This is how I see a replacement infringement course working.
Initial training of Instructors and ExaminersInstructors and Examiners would “attend” an accreditation course to enable them to deliver infringement courses. This would cost a similar or lower amount to the present course delivered to pilots. Development of the course could be funded by the CAA and delivered by GASCo, or another contractor, as a webinar. It could be part funded by the instructors / examiners.
The aim would be to give a spread of accredited instructors / examiners around the country and to address the claim that in the past the standards were inconsistent. Potentially, refresher courses could be held every so many years.
Pilots who infringePilots who infringe would receive a letter from the CAA asking them to make an appointment with an accredited instructor / examiner within say two weeks and notifying the CAA the appointment had been made. The CAA might then provide further details of the infringement to the instructor / examiner.
Pilot and instructor / examiner would meet on a one-to-one basis and review the specific events that resulted in the infringement and discuss the various techniques for avoiding infringing in future.
The instructor / examiner would complete a response form to the CAA, which might include a recommendation as to whether in some cases further re-training is required.
I would envisage the instructor / examiner review would be around two to three hours, and the cost would be met by the pilot.
A prescribed approach (there would be more detail than I have set out as to the matters which would by necessity be covered), with a system of accreditation and the potential for audit has not to my knowledge been tried before.
Advantages: Some money would be delivered directly back to the training environment. Instructors / examiners would be even better equipped to mitigate infringements in their everyday training, the course would address the specific needs of the pilot rather than a single approach fits all, there would be far greater freedom to depart from a standard format. For example, if a pilot had never used Sky Demon this could be examined in depth, and further and separate tuition arranged. Meetings could be arranged quickly while the event was fresh in the pilot’s mind. While not prescriptive, the pilot and instructor / examiner could agree a flight review would be helpful as a separate matter.
Disadvantages: potentially the lack of consistency, financial considerations in terms of cost reward to the instructors / examiners.
As to the more general causes of infringement, I see changes to airspace and its governance as equally important to reducing the risk in the first place, but we know there is no perfect solution at a realistic cost. Pilots will always infringe as we know from other countries with much better organised airspace than or own, and with far better ATC support. Realistically, and sadly, I see little deliverance of airspace changes and so we should concentrate on the art of the possible.
However, I also believe this is a far better solution because it places responsibility within our own community and with those at the coal face delivering flight training day in, day out, rather than organisations which may well come and go. It improves the overall awareness of infringement mitigation within the training community which works with pilots day in, day out. It localises the re-training, by which I mean an awful lot of pilots tend to fly in the same area and don’t go hundreds of miles. (I know some do). Therefore, pilots based in the South and operating in busy and constrained airspace, can be retrained with the correct focus for their immediate needs, compared and contrasted with a pilot operating in the highlands of Scotland. Finally, examiners, instructors and high hour instrument pilots for example who may well have infringed for very different and specific reasons compared with the newly qualified pilot, will not sit through hours of material which is almost certainly neither relevant or helpful, but as the one fits all course we have, is unavoidable.
Of course the devil is in the detail, and this does not address the detail.
FLYER Club Member
