A4 Pacific wrote:johnm wrote:There are two old saws that apply here:
1) The system (or regulation) that cannot be abused has yet to be invented.
2) If it ain't broke don't fix it.
The proposals simply complicate matters and are therefore counter productive. The abusers will still abuse and those who interpret the rules sensibly will have additional complexity and difficulty and so helpful and useful activities may be curtailed due to excess caution and/or the dreaded gold plating......
I disagree.
1) Just because we can’t prevent law breaking doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. That’s perverse!
2) After Henderson, you don’t think there’s a problem? Really? Comments about Wingly and PPLs turning up with 4 bars on their shoulders. The fairly widespread suggestion that suspicious activity is not unusual, but people don’t wish to ‘get involved’?
Unscrupulous individuals and Walter Mittys are prepared to risk others’ lives. What we are discussing here is a consultation. People like you will object in accordance with the jerk of your knee. But this is about making it easier to stamp out dangerous greedy fraud! Precisely for all the reasons already stated it’s easy to get away with putting innocent lives at risk, What the CAA are doing here is starting a discussion in the hope that a way of identifying when clear cut rules have been broken, in order to make enforcement easier!
Why don’t we discuss how we ARE going to contribute to stamping out this nasty risky fraud, rather than just shrugging our shoulders and making ad-hominem attacks on the staff at the CAA whilst innocent people’s lives continue to be put at risk through greed and/or deluded over confidence in some’s ability/experience/qualifications.
Contribute rather than just nay-saying!
We want to stop grey charters. There are two parties involved, the pilot and the passenger.
Passenger -
I would support making a signed declaration a requirement. It provides a standard form of words that are regulator approved so the passenger cannot then say they were mis-informed. This would capture activity taking place off web-platforms, as such platforms already have such T&Cs so are arguably "more safe" in this respect.
I would suggest, to avoid onerous admin, that a signature is required per person per aircraft per pilot, but not on every subsequent flight. i.e if you're flying with the same friends you dont need to do it every time
PilotGenerally, creating any more regulation from the pilot's perspective (other than the above) isn't going to stop illegal activity. I don't think, what looks like a tightening up the rules through the “common purpose” definition will make a jot of difference to illegal activity.
However – and this is where I may got shot down.....
*Disclaimer – I have used Wingly before
I don’t support A to A flights for “strangers” that are advertised via Wingly or in any other means other than through word of mouth. If you’re doing it from friends/family, that’s fine. But if you’re doing it for a random person you’re taking money out of Flying Schools/Clubs pockets. Furthermore, from an hour building perspective I’m not convinced the learning quality of A to A sight seeing flights on nice VFR days are the best.
So, I would suggest that A to A flights remove the definition of Common Purpose as this is Reductio ad absurdum in that if its flight with a stranger there would never have been Common Purpose, but it its with friends/acquaintances I don’t think we should stop these flights and the declaration form above covers the caveat emptor aspects (wow, two latin phrases in one sentence)
For A to B flights, this is trickier. I don’t think Common Purpose is useful here either unless we genuinely want to ban example given in this thread e.g. taking a friend to pick up their own plane from maintenance. Whatever definitions you use, you’ll end up penalising the majority of generally safe, competent pilots and/or removing the opportunity for valuable hours building.
To stop grey charters the approach needs to be intelligence led. We should look to technology (AI, ML) to start looking at anomalous patterns, routes, combinations of pilot, aircraft and destinations to drive informed ramp checks.