Sat Feb 22, 2014 6:58 pm
#1255705
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:Archaic and ineffective attempt at trying to monitor people and goods traffic.
...
I have no relevant direct knowledge (if I had I obviously would not be posting here .. ), but I can see how the current provisions probably were and may still be partially effective in helping to monitor the flow of actual or potential identified miscreants between mainland GB and NI/IoM/CI (both ways). This precisely relies on the fact that the vast majority of GA pilots and aerodrome operators/users are, indeed, law-abiding (as posted above). This presumably also means that any such miscreant trying to travel covertly would know (or readily be able to discover) that trying to suborn or coerce a GA pilot into assisting such covert travel was far from easy or uncomplicated. This presumably means that such miscreants will usually choose to travel by public transport routes, sea or air, and hope to evade the identification or attention which the authorities permanently mount at the termini of such routes. But, of course, there are also private marine craft ..
Of course, I do not know how true or needed this deterrent effect was or is, but very recent events have shown that there remains a real threat of villainy planned from one side of the Irish Sea against targets on the other.
And this, of course, is not within the remit of any part of the CAA to judge. It rests with the Home Office and the various Agencies for which the Home Secetary is responsible.
[Others, of course, are free to argue that no part of HMG should attempt to monitor the movement of any persons between one part of UK and another ..]