EASA Update

[mad_jock]

Its gone on mine as well from only your posts.

[proudprivate]

Let's get the facts straight, laddie

1. Your also up against the fact that you use the same resources as a revenue generating CAT aircraft when you inside the airways system. So you have most of the ATS providers against you as well.

If this money is being used to fund 2/3 the €107 Mio EASA budget, I have a better suggestion for cost saving. It would involve, among other things, not sending the Comitology 7/8 december-meeting members for a 3 year expat contract to Cologne in exchange for a horse traded vote, for starters.

2. FAA training material is payed for by the US tax payer. In europe the individual has to pay for it.

It is not as if the principles of flight or navigation differ from the US here in Europe. European Students are made to pay for question databases that contain the most ridiculous questions, often erroneously framed.

By trying to be clever, European CAA's put emphasis on physics or medicine, but then without a complete grasp of the physical or physiological principle at hand. Also, by subsidizing flight schools to come up with new questions, question designers, long deprived of real life experience or true didactic inspiration, questions, question styles and question framing have truly degenerated into monstrosities (don't believe me - check the reports on the French PPL-IR ideas).

The cost of providing proper training materials would be minimal. Instead, a lucrative parallel industry has developed in providing 3rd rate (I have no other word for it) "course material", not to educate people in the principles that would enhance flight safety, but to get around the monstrosities that the questionnaires have degenerated into.

If there were a real cost for study materials that would properly teach the necessities to safely navigate an airplane in the European Skies, I think most of us would be happy to pay up.

3. Landings fees again are payed for by the local taxpayers of the local airport.

In order to provide a steady stream of trained and current pilots (recall our earlier little Economics 101 excursion), it would not be bad government policy to provide for landing fee - free training environments.

I'm not advocating subsidizing private aviation (there is neither a need nor a public support basis for this, although in the US municipal airports get better utilization, bringing in other returns for the municipalities). But just as we use taxpayers' money for vocational schools, swimming pools and the Eurotunnel, it does make sense to provide for training facilities in aviation for the whole pilot community. For a country the size and population density of Belgium, two airports with this facility would suffice. I can imagine a similar regional setup in the UK.

4. If the US did become the defacto training provider to europe the whole of the european aviation would be dependent on the US not changing the rules to allow european pilots to use the system.

That is a comment simply without merit. Apart from air law, there are not that many differences between flying in the US and flying in Europe. For European Aviation Administration with a true focus on Air Safety (I know, I'm getting carried away by my own fantasy here...) it cannot be an unsurmountable task to provide training materials to accompany rule changes. Incidentally, if the rulemaking body where to be forced to provide explanations and training materials to accompany rule changes, it would avoid a lot of unnecessary regulation.

Also, it would be high time to provide these European wide training materials, because all of them are actually focussed on a particular nationality.

For instance, in Belgium, I had to study the entire Belgium airspace structure (really !), which you could find in the AIP or on a map if you wanted to know. Interesting differences, such as UK MATZ penetration procedures, or German noise abatement rules, are conspicuous for their absence. Another good one, which isn't exactly covered in the Oxford Aviation booklets (which you found "I have used more and more of it over the years"), is blind A/A circuit calls in France or Germany.

So, the danger that the US would be the de facto training provider for European Air law is rather remote. But it would be fantastic if there existed a training provider that would really train people for pan-European flight, and it would be even better if this subject matter were then covered on an actual exam.

5.
...if your a perm resident of europe you should jump through the same hoops as the rest of us

No I should not. I should jump through hoops that are necessary to make me a safe pilot in Europe "up to certain standards". Nobody's perfect, but I had the impression that, after passing my FAA PPL, I was reasonably safe pilot but with plenty of scope for improvement. The JAR PPL (with 21 hours in class training and the nonsense exams) did not add anything as regards safety. The real upgrade came with my FAA IR. That was intense work, because it not only entailed going through the IR rules / procedures / maneuvres (those lovely 3M post its all over the 6 pack), it forced me to fly a lot more accurately. Since then, I've added bits and bobs to my flying skills, but I still consider my instrument rating as my survival kit.

The fact that EASA and the Commission are precisely going after that safety enhancing skill is bordering on criminal negligence. In their protectionist scheming combined with a contempt for private travel by airplane, they are preventing pilots from becoming safer through a feasable additional training programme.

6. (point made by jxc)
I fear that there appears to be no way to get any leverage on the people making these bureaucratic decisions allegedly on our behalf.

Your fear is unjustified. By contacting MEP's in writing or in person (you can ask for a meeting in their constituency or in Brussels), you can make your case in a structured manner.

Unlike some of the negativity I've heard around here, MEP's are beginning to form a clear opinion about what EASA, the Commission and a few individuals at French, UK and Dutch CAA have been up to. The Transport Committee of the European Parliament truly has the last word on this dogs breakfast.

That is a great thing, because you do have leverage over these people :
1) because you can vote / not vote for them, depending on how they treat you and how they vote on this proposal
2) because of lots of anti-European rhetoric (some of it entirely justified, some of it populistic drivel), they tend to thread carefully when massive protests such as from the private pilot community are being mounted. Ignoring it would not just cost them votes, it would also damage the credibility of the European institutions as a whole.

For me personally, the way the Transport Committee of the EP is going to treat this proposal is going to be decisive in my opinion of Europe as a project. And quite a few people are looking at this with the same anxiety.

Which is why I'm reasonably optimistic about the final outcome, although it will require a continuous effort from a lot of us in the months to come.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

That is a great thing, because you do have leverage over these people :
1) because you can vote / not vote for them

Not very easy, with the horrendous closed party list system used for Euro elections. The real fight is getting yourself at the top of your party's list, which is done by some private process internal to the party - once there, there's no real prospect of not ending up in Brussels.

[proudprivate]

European Democracy Issues

The real fight is getting yourself at the top of your party's list, which is done by some private process internal to the party

That is the same for a lot of national elections in many member states. However, if specific MEPs in a constuency region get lousy scores, a well organised political party will quickly put two and two together and turn that into a Sayonara post for that "Right Honourable" party comrade.



Some more interesting European issues I dug up for both MEPs and Honourable PPruNe members to consider (for those looking for inspiration when writing their 3rd letter or 4th letter to an MEP):

1) There appears to be an operational programme for regional development in the EU. The second priority axis of this programme is "Regional and Local Accessability". This is not unlike the US programmes of keeping specific Municipal Airports open, provided they truly contribute to regional accessibility. So supporting local airports, with the aim of promoting tourism, for instance, fits perfectly in the European Fund allocation process. Obviously, killing off private travel by airplane affects local accessability in a negative way...

2) There is something like a European Policy on Transparency : The Commission (admittedly not the Transport Directorate and its four letter Agency) is actively pushing Member States for citizens' participation in the decision making process. Key elements recurring in the various policy statements are
* Accountability
* Transparency

I must say I smiled when I read that, thinking about the surroundings of the two EASA committee meetings at the end of last year, with nearly inexistent minutes and keeping the horse trading participant members' names a closely guarded secret.

But it's good ammo in your letters to MEPs, because it is again proof of the fact that the secret agenda of Eh-Arse-Ah and a couple of Commission & local CAA axe grinders are pursuing flies in the face of what even their colleagues in the European Civil Service are aiming for.

Happy landings and inspirational letter writing,

PP.