Unlicensed Pilots.

[Bebedriver]

Well that got my attention! I have here in my a hand, form FCL 150CJAR 231298 entitled 'Aircraft Rating - Certificate of Test/Check or Experience.... with an expiry date of 29-04-2013

[PeteM]

The whole issue with GA in the UK is that there is a massive cohort of people who find more satisfaction in arguing the regulations than they find in actually flying..........

[Leaky Mick]

It never occurred to me to do it any other way but legally. Just didn’t think of it.

Leave school? Get a job. PAYE and NI? Pay it. Want a car? Take driving test. Want a nice telly? Save up and pay. MOT running out? Renew MOT. Fancy flying an aeroplane? Go to flying school. And so on.

It just never occurred to me.

[Crash one]

The whole issue with GA in the UK is that there is a massive cohort of people who find more satisfaction in arguing the regulations than they find in actually flying..........

Absolutely true.
and if you dissagree with regulations too often you will be suspected of breaking them yourself.
Police state, filled with net curtain twitchers.
I think the unlicenced prob fall into four slots, 1:Once legal, expired fed up with beaurocracy, 2: Taught/learned from daddy from the age of 5, 3: Self taught very carefully aware of the risks, 4: Darwin award candidate "how difficult can it be?". I have no problem with 1,2 or 3 who would prob take enough care not to be noticed. Item 4 will eventually solve their own problem but make life difficult for the rest of us as D.O pointed out.

[flybymike]

Well that got my attention! I have here in my a hand, form FCL 150CJAR 231298 entitled 'Aircraft Rating - Certificate of Test/Check or Experience.... with an expiry date of 29-04-2013

OOps! Sorry You are quite right. I tend to think of it as simply a rating ever since they stopped stamping logbooks.

[Bebedriver]

I wonder if anyone on here will remember to ask me if I've re-validated it on the 30th of April next year?

[Hotelfox]

I recall a CFI at a well known south east Essex flight centre 20 years ago that went undetected with an expired medical for 3 years.

He was a fantastic pilot.

[Ian Melville]

........as it happens, I'm currently fully legal, current medical, current CofE, Current permit (LAA ... Hisss!.....)

Did Keef do the conversion

[Al Fresco]

read this sometime ago

note :pilot
10 yrs lapsed licence / no medical / dubious maintenance / no insurance / killed 2 parents of 2 small children who were left without a mom +dad and no insurance money

2nd jan 2009

Failed stunt 'caused air crash'

The aircraft crash led to the closure of part of the railway line for several days
A plane crashed onto a railway line killing three people because the unlicensed pilot may have been attempting an aerobatic stunt.
Pilot Alan Matthews, 59, along with Nick O'Brien, 35, and his wife, Emma, 29, all from the West Midlands, died in the crash near Stafford, on 2 January.
An Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) report said the Piper Cherokee's documents were incomplete.
It said the crash probably happened when Mr Matthews lost control.
High speed
The AAIB report said the cause of the crash was not mechanical failure.
Investigators said the light aircraft suddenly started a steep nose-down descent.
The plane hit the West Coast Mainline at Colwich Junction, near Little Haywood, at high speed.
The aircraft took out overhead power lines, which led to the closure of that section of the railway line for several days.
Mr and Mrs O'Brian, of Shirley, near Solihull, had taken off with Mr Matthews from Sittles airfield, near Lichfield.

Emma and Nick O'Brien were passengers in the light aircraft
The couple who had two children, Callum, aged 10, and 18-month-old Joel, were believed to have known Mr Matthews, who lived in Walsall, through work.
The report said Mr Matthews' pilot licence had expired in January 2003 and his last recorded medical examination had been in 1995 and should have been renewed two years later.

The AAIB said the aircraft's documents did not show that the required maintenance had been correctly performed.

see aaib report

http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cf ... 010-09.pdf

[Bill McCarthy]

Al Fresco - since you went to all that trouble to find fatalities due to pilots who were "out of date", could you please complete the story and give us details of all fatalities where pilots were in date and maintenance was in order. No ? - I thought not.

[Crash one]

Al Fresco - since you went to all that trouble to find fatalities due to pilots who were "out of date", could you please complete the story and give us details of all fatalities where pilots were in date and maintenance was in order. No ? - I thought not.

I would also agree with that.
Where in the AAIB report does it say anything about maintenance or lack of medical being a contributory factor?
That pilot would probably have crashed at sometime regardless. Witch hunting for "evidence" doesn't help.

[Captain Chairborne]

But it does have a bearing on the argument that pilots who have a cavalier attitude to one area of flying are likely to treat other aspects in a similar way - someone who thinks they are above the paperwork that the rest of us have to put up with, may also think they are above HASSELL checks.

[PeteM]

There is a huge difference between attitude or approach and competence. It is best not to confuse the two.

In this thread there seems to be an assumption that peopl who do not abide by all the rules are an accident 'waiting to happen'. There is a l;ot of research which shows that rule breaking is demonstrative of certain behaviours which generally mean that risk taking is likely.

However the only two people I suspect were not 'legal' were as I said very competent. Much more like the highly experienced 'advernturer types'. Yes rule breakers - but with highly developed stick and rudder skills. Compared to my skills at the time - considerably better 'pilots'.

It is a complete fallacy to imagine that paperwork issues make poor pilots. Yes they suggest behaviours. Compared to many of the supposedly fully legal pilots I have met they were orders of magnitude less likely to have any sort of issuer let alone accident.

The attitudes shown here smack of entrenched attitudes and not a lot of thinking. The average competence level of legal pilots is pretty varied. To fly without drawing attention to yourself requires either deserted places or a reasonable level of ability. The ones I met had that - which is mor ethan can be said of many others.

[Jwscud]

There is a huge difference between attitude or approach and competence. It is best not to confuse the two.

In this thread there seems to be an assumption that peopl who do not abide by all the rules are an accident 'waiting to happen'. There is a l;ot of research which shows that rule breaking is demonstrative of certain behaviours which generally mean that risk taking is likely.

Quoting from a single incident is not always helpful, but the Colin McRae accident that I mentioned earlier on this thread is an excellent counter-example to your argument. There is little argument that he was a skilled "stick and rudder" type man, but his lax attitude to paperwork was reflected in his general flying - for example:

1. Flying his helicopter without a medical
2. Flying his helicopter (without holding a valid type rating) the length of the country to renew his type rating
3. Having an expired licence
4. Breaking the low flying rules
5. Performing aggressive low-level manoeuvring

While they are not causally linked, the first 3 bespeak a casual attitude to his flying that most likely contributed to the accident.

[BobM]