Anthony has had enough...

wbardorf wrote:

So is the only realistic sustainable way to change aviation regulations to work on society’s perceptions of aviation? In the US, there is a much higher acceptance of general/business aviation as a mode of transport than in most parts of the world and that is reflected in the risk appetite that comes through regulation. It is also interesting to see the general correlation of aviation freedom and personal freedom in a country: Generally the more restrictive a country is with respect to personal freedom/freedom of expression, the more restrictive the aviation laws are, including the permit/bureaucracy regime…

I think you might be onto something here. People do tend to make decisions based on emotional attachment to a view of life rather than on hard facts.

AOPA wbardorf wrote:

Generally the more restrictive a country is with respect to personal freedom/freedom of expression, the more restrictive the aviation laws are, including the permit/bureaucracy regime…

Yes, aviation is a leading indicator of respect for personal freedom, for its own sake and for its economic value.

chflyer wrote:

AOPA is one of the biggest and most powerful lobbies in US government circles, with corresponding results. As mentioned, no lobby no progress.

I think AOPA stops erosion of what already exists, it’s a valuable function but regardless of the size of the organization I don’t think it could turn around a culture. It seems to me the last US lobbying effort that produced new freedoms was EAA’s successful initiative to create the Experimental Amateur Built aircraft category. That was in 1953, and was arguably only an adjustment of regulatory overreach when aircraft certification was established in 1920s.

We need a strong EUAOPA.

Well, you need one “AOPA” and with a proper executive.

In Europe, there is an old joke that if you put 4 pilots on a desert island, a year later you will have

• four GA organisations
• two splinter groups
• four pilot forums, each with 20 pilots under nicknames*

Unfortunately it is not a joke. Even within one country, most of the GA groups avoid co-operation, and across Europe (which is a mixture of countries with mostly widely differering cultures with little in common) there is even less interest. And there is a lot of I am allright Jack going on. Most of the organisations are not run by “normal staff”; they tend to be run by “big characters” with huge egos, most of whom can’t stand each other.

Running an international forum for 7.5 years has been a sufficiently educational experience in national politics, and that is just a forum

* in current UK climate I would add “of which 10 will be NATS, DfT and CAA infringements dept. staff”

Finally saw the video. Nothing there that can’t be solved with a helicopter is what I am thinking. An R44; Half the price of a Cirrus, 10x the utility value.

chflyer wrote:

AOPA is one of the biggest and most powerful lobbies in US government circles, with corresponding results.

I think you’re exaggerating AOPA’s influence a bit here. That said, they are an effective organization.

As for the video – geeez, I had forgotten about all the crazy Euro and especially UK stuff ! Agree 100% with the guy.

He’s right, although I would imagine this is something that is glaringly obvious to anyone with small buisness experience or having to do something outside of set hours.

Most of the times I’ve been able to fly for business meetings it’s entirely relied on out of hours operation. If I couldn’t do that most of it would be a non starter.

I do find it most frustrating that there seems to be the presumption that if there is not a person on the tower then pilots couldn’t possibly be able to come in and land. I did wonder if this was just that they want to get a note of registrations to collect landing fees. However, even working on an honesty system I’d expect it to be better to get something from dead time than nothing.

However, there is certainly a mentality I’ve noticed at some airfields, where ideally they would come to work and go to sleep and not have to bother with any of the hassle of aircraft using the facilities.

Peter wrote:

Well, you need one “AOPA” and with a proper executive.

I know it’s a problem, so it has to be changed. EuroGA could be a good lobby platform.

AdamFrisch wrote:

You only have to look at Stockholm and the dismal situation there for GA to see what would happen if they just “discovered” all the other small airports they could shut down and make it impossible to land at.

The situation in Stockholm is indeed dismal since Swedavia threw out most based GA from Bromma, but that really wasn’t done out of spite but because they had grand plans for expanding airline operations at the airport and wanted the use all of their movement quota for that.

That said, my understanding is that visiting GA can use Bromma at an not low, but acceptable, cost by using Grafair as handler.