form not to be supportive. My left, right or both hands, ma'am?

[IO540]

Don't be so cynical about the CAA's job creation scheme, boys and gurls :)

It is not even a patch on what they have at EASA and Eurocontrol ;)

[Spitoon]

Without making any reference to tits, you have to remember that the CAA was created from a variety of different agencies, each doing their own little bit to aviation. Each department still works in its own way. You can't expect things to change overnight.....

More seriously, and having seen the internal machinations of the CAA, there is more than a smidgen of truth in this. The problem is that there has never been an incentive at any level of management to harmonise methods of operation between the different regulatory sectors.

Whether it would really be practical to do so is debatable - but few inside the organisation see a benefit in trying to do it.....

I really don't know how EASA compares on stuff like this, but from what little I have seen it wouldn't surprise me if in a few years we all look back wishing that we could have the CAA back.

[Cows getting bigger]

Don't the radio guys do the job on behalf of Ofcom? If so, there's your answer.

I always wonder why the various SRG/DAP forms ask for an email address but you always get a very expensive letter instead.

[stevelup]

My favourite daftness was having to provide a copy of my class 2 medical when I applied for my initial licence issue.

Really, why was that necessary? Surely it would take someone approximately half a second to check that...

[cyclic_fondler]

All goverment dept are having to find 25-40% worth of cuts, does anybody know if this will apply to the CAA?

If so, it could be a good thing as it might force the CAA to modernise!

CF

[cambioso]

Want a laugh??
Last month, my Display Authorisation Application was held up for 2 weeks because "we need to know the expiry date of your (CAA issued!) ATPL......................."
Jez

[Whopity]

All goverment dept are having to find 25-40% worth of cuts, does anybody know if this will apply to the CAA?
No, because the CAA is not a government department! In reality it has seen enormous cuts post 9-11 because their income dropped by about £6M overnight. The previous chairman who had zero knowledge in the field of aviation was solely concerned with reducing costs.
Can it really be the case in the early 21st century that they do not have a single database?Quite correct, there is no common database within the CAA, instead it has numerous databases built using different systems at different times. It has never had the financial resources to combine them and even data migration can be difficult or impossible. Perhaps their best bit of software the FCRS which was written in a now defunct language has not been supported for 10 years.

In the last 2 years it has lost virtually all aviation expertise at managerial level leaving a very disolusioned technical staff, in the past they were left to get on with their jobs but now have to explain everything to clueless managers who have no idea what their staffs do. Consequently, many have left out of sheer frustration and have not been replaced.

Under EASA it is going to get far worse!
My favourite daftness was having to provide a copy of my class 2 medical when I applied for my initial licence issue.If you had a CAA Ref No there should have been no need, but without such a number they would have no way of knowing about you medical.

[Baba Oriley]

Left hand, right hand.....don't make me larf!

Not even sure that the left hand knows (or for that matter cares!) that the right hand exists. Conflicting advice from two departments on the same issue last month! This month, even two people within the same department gave me different advice!

Don't worry about their jobs....they'll be okay, they'll just put the charges up to cover it....

[jez d]

The CAA are doing their absolute best in what must be an extremely trying time for them and you're all a bunch of rotters for thinking otherwise.

According to stats in the latest edition of FTN, for the two months to 31 May 2010 the UK CAA generated a profit of £392,000, compared to a budgeted loss of £321,000.

:{

[Malcom]

Not suprised theyre making a profit - I'm paying them 5 approval fees now instead of 2 previously just to do the same amount of my work and 2/3rds of theirs.
Every little helps!

[Midlifec]

Same ref number on both flying and engineering licence- they cannot even co-ordinate an address change, or should that be two fees.............

[The500man]

I am sure if you send a letter to the left hand of the CAA and enclose a cheque for £500 that they will be able to ask you for more details on this right hand they are supposed to have; so they can confirm if indeed it does exist!

[Sir George Cayley]

I'm all for a bit of CAA baiting, but the comment about the previous Chairman was a bit off.:=

I met Sir Roy McNulty recently in connection with the Olympics. He was telling me about Northern Ireland and I happened to mention Short Bros. He replied "Yes I ran them when Bombardier came on board"

I think he does know a little bit about aviation:ok:

Sir George Cayley

[mrmum]

I don't see how being chairman of Shorts, as opposed to any other large company, would necessarily need or give much aviation knowledge. You are just running an organisation, managing the numbers, the product is irrelevant. That's why there are generally people who actually know what they're doing in the bottom half of the company or organisation.

I can't recall him doing anything much useful for me, while he was running things at Gatwick :confused: Do please remind me if you think much good for light aircraft or PPL training happened during his time.

Nice to see he's following the well worn path of chairmen of NGOs/QUANGOs and just job shuffling between them, probably with a remuneration increase at our (the taxpayer's) expense.

[XL319]

Don't get me started on this..... CAA want a 'fee' before they even depress a number or letter on a computer keyboard.

I call it RIP OFF BRITAIN!!!:{

[Whopity]

I can't recall him doing anything much useful for me,He was replaced a year ago by Dame Edna (http://www.caa.co.uk/default.aspx?catid=286&pagetype=90&pageid=796) from the Food Standards Industry plus some chap as the new Chief Executive with "wide ranging experience" of the railways. The Head of SRG is Kretchin Grommet an Ex USAF pilot! I wonder if they sell British Railways sandwiches!

[Katamarino]

The people listed on that CAA page seem between them to have depressingly little experience of anything to do with aviation, and depressingly large teeth.

[A and C]

It's a civil service tradition to appoint people who know nothing of the bisiness to senior posts.................after all some one who had a good knowlage of the business would show how bad the rest of them were!

What I don't understand is why we have to have all these highly paid prople to run what is now just the London office of EASA?

[Helen49]

You only need to look at the documents published by the various CAA departments on SMS to realise that they don't communicate internally. One set of SMS documents should be capable of covering Flight Ops, Aerodromes, ATS etc. Too many empire builders who are more concerned about the EASA invasion than talking to each other!
Helen

[172driver]

Brilliant! So we now have a food standards specialist running the CAA :ok:

I'm sure the quality of in-flight catering on all UK-registered carriers will improve markedly.

The mind boggles.... :ugh:

[Fitter2]

A recent classic was the two offices, one requiring imported US aircraft to have their ELTs removed, and the second having the ANO amended to require ELT carriage over water (sod the pilot, we want to recover the aircraft for the AAIB).

I realise the low population density (referring to the quantity of employees, not their IQ) inhibits effective communication in the hanging gardens of Gatwick, but don't they even talk to each other in the extended coffee breaks?