Sorry for the delay Ian, other things on my mind! But count me in for £100.

Upping The Ante
 

Dear Uncle Ian,
Just to confirm my email, as someone who qualified for Saga membership some 10 and a bit years ago, I am pledging £500 to this excellent cause. I am immensely grateful to you for getting off your ar*se and doing something that we all should have done ages ago :D and I hope other likeminded (well similarly aged anyway) commercially licensed pilots will feel the same and up the ante with a pledge of more than the £100.
Good luck
ANOrak

£100 from me when you need it.

I've just found out that somebody I know is 60 tomorrow and therefore can only fly with another CPL beside him (even given the fact that he's got over 11,000 hours and the guy who'll be sitting beside him has 5 on type....)

Thanks for all the latest pledges. I reckon there's about £4000 in the fighting fund now. Hard to say what the final bill will be and that, of course, may depend on appeals and so on but I'm budgeting for £10,000 at the moment.

At the risk of sounding ungrateful and anticipationg spending at least £4,000 of my own money would all you guys and girls who have pledged already think of any friends who haven't but might if pressed............go on, please.

Ian Evans

Hullo Uncle Ian
In an effort to keep this thread on Page One..... and after having yet another birthday last week (do they come more than once a year now?) I happily pledge my GBP100. (I would use a pounds sign if I could find one on my Aussie laptop!).
Count up the percentage of us that went to Athens together, only three years ago, whose combined experience is thrown on the scrap heap under current rules. It's a travesty.
Thank you for your efforts on behalf of us all.
JerryG

Hi Ian,

Although still a youngster at only 38 I am behind you all the way as who knows what the future brings and where we may be in the years to come. Count me in for £200 and I have let Whirly have the contact details. :ok:

Mike

Ian,
I'm up for £100 towards the fighting fund.

Uncle Ian;

After our chat at Silverstone over the weekend any chance you could update the situation on here. Lets keep this thread to the top of the list so people know where to come with their £ 100 donations.

For a man forced into retirement you are looking remarkably fit by the way:ok:

VH

I'm in the whip-round too.

Cheers:ok:

Uncle Ian, we have met through heli-telly work and I know that you, and other excellent pilots have been denied the right to fly me and my crap equipment around various sporting events!

You have my £100 pledge!

Beamish Boy

Update
 

I've been off the internet for a while due to a change of location and some poor planning!

Thank you to the people who have pledged their help in the meantime including JerryG,TOT, Banjo, Beamish boy, Dunnarunna, Kalif and ANOrak.

WE have filed our legal papers, the CAA have responded (Leaving it to the last possible moment........thanks chaps), a meeting of lawyers pre-hearing to discuss technicalities is due this week so I expect a hearing date in the next couple of months.

I intend to get as much publicity for this as I can with Press, TV and radio so if anybody has access to editors of any of the media, let me know, please.

Ian Evans

Further Update
 

The "Case Management Meeting" for the Age Discrimination hearing has taken place.

The CAA have argued that this is matter of great significance to them (funny how they have been trying to fob me off to other goverment departments and use whatever tactics they could to ignore my questions about this for the past four years) and they need to bring so many expert witnesses to prove how dangerous it is to allow anyone over 60 to fly public transport that the case needs to be allocated two weeks. The first slot in the Central London courts of two weeks is not until March 2008.

So, at a stroke they have put the case beyond my (even with your support) ability to fund a legal team and delayed it for a further eight months taking it to eleven months since we first filed our papers.

This seems to me to be pure bullying tactics. Well I can tell those employees of the CAA who read this that I haven't allowed myself to bullied since I was about eight years old. I will continue to fight this ludicrous piece of legislation which deprives me and many like me of the ability to earn a decent income right through to the European Courts if necessary using whatever resources I can muster.

Ian Evans

Most of us pilots earn a very decent wage and have a clear interest in this.
Have a think ladies and gents, this fight needs our support and the one way we can all help is very simple and affordable.
I for one am willing to put up £500 towards the fighting fund.
Any other takers?
Kalif

My £500 confirmed here.

Good for you guys!!! :ok: :D

I'm going to have to add another column to my little black book now so let's make use of it. As I am now an heiress, it would be churlish not to match the offers above!

Cheers

Whirls

They won't find any credible expert witnesses. They will lose and the DfT will bail them out on costs.

My pledge is £1000 - of which we should (I am told) expect to get back around 70% in costs. And Ian can have that for leading the fight.

I am appalled by what Ian reports above. The CAA need to be brought to task over this matter and their attitude which does not reflect the real world. Once they have been proven wrong, then every pressure should be brought to bear on them as "unfit for purpose".

Roll on Euro-regs.

...and shame on BALPA for not wishing to take up the cause for their older rotary members...probably because the NEC is made up of well paid fixed wing jocks happy, willing and able to slope off at 60.

My forecast company pension at age 60, after 15 years on-shore police/hems.....£2k/year!!

Bizarrely, as someone about to embark on becoming a "fixed wing jockey" (sorry for barging in chaps and chapesses!) I would love to contribute towards what I see as a very worthwhile cause. Unfortunately I am not able to at the current time (due to impending huge costs of training!) but I did want to ask if anyone had considered approaching a high profile figure head for this someone like....ooh, Richard Branson? It's right up his street, would solve funding needs in one hit, and raise profile for both Virgin Atlantic, him and the cause....I'm guessing that fixed wing will be with you on this also...

Sorry if this is of no use, but please accept it's at least well intentioned, even if ill informed!
Best of luck with it whatever happens!

Ian,

Up my contribution to £500.

I'm very grateful for all that support. Please remember that I'm asking for a backstop here. If we win, although costs cannot be recovered at the industrial tribunal, any compensation I'm awarded will go towards costs.

My main concern is that the Boys in the Belgrano will appeal any outcome not in their favour through High Court, Lords and European Courts. My understanding is that at that stage Public funding will become availabe as this will be a test case and no individual should be expected to bear the costs of such an action; however there is no guarantee.

The main reason for seeking your support is so that the CAA will understand that the bully boy tactics they are prone to adopt when challenged over anything will not work here. They are no longer dealing with an individual who might yield under pressure.....bear in mind they don't know me at all as many of you do.

As for support from high profile individuals; I have publicised the cause in The Times and on BBC 1. No one has come forward and, to be frank, I wouldn't expect anyone to do so who is not directly involved. I certainly would not feel comfortable approaching, say, Richard Branson although I've flown him and he is part of the industry as it really isn't his fight.

It is, however, a fight that the fixed wing boys should be getting involved in. With a few notable exeptions that part of the industy has ignored us. That is no surprise when most of them are content to carry on to 65 as part of a two crew operation earning in excess of £100k pa with a final salary scheme pension waiting for them. BALPA has worked hard for just that but who gets any of it in the rotary field?

I can assure you I've tried most avenues for support including, for example, "Age Concern" (had to swallow some pride before making that call!). Very sympathetic and, in fact, put me in touch with The Times etc. but not able to fund me as the numbers affected are so small. My view is that that's short sighted as the imlications are far wider reaching than helicopter pilots or pilots in general but the whole of public transport including ships, trains, busses, coaches, taxis, ambulances etc. etc. At present only pilots of that long list are discriminated against in this way but what if the CAA should win?
I, for one, will want to know why my taxi driver's allowed to work until he's seventy!

On we go!

Uncle Ian