LA News
COVID-19 and the LAA We cannot ignore the impact of the Coronavirus or COVID-19, on all our lives. In the past weeks we’ve been making sure that the LAA HQ team has resilient back-up systems to ensure we can handle permit administration, engineering support and enquiries, even if we have to reduce office staffing to the minimum. You should have received in recent weeks, emails keeping you up to date on the situation; if you haven’t, it could be that we don’t hold your correct email address. If that is the case, simply drop us an e-mail to office@laa.uk.com with your name, preferred email address and membership number and we’ll make sure you receive any urgent messages from us. Basically, we made plans based on three contingency levels: normal service, reduced staffing, and a full closure of our offices. In mid-March, in line with Government advice, we moved to ‘Level 2’, with fewer members of staff in the office and others working from home on rotation. We still have the option to activate ‘Level 3’, with the office effectively closed and all the HQ team working from their homes. Fortunately, part of our IT investment in recent years has enabled our records and databases to be stored outside our offices ‘in
the Cloud’, which will allow members of staff to work from home and ‘self-isolate’ if required. Even if things escalate to a stage where we are forced to close the office completely, while there will inevitably be some disruption, we are still in a position to issue permit renewals and modification approvals online.
Help us to help you
Clearly though, ‘home working’ or having a restricted office presence means we will not be as readily available by telephone. If you have an enquiry, please help us to help you by emailing rather than phoning; either to office@laa.uk.com or engineering@laa.uk. com. Please avoid using personal email addresses too, indirect messages will get logged into the system by the admin team – and in these coming months as the virus takes effect, it will be particularly important not to assume that individuals are at their usual desks.
Grounding?
At the time of going to press, there haven’t been any restrictions placed on private flying. We are in daily contact with the CAA and DfT on this and have made the case against any prevention of GA flying, unless
there is clear and pressing evidence of a health or safety case. There is minimal likely risk to a pilot flying solo, providing pre- and post-flight social contact is minimised. There is clearly a greater risk of virus transmission if two or more people share a cockpit, but this risk is no greater than if they were sharing a car. In contrast, there are a number of potentially adverse aviation safety implications of stopping flying. It would restrict pilot currency and continuity flying, creating risks which would outweigh any theoretical benefits to public health as things stand at the moment. We’re currently discussing with the CAA, mitigating any difficulties which might arise from flying clubs, schools restricting dual instruction training, which may have a future impact on PPL revalidation and licence renewal flights. We would also advise owners whose aircraft may shortly require a CofV renewal check flight, to consider carrying out such a flight sooner rather than later, in case increased COVID precautions do restrict flying in the future. In the meantime, please monitor our website on www.lightaircraftassociation. co.uk and our Facebook page for the latest information.
FAI Aviation Art Contest for Young People – judging and finalists The Flying Yesterday and Tomorrow concept proved a challenge for many of our young artists, but over 70 imaginative entries for the UK national segment of the FAI International Art Competition were received at LAA headquarters by the end of January. This is the third year that the LAA, under the stewardship of Anne Hughes, has facilitated the contest for the UK. In February we asked the editor of Pilot, Philip Whiteman, Chairman of the Guild of Aviation Artists Andrew Latham, and artist Eugenio Facci, to join Steve Slater (LAA CEO) to select the UK prize winners. After much discussion, three entries were chosen from each age group with a flight in a light aircraft, funded by the LAA, offered as the
first prize in each category. The winning entries will now be sent to the FAI in Switzerland for international judging. Sincere thanks to all who spent time and energy at airshows, events, youth groups and schools encouraging young people to send entries for the competition. A new title for the 2021 competition will be announced in a few weeks’ time with details on our at www.lightaircraftassociation.co.uk/art Congratulations to our winners, who are: Junior group: Henry Bean, Fleur Bouchaud and Daisy Harris Intermediate group: Charlie Wilson, Bonnie Salter and Nathan Cox Senior group: Callum Doak, Millie Bailey and Ben Berry.
LAA Scottish Tour postponed to 2021 It is sad, but perhaps inevitable in the current circumstances, that we have been forced to postpone the planned 2020 LAA Scottish Tour, which was scheduled for late May and which attracted more than 90 expressions of interest. We are so grateful to all parties engaged in the
organisation, including the Scottish Aero Club at Perth, the local Struts, airfields both north of the border and en route through England, NATS and so many more who have been so helpful and enthusiastic about the tour. They have already expressed their enthusiasm to help with
the event in spring of 2021, the Association’s 75th Anniversary year. Sadly the ‘Meet the LAA Days’ at Eshott on 23 May and at Perth on 30 May, marking the start and completion of the tour, have also had to be cancelled at the request of both airfields. April 2020 | LIGHT AVIATION | 23
LAA04.news.V5.LB.indd 65
24/03/2020 10:41
