Use this forum to flag up examples of red tape and gold plate
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868511
We seem to have adopted 1980s French and Iron Curtain style bureaucracy which needs urgent attention.
There is an increase in commercial licence holders wanting sep ratings for perhaps obvious reasons. It is quite incredible how many different forms are needed post test.
Once the course and test is over, there are 17 pages (possibly 18 if you include one I have to keep) over 5 to 7 different forms (depending on exactly what you count as a form, eg whether you count the email to ask caa "permission to fly a skill test" beforehand too) just to add an sep rating to an existing uk fcl licence.
The time just to coordinate this paperwork (not including filling it in!) before it goes to the CAA exceeds the test flight time. The extra elapsed time to fill in the forms by applicant and examiner, and then scan in (by combination of applicant, examiner plus CAA receiver) can exceed the airborne training time on the course!
The chances of initial rejection are incredibly high . Just one of the forms has an additional 7 page instruction document on how to fill it in, and even this is not clear whether the required copy of the licence needs to be certified or not, the copy proves to the caa the information that they already hold for that pilot. Any assumptions made (like assuming no certification, just a copy needed) risks enormous delays.
For a different pilot wanting the same thing, my previous applicant 8 weeks ago today had his application rejected after 10 days because we had not sent in a form that the instructions to examiners specifically say must NOT be sent in for this particular application. (Naming a form that should not be sent in is quite unusual!). Rejection means his application went to the back of the queue even when the rejection is shown to be spurious. It took me a call and an email to point out they did not need the extra form and indeed examiners are told not to use it. My request to let us know if, with this information, his application was still rejected or still in the system, albeit putback another ten days, was completely ignored, meaning I had to follow up a week later to see if it was still rejected. His temporary permission to fly (8 weeks) expires today.
We seem to be completely swamped in a mix of 1980s Iron Curtain and French style bureaucracy that is simply jamming up the system.
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By Sooty25
#1868514
I'm surprised they don't ask for it to be faxed in!
Last edited by Sooty25 on Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868515
My rejected candidate from 8 week ago has received his licence and new rating just in time, but not before I wasted about another 5 minutes on Monday preparing to phone the CAA to chase, then realising it was a Bank Holiday so I couldn't.

rf3flyer wrote:How can this be? Isn't the UK the best place in the world for GA? :?

Maybe you missed the last word of the sentence, it was drowned out by the cheering... "best place in the world for GA bureaucrats"
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By Rjk983
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868766
rf3flyer wrote:How can this be? Isn't the UK the best place in the world for GA? :?


I’m getting a bit sick of this complaining to be honest.

This country is absolutely the Best Place in the World for GA.

The problem is all of us idiot pilots who don’t realise that the abbreviation GA stands for

Gold-plated Administration…. :roll: :roll:
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868783
The origins of all this are distant and complex and relate to lack of trust and rear end protection. It pervades more than Aviation and is unlikely to improve any time soon :(
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By VRB_20kt
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868786
Lack of trust is one thing. But we have to understand that some people are dishonest. Mistakes in licensing - particularly commercial licensing - can be worse than embarrassing.

What is completely idiotic is the need to supply certified copies of documents that not only do they hold, but which they actually provided in the first place.

The sheer amount of paper is amazing and frankly bewildering. It’s partly due to multiple-use forms. HMRC get round this by having a basic information page and supplemental sheets for the specific element(s) being addressed. Not rocket science.

Then there is the nonsense that when a mistake is found in the overly complex forms you get sent to the back of the queue before any attempt is made to rectify matters. Of course, this creates an artificially short time before applications are initially processed, but does nothing for throughput.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868794
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:@Irv Lee Who'd thunk it. The CAA never needed the EASA regulations to frustrate aviation, they always had it in them to do it autonomously.

Luckily it is all clear now...

Funny they were fine under JAR but I can name the exact date they started with this soet of behaviour - Sept 17th, 2012, along with the fear of auditors brought up in States where this nonsense is normal telling them they are not complying properly with EU law. Sadly all the new names in the CAA now think this is "normal" having been trained that way over 8 years, what else would be expected?
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868799
Auditors look for compliance with local procedures and those procedures were a local interpretation of EU and EASA requirements the words “gold and “plating “ are the problem
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868801
@johnm Pre 2012, very flexible with sensible points put to them, why didn't they start acting like they are acting now earlier? it will be really hard work to get a river flowing through their stable now. It's analogous to many aspects of society, if we train a group or even generation for years in certain attitudes and even beliefs, why is anyone actually surprised when they act the way they were brought up!
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1868803
My fairly extensive experience with a number of other EASA regulated NAAs suggests that the 'difficulties' encountered by UK licensed pilots in their dealings with the UK regulator are very much UK specific and not replicated elsewhere.

They all have their quirks but none like the UK.

If anyone is asking where the common sense approach has departed to, look no further, it has arrived on the emerald isle.

I know you're an EASA hater Irv but the difficulties you and others have described on here are generated by the CAA - it was always thus and clearly not improved past the liberation from EASA earlier this year.
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By Kemble Pitts
#1868852
On the topic of faxing forms to CAA.

For a client of mine I've just completed the CAA application form for Design Organisation Approval (DOA), CAA Form SRG1765 Issue 03 to be precise.

Amongst the usual contact details it asks for the Fax No. This form is dated November 2020!!

I simply wrote in the applicable box 'Are you serious?'
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