10 things that annoy you in aviation.
Awesome but Affordable
Pilot DAR,
Wow, that really hit a nerve with you. To use some English terms -
I was an aviation poacher from 1954 to 1984, then I was headhunted into the UK Feds (CAA) from 1984 to 1998 as an aviation gamekeeper in GA operations. With retirement in 1998 I reverted to the poaching and have been totally happy since then.
Methinks thou doth protest too much. Get a life and a sense of humour or, if you prefer it, humor.
Cheers,
Reaper 69
PS - I had quite the most enjoyable low level aerobatic display practice this evening. 15 minutes of absolute bliss with only 8 litres of Avgas turned into adrenaline and noise pollution.
Wow, that really hit a nerve with you. To use some English terms -
I was an aviation poacher from 1954 to 1984, then I was headhunted into the UK Feds (CAA) from 1984 to 1998 as an aviation gamekeeper in GA operations. With retirement in 1998 I reverted to the poaching and have been totally happy since then.
Methinks thou doth protest too much. Get a life and a sense of humour or, if you prefer it, humor.
Cheers,
Reaper 69
PS - I had quite the most enjoyable low level aerobatic display practice this evening. 15 minutes of absolute bliss with only 8 litres of Avgas turned into adrenaline and noise pollution.
Moderator
Well, not so much hit a nerve.... if it is humour, so be it, no problem.
If, on the other hand, I am reading the posts of people who think it sufficent to (and I think the PPRuNe term is "whinge"), and then satisfy themselves that they've done their part to influence improved aviation, I would like to be seen to be encouraging a "better way".
Years ago, I was dis-satisfied with some expected Transport Canada (TC) policy. I went to public consultation meetings at their HQ in Ottawa, and spoke my peice. I was pleased and surprized to hear the meeting introduced by a top TC staff member saying "We're not all here to get what we want, we're here to get what we can live with".
Over the many years I attended these meetings, and during many other meetings, I found the process of developing regulations to be quite welcoming of the ideas of the users of aviation, at all levels. Did I always get what I wanted? Certainly not! Often I left with a much better understanding of another perspective, and why things had to be the way they were going to be. On the other hand, words I have written are now incorporated in Canadian regulation, because no one else had a better idea, and mine was accepted. One small voice can make a difference.
Yes, I think thoughts of dis-satisfaction about TC, the FAA, as well as some of my clients, and other aviators in general. I try to not fixate on it (but, yes, perhaps I protest too much).
I will use my modest position in PPRuNe to try to mentor my peers to have more positive thoughts about what we do. I read here moaning about "spam cans" - I own one, by choice, I love it! I read about students who dislike their instructors - well it happens, reason could be good or bad, work it out! And I read about pilots whose top of the list for dislike is the regulator. For heaven's sake, do your part to make it better, or suck it up!
As I have been told more than once here, the humour on PPRuNe should be interpreted as being UK based, and possibly mis understood on this side of the ocean. Thus I suppose I am a canary in the coal mine for the PPRuNe humour.
No rant, not protesting, just want to do my small part to stand up for the positive viewpoint.
I didn't do any aerobatics yesterday, haven't for a few weeks, but I did fly my very appreciated "spam can" down to the helicopter base, took a very nice Bell 206 out for an hour, and landed it in the lake several times(on purpose) - what fun!
I am so lucky to be able to fly as much and as freely as I do, and I appreciate it. I could find ways to whinge about it, by why would I? Why would any of us? I'm happy to tell people about how great flying is, I'm going to keep the whinging to a minimum...
But, I respect other viewpoints, so to each their own... slag on naysayers...
If, on the other hand, I am reading the posts of people who think it sufficent to (and I think the PPRuNe term is "whinge"), and then satisfy themselves that they've done their part to influence improved aviation, I would like to be seen to be encouraging a "better way".
Years ago, I was dis-satisfied with some expected Transport Canada (TC) policy. I went to public consultation meetings at their HQ in Ottawa, and spoke my peice. I was pleased and surprized to hear the meeting introduced by a top TC staff member saying "We're not all here to get what we want, we're here to get what we can live with".
Over the many years I attended these meetings, and during many other meetings, I found the process of developing regulations to be quite welcoming of the ideas of the users of aviation, at all levels. Did I always get what I wanted? Certainly not! Often I left with a much better understanding of another perspective, and why things had to be the way they were going to be. On the other hand, words I have written are now incorporated in Canadian regulation, because no one else had a better idea, and mine was accepted. One small voice can make a difference.
Yes, I think thoughts of dis-satisfaction about TC, the FAA, as well as some of my clients, and other aviators in general. I try to not fixate on it (but, yes, perhaps I protest too much).
I will use my modest position in PPRuNe to try to mentor my peers to have more positive thoughts about what we do. I read here moaning about "spam cans" - I own one, by choice, I love it! I read about students who dislike their instructors - well it happens, reason could be good or bad, work it out! And I read about pilots whose top of the list for dislike is the regulator. For heaven's sake, do your part to make it better, or suck it up!
As I have been told more than once here, the humour on PPRuNe should be interpreted as being UK based, and possibly mis understood on this side of the ocean. Thus I suppose I am a canary in the coal mine for the PPRuNe humour.
No rant, not protesting, just want to do my small part to stand up for the positive viewpoint.
I didn't do any aerobatics yesterday, haven't for a few weeks, but I did fly my very appreciated "spam can" down to the helicopter base, took a very nice Bell 206 out for an hour, and landed it in the lake several times(on purpose) - what fun!
I am so lucky to be able to fly as much and as freely as I do, and I appreciate it. I could find ways to whinge about it, by why would I? Why would any of us? I'm happy to tell people about how great flying is, I'm going to keep the whinging to a minimum...
But, I respect other viewpoints, so to each their own... slag on naysayers...
Awesome but Affordable
Pilot DAR
A lovely and well thought out response which I enjoyed reading. I think we are, in reality, very similar people with a real passion for General Aviation.
Recently we have had, in the UK, a revision of the Air Navigation Order which regulates our civil aviation. It has expanded considerably in terms of the number of Articles. No doubt thought necessary by the legal eagles in the CAA and the DfT. If only they gave equal effort to a contraction of regulations as they do to an increase.
EASA are struggling to deal with the many thousands of individual responses made to consultations on Flight Crew Licensing and Operations before they rake over those aspects of our hobby.
In the UK Ofcom are currently in consultation on proposals to charge ground stations for having a VHF frequency which, in the end, is a safety benefit. They intend the same for radio navigation frequencies. Thank God the GPS satellites are outside UK airspace. However with the EU Galileo GPS constellation it looks like we will be charged to use it though EU taxpayers will have funded its development and installation.
I am glad you enjoyed your flying yesterday. The sky, thank God, is there for us to play in without additional charge............... for the time being....!!!
Cheers,
Reaper 69
A lovely and well thought out response which I enjoyed reading. I think we are, in reality, very similar people with a real passion for General Aviation.
Recently we have had, in the UK, a revision of the Air Navigation Order which regulates our civil aviation. It has expanded considerably in terms of the number of Articles. No doubt thought necessary by the legal eagles in the CAA and the DfT. If only they gave equal effort to a contraction of regulations as they do to an increase.
EASA are struggling to deal with the many thousands of individual responses made to consultations on Flight Crew Licensing and Operations before they rake over those aspects of our hobby.
In the UK Ofcom are currently in consultation on proposals to charge ground stations for having a VHF frequency which, in the end, is a safety benefit. They intend the same for radio navigation frequencies. Thank God the GPS satellites are outside UK airspace. However with the EU Galileo GPS constellation it looks like we will be charged to use it though EU taxpayers will have funded its development and installation.
I am glad you enjoyed your flying yesterday. The sky, thank God, is there for us to play in without additional charge............... for the time being....!!!
Cheers,
Reaper 69
Last edited by G-KEST; 5th Apr 2010 at 10:50. Reason: spelling correction
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Agree with you G-KEST, although I do respect the CAA they are being overruled by "our" Department Against Transport and the borderline fascist EASA, which are the reasons why, I suspect, the latest ANO has expanded considerably, due to more bureaucratic interference by people who wouldn't know what an aircraft was if one smacked them in the face.
The Galileo project is a typical European shambles; no organisation whatsoever plus it will cost a fortune. And they are going to charge us to use it. Simple solution... don't use it and continue using the US system which is free.
The Ofcom proposals are somewhat disgusting, they say it is about freeing up some VHF space in order to make more lesser-used VHF frequencies available (i.e. take away VORs and allocate the frequencies to dodgy taxi drivers), from most folks' point of view (mine included) it seems like a crass, cynical money-grabbing exercise for a wholly discredited, hated, unwanted, bankrupted Government system whose only affect will be to seriously degrade aviation safety and make people more skint than what we already are.
Smithy
The Galileo project is a typical European shambles; no organisation whatsoever plus it will cost a fortune. And they are going to charge us to use it. Simple solution... don't use it and continue using the US system which is free.
The Ofcom proposals are somewhat disgusting, they say it is about freeing up some VHF space in order to make more lesser-used VHF frequencies available (i.e. take away VORs and allocate the frequencies to dodgy taxi drivers), from most folks' point of view (mine included) it seems like a crass, cynical money-grabbing exercise for a wholly discredited, hated, unwanted, bankrupted Government system whose only affect will be to seriously degrade aviation safety and make people more skint than what we already are.
Smithy
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.............. and if the student is female................. just don't get me started on that subject!
Oh dear A and C, all right I will bite - Please do elaborate (Chicken hands A and C a shovel...) Seriously though I do actually find that remark a bit offensive, so I will join you in generalising and paraphrase dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse..."there are no bad students, only...." ah, finish it yourself!
Oh dear A and C, all right I will bite - Please do elaborate (Chicken hands A and C a shovel...) Seriously though I do actually find that remark a bit offensive, so I will join you in generalising and paraphrase dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse..."there are no bad students, only...." ah, finish it yourself!
Moderator
How dismaying, I was not aware that regulatory change on the right side of the Atlantic was so traumatizing to general avaiation (I'm trying to be sarcastic, I just assumed it would be regulated somewhat similarly as ours). Canada is following along the ICAO path, and that is introducing harmonizations, some of which are costly if you want to modify your aircraft. I don't like it, but I understand it. I know that it will be very important in the future that every Cessna 180, 182, 185 and 206 floatplane in Canada be nice and quiet (no matter what the cost), perchance they should be flying over Paris or Berlin one day (sarcasizm, just so you know I can).
The last time I acted in the capacity of pilot in UK airspace was 1986, so perhaps I am out of touch. The airspace did seem busy by my standards, but welcoming none the less!
I will continue to remind myself how fortunate I am to fly with such economy and freedom. Thus, I still don't feel the need to speak poorly of Transport Canada, and I don't really know to speak poorly of the CAA/EASA, but I'll remind myself to be supportive of you if you need to, to make things better (or at least bearable)!
The last time I acted in the capacity of pilot in UK airspace was 1986, so perhaps I am out of touch. The airspace did seem busy by my standards, but welcoming none the less!
I will continue to remind myself how fortunate I am to fly with such economy and freedom. Thus, I still don't feel the need to speak poorly of Transport Canada, and I don't really know to speak poorly of the CAA/EASA, but I'll remind myself to be supportive of you if you need to, to make things better (or at least bearable)!
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And I read about pilots whose top of the list for dislike is the regulator. For heaven's sake, do your part to make it better, or suck it up!
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Ah sorry Pilot DAR you've probably never watched Red Dwarf. 
Smeg = useful word in place of any expletive, e.g. "Smeg off", "Load of smeg", "What the smeg is going on?" etc.
Smithy
Smeg = useful word in place of any expletive, e.g. "Smeg off", "Load of smeg", "What the smeg is going on?" etc.
Smithy
Awesome but Affordable
Pilot DAR
One last thing before we close this exchange on a personal basib.
I listed Eurocontrol amongst my 10. Their latest effort, crafted over many man years of highly paid drafting, is to propose Standardised Rules of the Air for European airspace (SERA). Not a bad idea since the aircraft does not know it is crossing an international FIR boundary and the pilot has then to obey differnt Rules of the Air from those in his home country. However their proposals, now our ro consultation, have omitted many excellent rules which have enabled pilots to fly safely in UK airspace, some for the last eighty years.
Additionally they have recently introduced terminal navigation charges at regional airports that did not have such charges before.
Finally for the last 30 odd years there have been swingeing en-route charges levied on aircraft weighing more than 2 metric tonnes who file IFR. The cost of these charges is roughly equal to the profit margin on an Aztec or Baron charter flight.
I now spend a day or so a week opposing legislative change by all the alphavet soup of regulators on behalf of another alphabet soup of representative general aviation organisations. Retirement is proving to be a hectic time. All on a voluntary basis of course since none have spare funds available. Yet we, the taxpayers of the UK and EU, pay the high salaries of those in the various regulatory bodies.
It is not a good flying day so I am here at the PC venting a little of my spleen.
Cheers,
Reaper 69
One last thing before we close this exchange on a personal basib.
I listed Eurocontrol amongst my 10. Their latest effort, crafted over many man years of highly paid drafting, is to propose Standardised Rules of the Air for European airspace (SERA). Not a bad idea since the aircraft does not know it is crossing an international FIR boundary and the pilot has then to obey differnt Rules of the Air from those in his home country. However their proposals, now our ro consultation, have omitted many excellent rules which have enabled pilots to fly safely in UK airspace, some for the last eighty years.
Additionally they have recently introduced terminal navigation charges at regional airports that did not have such charges before.
Finally for the last 30 odd years there have been swingeing en-route charges levied on aircraft weighing more than 2 metric tonnes who file IFR. The cost of these charges is roughly equal to the profit margin on an Aztec or Baron charter flight.
I now spend a day or so a week opposing legislative change by all the alphavet soup of regulators on behalf of another alphabet soup of representative general aviation organisations. Retirement is proving to be a hectic time. All on a voluntary basis of course since none have spare funds available. Yet we, the taxpayers of the UK and EU, pay the high salaries of those in the various regulatory bodies.
It is not a good flying day so I am here at the PC venting a little of my spleen.
Cheers,
Reaper 69
Last edited by G-KEST; 5th Apr 2010 at 17:14. Reason: take out duplicated worf
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Iron Chicken
As I said in the last post that I made there are a lot of things that seem to get left out of the training when one of the low time jet dreamers is doing the teaching (this is not usualy a problem with the older career instructors).
Put a young and atractive Female into the plot and the whole thing turns to a can of worms, the jet deamer's mind is even less on the job of teaching than usual and it will show, just ask the young lady to tell you a little about how to switch off the alternator in case of a failure or what the camshaft operates or what the mixture lever is used for?
The blank look that you will get from the young lady is not because she is stupid or is not paying attention, it is most likely because this instructor is not doing his job.
The technical side of the PPL is usualy the worst taught part, with the exams passed more from memory of practice exam papers rather than a true understanding of the subject, add the lack of knowlage of mechanical subjects that females usualy have for cultural reasons and you have a problem on your hands.
Any way Iron Chicken I am sorry if you were looking for an anti-female pilot rant, you won't get that from me........... some of the best pilots that I have had the pleasure to fly with professionaly are female.
Put a young and atractive Female into the plot and the whole thing turns to a can of worms, the jet deamer's mind is even less on the job of teaching than usual and it will show, just ask the young lady to tell you a little about how to switch off the alternator in case of a failure or what the camshaft operates or what the mixture lever is used for?
The blank look that you will get from the young lady is not because she is stupid or is not paying attention, it is most likely because this instructor is not doing his job.
The technical side of the PPL is usualy the worst taught part, with the exams passed more from memory of practice exam papers rather than a true understanding of the subject, add the lack of knowlage of mechanical subjects that females usualy have for cultural reasons and you have a problem on your hands.
Any way Iron Chicken I am sorry if you were looking for an anti-female pilot rant, you won't get that from me........... some of the best pilots that I have had the pleasure to fly with professionaly are female.
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I'm still only learning, so I don't really feel entitled to moan, but here's my list of my aviation annoyances so far:
1. The cost
2. The unpredictable British weather
3. Military controllers who speak at 1000kts even when the frequency is quiet
4. How the altimeter subscale knob never turns the way I expect it to!
5. Making exactly the same mistake when setting QFE returning to the field
Think that's it, can't complain really!
1. The cost
2. The unpredictable British weather
3. Military controllers who speak at 1000kts even when the frequency is quiet
4. How the altimeter subscale knob never turns the way I expect it to!
5. Making exactly the same mistake when setting QFE returning to the field
Think that's it, can't complain really!
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Additionally they have recently introduced terminal navigation charges at regional airports that did not have such charges before.
Those terminal charges (for ATC) were always there, but were charged by the local ATC provider and often incorporated in the landing fee. But Eurocontrol has built a great automated collecting machine for the en-route charges and they offer local ATC organizations (that would probably be NATS in the UK) a very cost-effective way to bill these charges alongside the en-route charges. Far more cost-effective than what the local ATC organizations can provide.
It's for this reason that the LVNL (the Dutch NATS) is now collecting their terminal charges through Eurocontrol, instead of doing their own collection.
More information here, although the page was last updated a year ago and that might be the reason that the UK is not listed: EUROCONTROL - Bilateral Agreement relating to Terminal Air Navigation Charges
I dare you to find another invoicing/collecting agency/department that's able to boast:
High recovery rate typically 99%+, thereby securing a stable cash flow in euros;
Low collection costs typically less than 1% of the amounts billed, as a result of economies of scale and high productivity.
Low collection costs typically less than 1% of the amounts billed, as a result of economies of scale and high productivity.
4. How the altimeter subscale knob never turns the way I expect it to!
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Additionally they have recently introduced terminal navigation charges at regional airports that did not have such charges before.
Finally for the last 30 odd years there have been swingeing en-route charges levied on aircraft weighing more than 2 metric tonnes who file IFR. The cost of these charges is roughly equal to the profit margin on an Aztec or Baron charter flight.
I am even considering trading down to a less safe airplane thanks to these idiots.
