Airworthiness Surveyor UK CAA
 

Has anyone had an interview with the UK CAA for the above position, what to expect etc.

If you have to ask about such matters then maybe you are not the person for the position? Know your Part 145 & Part M,& Part 66 inside out. What EASA does? ( good question, what does it do ). What the CAA does itself and on the behalf of EASA? Long list. Good luck.

No CAA surveyor worth his salt is going to reply on here, which means that the only people who do reply will be people who failed.

Do you really want their advice? :ugh:

The poster above got it spot on, if you have to ask, you're not it. ;)

methinks it was more of a publicity excercise than a question?

At £200 per hour who wouldn't be interested?

Mr Presley, you seem like a nice intelligent man. You seem to have a brain, and indeed you seem to have common sense, all good attributes by 99.9 per cent of ppruners and 100% of pprune mods.

I would therefore for the above reasons suggest that as you know something about aviation that you would not be able to secure the position sought.

( my first attempts at writing this reply involved words like buggery, s and m, free masons, and lobotomy but I decided to leave this out)!!!!!!

Dopeandfabric,

If there were a 'like' button for your above post; I would of indeed pressed it! :D

Me too!

If you want to join a bunch of bureaucratic deadbeats, with little knowledge of the real world, and probably little of front-line aviation management and operations, and unemployable except by the CAA, in an organisation riddled with low-level corruption and buckpasssing, I wish you luck at the interview.

If you succeed you may, just may become one of the 10% who DO know what they are doing in their field at least, and have a genuine feel for aviation, aviation safety and aviation development.

But by the time you get there the exodus of those people, which started a year or two ago and continues as I write, may have finished. So you will be on your own, fighting the losing battle to be allowed to do a good job that the others eventually gave up on.

The UK CAA is now officially dysfunctional; no sense of identity or purpose, chaired and managed by bizarre imports from outside the air transport industry and/or the UK. It is supposed to operate as an enforcer of European rules, brought into UK law. It does this inconsistently and badly. In any situation of real threat, economic or operational, it retreats into its cave and does little or nothing effective. It is incapable of decisive action, even on small issues, always pleading some obscure law or regulation that prevents it, usually entirely spurious. Its backroom people produce reams of excellent studies and analysis, but for no perceptible purpose.

The UK CAA is solely concerned with generating revenue to sustain its staff's lifestyle and pensions, and this takes priority over any other task, including effective oversight of operators, maintenance, training and airfields.

That all applies to the Safety Regulation Group, and much of it applies to the economic regulation side of the CAA as well.

Have another cup of tea, old chap.

If you have no experiance in aviation whatsoever you will fit in like a dream, the rest as said above. The majority of those I have met appeared to have memorised a book parrot fashion but did not understand its meaning or have embellished it with their own additions that do not exist, there are some good ones, but sadly they are few and far between.

Now that this appears to have headed in the CAA "bashing" direction, nothing against that may I add, and what they really do, wouldn't we all love to know. Try looking up how much the CAA hierarchy get paid, some are well into six figures per annum, and for doing what? Snouts in trough!!!! or ignorant of meaningful knowledge of civil aviation in the UK and getting far too much money for their ignorance.

If you would like a couple of discussion points to have handy for the interview, to show how keen you are, you could mention an organisation known as CAA International, (CAAi if you really want to sound all trendy) and two companies called Baines Simmons Ltd and Avisa Ltd.

CAA International manages, remarkably, to be entirely separate from the CAA; ("it's a limited company, old boy") but with its entire capital funding supplied from the fees and charges received by the CAA. As such, it is quite acceptable, says the CAA, for it to compete with the Training Organisations regulated by the CAA. However, when it comes to the regulatory requirement (enforced by the CAA) to have Part 147 approval to run exams, we suddenly find that CAA International Ltd is the CAA, and thus as a Regulatory Authority does not need to have Part 147 approval to run exams (in Dubai, for example)! Ain't life marvellous?

Your interest in Baines Simmons and Avisa will show a praiseworthy awareness of your career planning. These companies, each one an independent commercial entity, are owned and staffed pretty much entirely by ex-CAA employees.

So it follows with total logic that they, and no other commercial training organisation ("can't possibly get involved in the commercial market, old boy") should benefit from the CAA's munificence in passing over a huge swathe of training contracts either for the CAA itself, or for its "independent but wholly-owned" associate CAA International.

After all, it behoves those who will join Baines Simmons and Avisa in the future to make sure that these businesses develop nicely now, doesn't it? I think it's called "pension protection".

Amazingly, the CAA is unashamed about this arrangement, so corrupt - and totally illegal for more than one reason - that the stench goes out into space. See their website:
Not a mention of the keen interest that CAA employees have in both companies.

Other training organisations need not apply; "for God's sake, that might take business away from our future employers, are you mad? Have another cup of tea."

What a lovely bunch of coconuts, to be sure.

I did the 2007 Airworthiness Course and it was "managed" by Baines Simmons on behalf of CAAi back then!

The whole business began when the owners of Baines Simmons quit the CAA early to set the company up, presumably having first ensured that the CAA would give them lots of work, provided, presumably again, that they took on those who would make that happen when they left the CAA.

The other role the CAA plays for Baines Simmons is to recommend it to other Authorities. That's instead of promoting their own Training company, CAAi. I wonder why? Even if CAAi got the work it would promptly be sub-contracted to Baines Simmons or Avisa.

What a tangled web......A330 flight decks aren't the only places where there's a strong stink of s**t.

Not much to say but "here, here".

I have little experience with the CAAi or Avisa,so couldn't possibley comment on these organisations.
However I have done courses with Baines Simmons & you couldn't be much wider of the mark with your assumptions if you tried.

Airworthiness Surveyor UK CAA
 

Really? Do share? I'd love to know how much Baines Simmons charge the CAA for managing for example, an Airworthiness Course at the Arora in Crawley with a residential rep when the CAA themselves are just down the road.

OK, let's look at it. I made two assertions about Baines Simmons (and Avisa); firstly that they were started and are owned by ex-CAA staff and employ large number of ex-CAA staff, and secondly that the CAA/CAAi awards both companies a huge amount of valuable contracts that are not available to any other commercial company.

Both these seem to me to be easily verified statements of fact; am I wrong? If so I apologise. But I'll need some evidence.

From these facts, as I believe them to be, I drew the inescapable conclusion that there is a strong, corrupt and illegal connection between them. But if the facts are wrong, the conclusion is obviously impossible.

If you can provide incontrovertible evidence that Baines Simmons and Avisa are not owned, controlled and largely staffed by ex CAA employees, and that the CAA/CAAi runs a tender process for all its sub-contracted training that is open to all suitable qualified training providers in the EU in a transparent and fair process that conforms to legal requirements for Government and quasi-Government contracts in the EU, and has done so for, say, the last 10 years, I will withdraw all my remarks and apologise.

All the B-S courses I have done have been run by Surveyors I met when they were in the CAA.

I know of one ex-employee of Avisa who was not in the CAA - but was probably more experienced than many ex-CAA bods.

I have to agree that there is some form of "bond" there somewhere.

I can only comment on Baines Simmons, I have no experience of Avisa, but your statements are totally fallacious regarding Baines Simmons and I would suggest bordering on libellous.


1.“they employ LARGE number of ex-CAA staff” (It’s in fact 1 in 10).
2.“secondly that the CAA/CAAi awards both companies a HUGE amount of valuable contracts”

1. They'actually' employ 6 ex regulators out of a staff of around 80 people.
2. Out of ‘over’ 50 courses they offer, there are 6 under licence for CAAi.

Take a look at Baines Simmons web site, they have all their staff's names, previous employers and backgrounds. You can also check how many courses they are licensed to present for CAAi, so it will be very easy to verify my assertions.

As for ‘incontrovertible evidence’ regarding the tendering process, how about you provide ‘incontrovertible’ evidence its dodgey, you’re the one who is mudslinging, seemingly based on conjecture & nothing else.

Actually check your facts! It wasn't me who said they employ a large number of ex CAA staff and were awarded HUGE contracts.

My only point was about the cost of having a third party, in this case Baines Simmons, (and the same could have applied to AVISA) manage a course on behalf of the CAA when the CAA are right their on the doorstep. Now whose bordering on libellous?

By the way I did find Baines Simmons very professional, and their rep made the course very enjoyable

Now where's your apology?.