Emir wrote:
This sounds great in theory but in reality it’s all about personality, attitude and experience.
Ok, well I´m not quite sure where or when you´ve trained for your commercial license to reach that conclusion? This may play a role in your perception of the course and requirements. Sadly it´s pretty well established that certain ATOs and national authorities are shockingly inadequate in upholding responsibilities.
Negative attitude “issues” (in aviation) are commonly found in people, including pilots, that tend to base conclusions, and make decisions, based primarily on assumptions, rather than facts, something that is also (supposed to be) taught at a proper ATO.
Pilots (“types”) inherently have a high degree of self confidence and belief in their own capabilities, which is a positive trait in a pilot, but only to the extend where it spills over into over confidence in own abilities, then it becomes a negative. Solid CPL (and PPL for that matter – if you´re lucky!) training should address this as well.
As I´ve said, and you correctly point out, factors other than flight training, play a large(r) role in the safe conduct of any flight, but they´re supposed to taught as part of the commercial level training, where´s flight handling skills training itself is the “easy” part (for most) and basically only requires sufficient (repetition) training to standard, where´s other traits, including those mentioned, are harder to teach and train, and therefor ideally should be inherently existing in a commercial pilot.
Airlines, and other commercial airplane operators, attempts to assure that these (and other) “wanted” pilot personality traits exists via recruitment and assessments – since they don´t rely on the issuance of a license (thank god!).
Mooney_Driver wrote:
The actual gist is that cost sharing in EASA land is allowed up to the full cost of the airplane operation, but not beyond that.
Not even that. You can only share costs that are directly attributed to the flight, so no fixed costs. Whether you can share amortised costs for timed items like the engine or a 100 h service (provided the aircraft flies at least that much in a year) is, AFAIK, unclear.
So the only pilots that actually can share the full cost of the airplane operation are renters! (And maybe not even them depending on the payment scheme.)
Peter wrote:
Peter28-Nov-23 22:0379
From what I have seen of the Euro CPL, it is almost completely useless. You still don’t know how to fly EGKA-LFAT (a trivial 40 min flight), how to get wx, etc. The whole European CPL/ME/IR is a ticket to a Part 25 RHS where you warm the seat for 500hrs and they give you the ATPL.For this kind of GA flying on “real” routes and in “real” wx you need specific modern expertise. The FTO stuff is 30 years old junk; it was on my IR for sure
I´m sad to hear that this is your experience and perception of European commercial level flight training, though I´m sure this is not the universal perception. Don´t forget that the CPL is simply a license issued to a standard (disclaimer “various standards exists!” 
).
You´re correct that the majority of European (as well as FAA land) ATOs (sausage factories) are airline training focused, but the standards (other than MPL) requirements remain the same for the CPL (ATPLf).
The majority of the practical modular CPL flight training is performed in the real world, in real weather, on real airplanes (if any rotax powered aircraft are included ) – so I´m not sure why the new commercial pilot (CPL holder) wouldn´t be able to fly a simple route as per your description – makes no sense to me. I would agree that the few international flight required as part of the part-FCL CPL training syllabus is limited, but I would say for a simple VFR flight sufficient.
Again, as you say, a lot of perceptions are obviously based on individual experiences, such as your IR training.
In 2016, EASA’s Patrick Ky wrote:
What are “annual costs”? That even more unclear. The cost for the annual inspection, yes. But all the rest, i.e. maintenance, major overhauls etc. is not annual. Maybe insurance is, if paid annually. And if paid bi-annually? It’s really bizarre what we have to put up with.
Yes; if you rent a plane then you can recover 99.9% of your costs (actually beyond 100% if you also get income from the business you are renting from 
and the UK CAA confirmed to me in writing this is legal, otherwise no school employee could cost share a rental) whereas if you own one then there are exclusions like the Annual cost.
Many private owners have their plane in a Ltd Co. and they rent from it. I used to do that many years ago; now own it personally. But I also never cost share…
But let’s get a proper perspective on this accident flight. Like the link I posted above, there is a steady stream of “nonsensical” crashes where it just looks like the pilot didn’t check the wx and just flew into whatever happened to be there. The example I gave of N2195B was a famous PhD level economist with an IR, and he still flew straight into a TS at the Massif Central, on a “VFR” flight in solid IMC. The BEA report contains no useful analysis, as usual.
We all know how to die in this business. To learn from others’ mistakes, what we need is background analysis. Interviews with colleagues, gossip about attitudes, that sort of stuff. The UK AAIB has sometimes done that – when they have not been leaned on politically.
Yeager wrote:
The competency, including decision making and responsibilities, are focus areas of the training towards the CPL and the examination will (should) include these and other topics, that you simply don´t find (or even touch) during training and examination for PPL.
I´m also not saying that a CPL would have made a difference in this crash, or any other crash, since obviously every single airline crash occurs with ATPL holders!
It might have, though, due to the (theoretical) better decision making capabilities. On the other side, if the guy is reckless, then no amount of licenses will change that.
As stated in a post at the beginning of this thread, we’ll probably never know what went through the mind of the pilot when he decided to make this flight.
I just don’t get it that the legality of cost-sharing on this flight is being questioned herein. I also think such questioning, if anything, hurts the GA cause as viewed by the majority who favoured the EU cost-sharing legislation.
Each operation’s cost structure is different and a black-and-white one-size-fits all detailed ruling would only partially void the intent of the regulation. What is clear is that as a private operator you can cost-share direct costs, but not fixed costs. So for someone that flies 500 hrs/year, effectively his maintenance programme could have mostly hourly tasks and very few calendar inspections hence make most of it hourly, whereas for someone who flies 90 hrs/year, maintenance is mostly annual and hence not sharable. Even more clear is the pure renter’s case as mentioned by @Peter where practically all (excluding the pilot’s lunch;) is direct cost.
In the case of the OP, the figures are well within the ballpark. Therefore with the info publicly available in this thread there is no way we can rigorously question the legality of the cost-sharing scheme.
Sebastian_G wrote:
Maybe the rules for cost sharing flights should contain some sort of mandatory briefing sheet
I dont think we need more regulation. We are grown ups. Unlike car-sharing, most plane-sharing platforms:
From therein
Article 1
Inform the passengers of the different safety levels concerning non-commercial General Aviation flights with light aircraft as compared to commercial air transport operations.
Article 4
Provide passengers with accurate and meaningful information on the type of aircraft flown and the pilot’s current experience and qualification.
An entirely different matter is the morality of openly advertising a non-deiced SEP as all-weather capable for a cross-Alps VFR flight in questionable weather. I disagree with the use of 4-letter expletives earlier in the thread. However I fully agree with the view of all above that no knowledgeable pilot can view such an attitude in any way other than utterly irresponsible.
It is clearly against the spirit of the EASA Charter above, and hurtful to GA, but nothing to do with regs. Most GA accidents (and some rather similar to this one) are occurring outside the cost-sharing environment.
We need to look elsewhere for the culprit.
Ok, well I´m not quite sure where or when you´ve trained for your commercial license to reach that conclusion? This may play a role in your perception of the course and requirements.
I’ve been exposed to different training environments in different countries and from that experience I can say the quality varies. However, the majority of today’s real A to B flying stuff I learned myself. Although I believe self education is absolutely necessary, more should be delivered in CPL (as well as PPL) training. I wasn’t trained in any of top European ATPL schools, so I can’t say what they deliver but I somehow doubt that freshly minted CPL is aware of all tools available for planning and conducting challenging A to B flight.
Airlines, and other commercial airplane operators, attempts to assure that these (and other) “wanted” pilot personality traits exists via recruitment and assessments – since they don´t rely on the issuance of a license (thank god!).
This is the point where we agree and that’s very beneficial for the passengers; hopefully this process in majority of the cases leads to stable and knowledgeable crew in the cockpit.
mdoerr wrote:
The plane was equipped with ADSB out. How can I know?
I operated it for 14 years.
Thanks @mdoerr . Although comments with references abound, and unless I have missed it, no facts have been posted on the type of license or experience level of the pilot. Would you be able to add some colour to it?
