It would also help if NATS/DPA would redesign the current dog's dinner of airspace so that it would not require a degree in cartography to work out which particular bit has which restriction
The thing is that if you use
GPS, there is actually no problem navigating around the airspace.
Especially now with the 6000ft TA, so you don't have 5500ft and FL055 next to each other
Airspace is not going to go away. When you get a PPL, it is an ICAO compliant private pilot's license (licen
ce
) which entitles you to fly all over the world. It would be disingenuous to take £10000 off a punter and then tell him he can fly only in the UK because he has been taught only visual nav (DR) and this works only in UK airspace where the CAS shapes have been carefully redesigned to facilitate DR (e.g. by following motorways).
The reason for probably 99% of infringements is the c r a p pilot training, still stuck in WW1, which the training industry has NO commercial incentive to change (it has NO mandate to turn out pilots who can fly from A to B) and the CAA is not going to do anything about it because - despite popular belief - they are not trying to destroy GA and the PPL training business, which they would do if they tried to suddenly force it to modernise.
The FAA has dealt with this by mandating, on an FAA checkride, a demonstration of the installed equipment. As obvious competitive pressures cause US schools to modernise their fleets, it is no longer possible (for most schools) to circumvent GPS training -
even though GPS is not in the syllabus. In the UK, they can circumvent it because not only it isn't in the syllabus but also a demonstration of installed equipment is not required on the skills test. The bigger FTOs have GPS installed but they actively sabotage GPS training by ensuring that the GPS database is not current which prevents GPS being used (at all) in the IR flight test. So even a fresh JAA IR holder cannot fly in Europe's IFR airspace - which is probably merciful since he has not been taught how to develop Eurocontrol-acceptable routings
Until somebody grabs this bull by the horns, nothing is going to change.
That is a question better directed at Mike himself.
Not answering emails. I thought perhaps something upset him badly, or maybe he got a top job somewhere and didn't want to leave a trail of postings (hence the very unusual step of deleting all of them).