Interesting points, discussing...
aerosbitbasher wrote:As previously recommended, I've asked for my original response to be retracted and submitted a new response with
1. Further regulation on law abiding pilots won't solve the problem. If you want to tweak the rules for law obliging PPL's the changes need to be minimal an non-onerous.
To some extent I agree, it is historically something that "governing man" likes to do in Britain particularly, which is that when things go wrong when existing rules have been broken, they tighten up those rules anyhow. BMAA inspectors and G-STYX, child protection laws and various abuses, restrictions on legally owned firearms after crimes have been committed with illegally owned firearms. The list is endless.
2. Don't think you should be able to charge anything until the flight has been completed.
Interesting perspective, but unrealistic. For example a passenger who offers to pay for the fuel at the start of the flight. When money is paid really should be irrelevant - it's how much, and if at-all.
3. No obligation on passengers to contribute; this must be included in any advert for the flight and in the pre-flight briefing. If the passenger wants to contribute great, but let's make it hard for black charters to get income off the back of their flights.
Again, strikes me as totally unrealistic. Is it unreasonable for somebody to say "well, I'd love to do a trip for lunch to X, but can't afford it this month", and somebody else to reply "well if I pay for half the fuel, I'd love to go too". That has effectively formed an obligation to contribute, but a totally reasonable one.
4. No requirement for common purpose, it's meaningless, hard to prove and easy to fall foul of.
As I see it, the real problem here is that "common purpose" is barely defined, but yes. Pilot wants to go flying, passenger would like to drop in on Auntie Mabel who lives next to an airfield a hundred miles away. Technically no common purpose, but compatible purposes.
5. Pilots must not portray themselves as professional pilots, no uniforms, no captains hats, no ties, nothing more formal than trousers and a white shirt.
That is definitely verging on the facile. If we start policing what people can, or cannot, wear we're going to disappear up our own backsides. For that matter, some people may be around an airfield in a uniform for other totally legitimate reasons, do we really say that they can't take a mate flying and share the costs unless they've changed clothes first?
6. Owners should be able to include some of the fixed costs into the cost of the flight.
Yes, absolutely. Personally I know roughly what my real hourly costs are over the course of a year from my logbook spreadsheet. If I do, anybody else can too.
7. The CAA need to inform the public how to check if their flight is legal, and make it easy for them to check. This is as much an awareness problem for the great unwashed as it is a regulation problem for pilots.
Depends what you mean by "legal" - permit/CofA, licence and rating currency? Rental agreement? Insurance? It really is unrealistic to expect passengers to check any significant proportion of what's in place to make a flight legal.
The best that can be done, I'd venture, is to make available some simple system that allows and encourages passengers to check that a flight is under arrangements that make it public transport, for which they're expected to pay a commercial rate.
G
I am Spartacus, and so is my co-pilot.