Squawks Ian Seager

It’s an open goal, let’s not miss

Stay with me, this is about General Aviation! Iknow there are other views, but I think Brexit has to be the dumbest thing my country could do to itself. I’m hugely pissed off about something that will take rights and opportunities away from my family, that will make the international business we do harder, and that has over the last four years fundamentally changed the atmosphere in our open, inclusive and proud country.

But it’s not binary, and I do accept that leaving EASA brings the opportunity to change things for the better, and to make those changes without having to go through the complex process of persuading another 27 Member States that it’s a good thing.

We’ll be able to limit the horse-trading, or realpolitik if you prefer, to a significantly smaller number of interested parties within the UK, so it really will be easier to work towards the Secretary of State for Transport’s goal of making the UK the best country in the world for GA, and while that’s a (very) lofty goal, making good progress towards it will improve our lot significantly.

We have what looks like a regulatory open goal, and in just a couple of weeks we’ll be the only players on the field, the ball will be at our feet and surely we’ll be only 90 minutes away from posting an amazing scoreline. Maybe.

A few alarm bells started ringing when listening to one of the CAA seminars this month. I have no criticism for any of the individuals involved, but I am a bit worried about the CAA’s approach to the opportunity that lies ahead. As an example, the CAA could decree that any STCs approved by either the FAA or EASA would be automatically acceptable in the UK. It’s not exactly going out on a limb from a safety point of view. It’s not as if you’re trusting orphaned babies and their Christmas puppies to unknown and incompetent aviation authorities, but according to the webinar the STCs will have to be validated by the CAA, and in some cases reapproved.

Sounds innocent enough doesn’t it? It’s not. And there’s a very real risk that this will lead UK General Aviation down a path that heads nowhere but backwards. Faced with the extra time, expense and complexity of certification or validation – and all for a small potential market – some manufacturers will just not bother. For example, an OEM that has a retrofit autopilot installation approved in the US and Europe is highly unlikely to spend extra time and internal resources for UK approval if it only applies to a small number of airframes. The result will be UK owners looking lovingly at their European and American cousins enjoying the latest technology, while they remain stuck in a dead end and often unsupported past. Generally EASA lags behind the US in terms of approvals, so European pilots get new safety enhancing equipment months, sometimes years, after those in the US. If we choose the validation/recertification route some products will never make it to these shores.

One area where the UK could make great progress by diverging swiftly from EASA is in General Aviation licensing (I suggest we stick with EASA for the commercial world). Over the years, between the JAA, EASA and CAA changes, we’ve built a system so complex that fewer people than have had breakfast on the moon in flip-flops fully understand every detail. It’s an embarrassing mess, it needs fixing urgently, and there are some great examples elsewhere of licensing done right.

Heading back to my football analogy… When you look at the pitch it’s hard not to notice many of the players limping, presumably because they’ve had a year of shooting themselves in the foot. Those who can are passing the ball between them but no one is daring enough to make a break for the undefended goal. The defence, meanwhile, is in a huddle, coming up with all sorts of plans that will bring the team back to its former glory, back to those halcyon days of hundreds of UK-only AANs (Airworthiness Approval Notes), back to the glory of kicking around the irregular pig’s bladder rather than that bloody UEFA approved round ball.

…a very real risk that this will lead UK General Aviation down a path that heads nowhere but backwards

It’s time to take advantage of this opportunity, time to be humble where appropriate, and visionary where that takes us in the right direction. Imagine the crowd’s roar of approval (not to mention the safety and business benefits) if we automatically accepted FAA or EASA certification/STC approvals. Imagine the joy of simplified (i.e. FAA) currency and licensing requirements, imagine simple pragmatism sensibly applied!

Sadly, we need to keep a bloody close eye on the defence, because right now it looks like they might be about to knock the ball, several times, into our own goal at the wrong end of the pitch. Perhaps, it’s time to paint a new slogan for the players to read when they walk onto the pitch, and we could do a lot worse than ‘Plagiarise, plagiarise, never let anything good evade your eyes’.

Publisher, pre C-19 often found flying something new and interesting ics@seager.aero