EASA screws the use of GPS approaches
 

Details here.

Pretty unbelievable.

Firstly, some years ago, EASA made GPS approach approval a Major mod, costing 4 figures (for paperwork, basically).

Then somebody must have told them that if they carry on like that, they can forget GPS approaches in Europe because almost nobody will be flying them.

So they relented and made the GPS-approach POH supplement a Minor mod... (other POH supplements, including one for flying LPV GPS approaches, remain a Major mod under EASA, making EGNOS a bit of an irrelevance).

Now they are back with an "Operational Approval" being required for any kind of GPS approach, for any EASA registered aircraft.

Idiots, working in some bunker, not listening, and totally out of touch with reality :ugh:

All the more reason to stay on the N reg?

I think your last sentence sums them up perfectly IO540 :ok:

Happy to send you my old nav-school whiz-wheel, if that'll help you out;)
?

Correct me if I am wrong, but were only a very small minority of UK, 'GA' airfields up to the task, Shoreham being one of them??

Currently yes, but what about the future?

I wonder how the two european established manufacturers of IFR capable GA aircraft feel about this, i.e. Diamond and Tecnam, not to mention the many LSA manufacturers who might have hoped that their aircraft might one day obtain approval for IFR operations.

Why don't EASA just come out and say "we are banning all non commercial IFR flying". That might focus attention on the loss of an important safety aspect to IMC skills.

An effective technique is to draw their attention to it.

Most manufacturers are out of touch with new regs. A few years ago I phoned up and then faxed the marketing execs of all turboprop and bizjet manufacturers, drawing their attention to the then DfT proposals to kick out N-reg planes from the UK. Almost none of them were aware of it... Socata and Pilatus were not aware, amazingly.

When the EASA version came out, I did the same exercise. Socata were by then aware. Cessna were not, and they said they will take it very seriously.

EASA makes a big point of not being influenced by commercial interests, which is why their committees are mostly anonymous, but this makes them vulnerable to having a lot of "work" trashed at a very late stage, when it is realised what they have done.

With a bit of work, this GPS approach operational approval will also get trashed because it is so totally barmy, but it won't happen without some concerted effort because if EASA is left alone they are capable of anything no matter how stupid.

BTW, both EU-reg and N-reg are equally affected by this, especially as the NY IFU is almost certain to wash its hands of any approvals. They have already washed their hands of avionics 337s etc.

The upshot will be that GPS approaches will become legally unusable, even for aircraft with an existing approved GPS installation, forcing people to fly the conventional-navaid approach but obviously using a GPS, which is fine but hardly the point, and is a longer track because you have to go through the charade of flying the outbound leg, etc. It will also result in published GPS approaches being flown as "VFR", and in more DIY approaches being flown.

IO540, I think you should apply for a job at EASA and lead the team. :ok:

I though that was the way it read, but didn't like to say!

The regualtions appear to say that with third country registered aircraft, it is the state of establishment of the operator that will have to give the approval, not the state of registry of the aircraft. That seems to fly in the face of ICAO conventions. How is that going to work?

I guess this is all about EASA being wary of this dangerous new technology and heaven forbid pilots flying GPS approaches coupled with ensuring someone in EASA land holds all the cards as to what crews can and cant do. It is in many ways an extension of the N reg debate.

Simply put EASA doesnt want anyone flying GPS approaches unless they can pin the responsibility on an EASA member state for authorising the crew to fly the approach.

Doubtless it is also part of a revenue generating policy now that every airline in due course will probably have to pay a fee to one or another of the national authorities. Inevitably for them it is just another regulatory fee that in the great scheme of things doesnt add up to much and will be passed on to the paying passengers, but equally it is another nail in the coffin to most GA pilots who are struggling to make the flying sums add up at the moment.

It is complete and utter nonesense of course and yet another example of the complete incompetance of EASA.

I didn't spot that... that's nasty! Just like the anti N-reg proposal, based on the nebulous concept of the "operator".

this is from the PPL/IR site:

SPA.GEN.100 Competent authority

(a) The competent authority for issuing a specific approval shall be:

for the commercial operator the authority of the Member State in which the operator has its principal place of business; and
for the non-commercial operator the authority of the State in which the operator is established or residing.
(b) Notwithstanding (a)(2), for the non-commercial operator using aircraft registered in a third country, the applicable requirements under this Part for the approval of the following operations shall not apply if these approvals are issued by a third country State of Registry:

Performance-based navigation (PBN);
Minimum operational performance specifications (MNPS);
Reduced vertical separation minima (RVSM) airspace.

I cannot see how an operator will persuade any third party state in which it is established to act as "competent authority" when under ICAO the authority must be the state of registry. So, if you are based in Switzerland operating N reg aircraft are the Swiss really going to "approve" anything just to please EASA? They would probably not have legal authority in their own country to do so.

The "established" or "residing" bit is almost incapable of enforcement and certainly not in the context of someone about to fly an approach! Think of a businessman flying a "N" reg with perhaps residences in France or the UK but also in Switzerland, the Isle of Man, Hong Kong or Jersey. He may have multiple businesses or interests in these various states. Who can say where he is "established" or "residing"? To try and attach a defined regulatory impact to people operating in a modern global economy is quite absurd.

It is true that people have a residence for tax purposes and for assessing the proper law for say probate or a divorce, but those assessments tend to be made ex post facto. That is quite different from someone on a particular day of the week trying to work out whether they come within the regulation or not. Many people will fin dit virtually impossible to work out whether they are caught by it or not, but more to the point which hard pressed CAA or police force is going to enquire into all this.

Not sure if this is relevant but these EASA proposals are not just for the EU countries.

The countries which joined JAA but remained non-EU (Switzerland, Norway, Croatia, etc) have signed some kind of agreement to be bound by EASA-generated regulations.

However I agree that this is a weird precedent, for non-AOC operations. These have always run on ICAO principles.

It is all the same stuff as EASA is doing on FCL, however. They are using the fact that (a) ICAO allows each member to retain total sovereignity over its airspace and (b) the EU has the power to force each EU country to file any difference to ICAO that the EU sees fit. It's a very "3rd World" way of doing business, which the civilised world abandoned in the 1950s.

Of course, but how many GB have been used up in these forums wondering about how it might work?

Just because a crap law has been drafted and passed doesn't mean it is completely ineffective. In the UK it would be very unlikely but the EU is quite capable of it. My concern would be insurance, not a ramp check.

True, and the convention allows a state to deny recognition of foreign licences to its own nationals (I can't recall which article it is) but that is a very 20th century attitude to sovereignty which is arguably out of place in the 21st Century. Nationality, though, is an easy basis for excluding privileges if that is what you want to do: if you have a UK, Frence, Swedish etc passport then you can't use the licence in our airspace.

Unfortunatley for EASA, in the context of the global 21st century that would be a massive own goal, actually making it more difficult for your citizens to use a qualification than for jonny (non EU) foreigner to do so. Hence this dogs breakfast which piles cost onto everyone. The whole purpose of ICAO was of course to prevent exactly this sort of protectionist stance.

I don't believe that things will ever change fundamentally as micro managing every facet of human activity by detailed regulation is a European mindset. Their paranoia is fueled by a dislike of things Angl-Saxon in general and American in particular and this is compounded by the general economic success of the US and the UK (current recession not withstanding) as compared to negligible growth in the EU. For example, no one is more vexed than the French at the dominance of Anglo-Saxon law firms in the global legal market, driven mainly by the relatively few restrictions compared to the EU on how law firms practice and the fact that much of the global market works to Anglo-Saxon rules on doing business . Their remedy to this situation is not to deregulate their own professions but to try and impose restrictions on foreign firms trying to practice (fortunately without much success).

I am starting to wonder how much it would take for EASA to ground me.

The Brussels fascists declare "everybody" around here flying IFR needs an EASA IR. So I am doing an EASA IR now (in addition to my FAA CPL/IR) which is not even legal to fly my own plane...

The Brussels fascists declare that you need the country of operator residence approval to fly GPS approaches. I don't fly GPS approaches because everywhere I fly to where there is or might be one and where there are Customs/Avgas, I find a conventional-navaid approach (which I can fly with the GPS anyway), or an ILS.

IO,

What about a situation where there was a more convenient runway which has no ordinary navaids, but is designing a GPS approach. Would that sway you?

SGC

ps I think to get Brussels to be facists would take quite a left swing:rolleyes:

I guess that, in years to come, we will see a lot of "sub 737 size" airfields around Europe go all-GPS.

Currently, this is not the case, which is just as well.

In the UK, it hardly matters because the mandatory-ATC requirement keeps GPS approaches from spreading to where they might be really useful.

Hopefully the idiots at EASA will be straightened out by then, otherwise few people will be flying these approaches.

I am just a bit cheesed off that much of the regulation in this game is done by such complete idiots, living in some hole in the ground information-wise while enjoying the fat expenses-fuelled EU lifestyle.

Frankly, EASA are a bunch of WAnchors.

That is a grossly unfair thing to post, englishal...:=










A wanquerre does at least know what he's doing, whereas EASA haven't a b£oody clue what they're doing!