Airshows - a challenge from the CAA CEO Andrew Haines
KEST - The challenge is one you should be setting Andrew Haines not the other way around.
In the email exchange you copy it says:-
That waffle doesn't tell you anything. By far the biggest burden post Shoreham is not increased regulation but a focus that the task is undertaken properly. Over a year ago the CAA suddenly saw a need for an additional 4 full time employees to deal with airworthiness - not through huge change in regulation but a realisation that there is need to gain appropriate resource.
We don't have Haines funding model but what you can quite rightly argue is that in years past people have been paying for something that hasn't been done properly, and if you relate that to Shoreham it leads you to take one road which gives a very unpalatable conclusion.
He also doesn't give you any colour upon the years when cashflows exceeded expectation and where or how those additional funds were invested. I might note that post-Shoreham CAA accounts show that his performance related bonus was showing a healthy positive balance.
Frankly the situation is very poor and one wonders if Andrew Haines is bold enough to attend the BADA meeting next week and make the same challenge. I suspect he will not be.
Ultimately when he talks of the legal challenges to cross funding then actually as an executive of the CAA and a near £500k compensation he might see it as his "personal responsibility" to ensure his organisation is resourced adequately before the deaths of 11 people and subsequent 400+ page AAIB report tells him it isn't. Of course actually had he been listening perhaps it would have been because I think we all struggle to find significant numbers with anything particularly good to say about the CAA across the board.
One might note that even in these times of enhanced focus and attention from the CAA one huge theme post the 2016 display season was the timeliness of the paperwork and the mechanics of why display areas were what they were because very often they didn't seem to be entirely understandable with the unintended consequence to human performance as a result - I suspect Andrew Haines is not the man to fully understand that conversation....
In the email exchange you copy it says:-
I took personal responsibility for challenging the team with relation to some of the air display charges. But we face a hard fact that our charges for air displays have not covered their costs for many years and in the post Shoreham environment our costs have gone up considerably. So the gap is getting bigger and we cannot lawfully just elect other elements of aviation to cover these costs however attractive that might seem to those directly affected.
We don't have Haines funding model but what you can quite rightly argue is that in years past people have been paying for something that hasn't been done properly, and if you relate that to Shoreham it leads you to take one road which gives a very unpalatable conclusion.
He also doesn't give you any colour upon the years when cashflows exceeded expectation and where or how those additional funds were invested. I might note that post-Shoreham CAA accounts show that his performance related bonus was showing a healthy positive balance.
Frankly the situation is very poor and one wonders if Andrew Haines is bold enough to attend the BADA meeting next week and make the same challenge. I suspect he will not be.
Ultimately when he talks of the legal challenges to cross funding then actually as an executive of the CAA and a near £500k compensation he might see it as his "personal responsibility" to ensure his organisation is resourced adequately before the deaths of 11 people and subsequent 400+ page AAIB report tells him it isn't. Of course actually had he been listening perhaps it would have been because I think we all struggle to find significant numbers with anything particularly good to say about the CAA across the board.
One might note that even in these times of enhanced focus and attention from the CAA one huge theme post the 2016 display season was the timeliness of the paperwork and the mechanics of why display areas were what they were because very often they didn't seem to be entirely understandable with the unintended consequence to human performance as a result - I suspect Andrew Haines is not the man to fully understand that conversation....
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Down at the sharp pointy end, where all the weather is made.
Age: 74
Posts: 1,684
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes
on
3 Posts
I think we all struggle to find significant numbers with anything particularly good to say about the CAA across the board.
There's a letter in there from Barry, too.
TOO
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Down at the sharp pointy end, where all the weather is made.
Age: 74
Posts: 1,684
Likes: 0
Received 3 Likes
on
3 Posts
I don't read Pilot mag - what is the view there re CAA??
I'm not a gyroplane pilot, never flown in one but this seems a major good news story that should have a wider audience.
Now, back to Armageddon.
TOO
oh, and Barry's letter's worth a read, too. Why not drop by Smith's (other newsagents available) and stand there for a few moments?
I'll take a read although ahead of that, gyroplane night rating is not the wider audience is it? I'd wager it will effect less than a half dozen people - who may question why they have been waiting until 2017 for night VFR rating possibility...
So less back to Armageddon, more back to reality.
So less back to Armageddon, more back to reality.
Awesome but Affordable
Thread Starter
TheOddOne - I agree, the news for the gyroplane fraternity is excellent all round. I ma so glad that Flight Operations helicopter inspector took his brief so seriously. I still, as a plank pilot. prefer wings that I can see in flight I seek a quadriplane but have flown a triplane and a shedload in biplanes. Rotary wings are invisible in flight. I have little imagination ergo they do not exist so I am prepared for a plummet and pleasantly surprised when it does not happen. Having flown a WA116 gyro in 1966 by courtesy of Ken Wallis I am pleased for those who love them.
These moves are one side of the coin with the CAA, this is the obverse but I am concerned with the reverse, or the backside if you prefer and I am far from happy. So the Haines challenge was a welcome chink in the bleak façade of the Belgrano and the CAA House top floor, Thank you all for your input, much appreciated. I do hope it will have some effect but am not holding my breath. We can but try.
These moves are one side of the coin with the CAA, this is the obverse but I am concerned with the reverse, or the backside if you prefer and I am far from happy. So the Haines challenge was a welcome chink in the bleak façade of the Belgrano and the CAA House top floor, Thank you all for your input, much appreciated. I do hope it will have some effect but am not holding my breath. We can but try.
Awesome but Affordable
Thread Starter
Well it is 10 days or so since my post and no one has come up with a successful entry for the CAA CEO's challenge so I admit defeat. I fear many of the owner/DA pilot fraternity just looked at the costs involved with the CAA charges and their own costs and may have approached the client who might have compared the total with that of a couple of years ago and decided that it was not affordable. There would then be no need to go cap in hand to the CAA for a possible reduction. These folk could not take part in the challenge as defined. I thank the CAA CEO for his willingness to offer his hand in consultation by email and Pprune. Andrew, you have won, but the UK air display industry as a whole has indeed lost a great deal and is still losing.
Last edited by G-KEST; 30th Mar 2017 at 22:45.
