Use this forum to flag up examples of red tape and gold plate
#1407534
Paul S
Wish it were always as simple as that!
I recently needed to renew a MEP rating which had expired a couple of years ago, on my PPL/IR
I had to go to an ATO to be assessed for a MEP test.
None would do it in my aircraft.(EASA type, G reg, new Annual, IFR equipped.) Forced to complete an hour or so in a very expensive ATO twin, a type had never flown before,which bore no relation to the handling of the aircraft I was to fly. Given a Course completion Certificate which said no further training had been required!! Cost many hundreds of ££££ with no valid safety case.
Then back to my aircraft to complete the MEP.
What was wrong with the old system where you flew sufficient time with the instructor until proficient, and then sign off the MEP??
Madness.
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By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1407604
low&slow wrote:Imposing an FAA-style flight review system on EASA pilots doesn't give us anything new, instead we lose the chance of using any instructional hour as a revalidation flight. We would also have a requirement to sit through & pay for an hour's groundschool every other year.


I'm not sure why the instructional hour is lost, nor why an hour of groundschool is not a good thing given the amount of changes taking place. One of the best things about the FAA system is the simplicity.

Can any instructor do the proficiency test now?

Ian
#1407634
No has to be an examiner for proficiency check.

I think the current EASA system for SEP/TMG revalidation is actually quite flexible and gives the pilot options of how to revalidate, I'm not sure what problem people think will be solved by mandating a proficiency check.
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By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1407796
I'm not sure what problem people think will be solved by mandating a proficiency check.


Couple of thoughts. The term proficiency check is possibly a bit misleading given that we already use it and it involves an examiner. For the sake of clarity let's call it a Biennial Review of Flight.

If regulators and others could resist the temptation to complicate matters by being overly prescriptive, it would achieve three things

- It would greatly simplify matters to the point where everyone would understand it
- It would give instructors an option of not signing the BRF until the pilot has reached a suitable standard
- It would give instructors the opportunity to discuss regulatory and procedural change during the ground portion
- It would greatly simplify the case for people who have not flown for a while (even for a very long time)

I am not sure many are arguing that the current system is ideal. It has increased costs, increased complexity, dissuaded some from getting back into flying and has not improved safety.

Ian
#1407798
I'm really not following the logic to be honest! Right now, a pilot who does a reasonable number of hours per year (12) can do an hour with an instructor on anything of interest / use to them and then get their rating revalidated with a bit of paperwork for another two years. What seems to be suggested here is a move to a pass/fail 'test' with new mandatory ground school - that's increasing the requirement and cost to pilots! Moreover it robs the opportunity to do something a bit different for the hour, for example some aeros or IF for a normally VFR pilot.

I think the big issue is that rating requirements and licence holder issues are being conflated. If there is a concern about PPL licence holder competency in certain matters, messing around with SEP rating requirements isn't the way to solve it.

If you turn what is now a fairly light touch 'coaching' hour requirement into anything with a pass/fail ethos you will get a load of people giving up and will do little to improve standards.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1407841
So you can cowboy around for two years, make sure you cowboy around for eleven hours in the final year, and go and ask for an hour's aeros above the airfield, or perhaps an hour's night circuits, then you are clear to cowboy around for the next two years, and no one ever discovers you have difficulties knowing where you are if out of sight of familiar ground, and have no idea about planning trips.
Also, I am not saying the two year should be a test (pass or fail), it should take different pilots different times to get the "carry on for another two years" signature... Because we are all different, with different abilities, different base knowledge, different deterioration rates. One size does not fit all.
By Balliol
#1407850
So rather than a hour it could potentially be 3,4,5.... Good luck selling that to the GA community as an improvement :D

Seriously I'm not trying to be antagonistic, but the gash pilots will continue to seek out the gash instructors and examiners and get signed up in their normal hour with no rigour at all and a load of others would be tormented by drawn out revalidations.

I don't know what the magic bullet for the problem areas / pilots is but I don't think we understand the problem dynamic / root causes fully, instructor and examiner standards need work, innovative ideas need some consideration (fund a free sky demon style airborne app?) and we need to rethink just how much information / direction a hobby pilot can actually absorb and conform to.

If you take skydemon (other apps are available) it really helps and sorts out flight planning, getting NOTAMS, getting weather and airborne navigation and sortie management. If you added in some kind of logbook and licence dates function that automatically monitored currencies and a regulatory hot poop message board on login or something, and perhaps a tabbed 'skyway code' (acknowledge the doorsteps of CAPs, ANO etc.. are too blah for the average PPL) and really drive its use throughout the community you could have a really powerful tool to develop PPLs out there.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1407858
No one sold me:
-the twelve hours
-NO mandated ground school whatever the perceived hot potatoes
- everyone deemed out of the same mold so all just need an hour with an instructor

Perhaps the committee driving this hadn't applied basic Threat and Error management parallels to the revalidation process or work out exactly what they were trying to achieve.
But maybe contributors here different goals... I haven't looked back, but am I still the only one who has declared what I think the revalidation process ought to be about and work to achieve? Perhaps others merely sees it as a rule process to be completed simply because it is there, so I could argue with them forever, different objectives, aiming at different things.
By bookworm
#1407873
Balliol wrote:Moreover it robs the opportunity to do something a bit different for the hour, for example some aeros or IF for a normally VFR pilot.


I'm afraid that ship has sailed. Here's the NPA 2014-29 proposal for AMC for the training flight:

Training flight items should be based on the exercise items of the proficiency check as deemed relevant by the instructor and depending on the experience of the candidate. The briefing should include for aeroplanes and helicopters a discussion on threat-and-error management with special emphasis on decision-making when encountering adverse meteorological conditions, unintentional Instrument Meteorological Conditions (IMCs) and navigation flight capabilities, and for sailplanes and balloons a discussion with special emphasis on principal occurrence categories of the activity covered by the licence

I think the big issue is that rating requirements and licence holder issues are being conflated. If there is a concern about PPL licence holder competency in certain matters, messing around with SEP rating requirements isn't the way to solve it.

If you turn what is now a fairly light touch 'coaching' hour requirement into anything with a pass/fail ethos you will get a load of people giving up and will do little to improve standards.


Doesn't seem to have that effect in the US. How else would you seek to improve competency?

I have to say I argued strongly at the time for the preservation of the training flight as a training flight and opposed that AMC (as did some EASA staff -- it was the NAAs that wanted a quasi-checkride with mandatory items), but I'm increasingly persuaded by the arguments for doing it the FAA way. No hours requirement and just a BFR. What's the failure rate for BFRs?
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By Dave W
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1407875
I'm not sure anyone necessarily disagrees Irv - it's just that, as suggested earlier, there are two different issues going on here:

1. What's wrong with the current process?
2. Is the current process the most appropriate one, and if not what should it be?
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By G-BLEW
Boss Man  Boss Man
#1407883
No hours requirement and just a BFR. What's the failure rate for BFRs?


There's not really a failure rate for BFRs, there's a 'still undergoing the BFR' (which can obviously take more than an hour if necessary).

Ian
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By flybymike
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1407886
Irv Lee wrote:Also, I am not saying the two year should be a test (pass or fail), it should take different pilots different times to get the "carry on for another two years" signature...

What's the difference between a "fail" and a "different length of time to to get a carry on for another two years" signature?

GA has been decimated since BFRs were introduced with, according to the CAA, zero improvement in safety. In thirty two years flying I have never filed a flight plan or GAR and wouldn't have the faintest idea how to. I don't fly on instruments, and don't do aeros which would frighten the sh.t out of me. I don't fly at night and I usually just cowboy around my local area with a fairly reasonable chance of getting lost if I stray outside it without a GPS. In short, I know my limitations and I fly within them.
If instructors and examiners and the industry at large want to regulate themselves out of customers then go ahead, I'll be one of the first cowboys to jack it in.
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By Irv Lee
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1407926
One problem we have in discussing this is that we occupy different places within GA. Not being or meaning to be derogatory at all with the term, I don't meet the Oxford Set much. (I mean pilots from some generic training school somewhere dedicated to commercial training but does ppl training too on the way, with superbly equipped expensive aircraft and pilots who eventually want a commercial interview). I do meet a lot of pilots whose peak was their original skills test, and they will never again be as good or as sharp or as knowledgeable as they were then, and they will have decayed at a certain rate not exactly unique to them, but mainly different. Some "peaks" will have been thirty years ago, some thirty months. I don't see how anyone can decide that one size (ie "one hour") fits all for ensuring each of these pilots, whether the Oxford Set, or the ones maybe close to Skills and Knowledge half-life, are not a problem to themselves and others for the next two years.
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By peter272
#1407976
Irv

From your perspective I can certainly see your point.

From the perspective of a junior pilot (or senior one) struggling to attain the 12 hours in the second year when renting a club aircraft, the consequences of not revalidating are quite awful and I know of 3 pilots who've gone to other sports.

At one local school, a pilot had done the hours and flight, but didn't have the ratings page signed. So he had to do a test. He flew with, what he thought was, an examiner and did well. However, he was then told as the instructor wasn't an examiner he needed 5 hours training and then do a test with a real examiner to regain his licence. This school is notorious for ripping off students and I doubt they are alone.

As I understand it there is little evidence that safety has been improved by the BFR and most GA pilots will see this as an income-generator for clubs and schools rather than the way Irv puts it. I do agree that there is a currency issue amongst pilots and would suggest increased reliance on technology is a major factor, combined with the cost per hour of flying when set against income.

Personally I think that the 'nothing in the first year, 12 in the second' is wrong. The LAPL encourages regular flying, where the PPL(A) encourages 'binge flying'. That is where I would make the change, not further enhance the instructional flight which will only force more pilots out of the game.