I am told the course was placed out to tender, there were three organisations that tendered, and GASCo were selected. I have not see the original tender request.
Same reason all the speed awareness courses are run by ex-policemen.
Who else would have any interest whatsoever to create such a course?
There certainly are tight connections within certain environments, but the main reason courses are created and held is that someone feel the “urge”. If it also comes with an economical upside, then more, not less should feel the “urge”. This is only a problem when/if the courses somehow are made compulsory, and the economical upside still exists. Then this is simply a money making scheme IMO. If the government is involved, then corruption is a word that could describe this.
LeSving – just so you are aware (in case not) in the UK we have two forms of course. The volunatry course, which is paid for by the UK’s national civil aviation regulator, and designed to promote flight safety, and the compulsory course, which may be handed down if you infringe CAS, and for which the pilot is expected to pay. Some see these as a contrived penalty as well as re-educational, because almost certainly if you dont attend your license will be suspended, and, if you do attend, and infringe a second time (and certainly a third) your license will be suspended. There is some doubt how long before your record is wiped clean as regards a second infringement, but there are probably many hundreds of pilots sitting on a suspension lest they infringe again. There is no warning when you infringe from the controller, it is an automatic report, even for a hundred feet and 15 seconds, and the regulator decides on unpublished criteria whether you receive a warning letter or must attend the course. There would seem no obvious appeal process, other than the Law courts at very considerable cost, and almost certainly you will not suceed if it is proven you did infringe, however marginally.
I haven’t attended a Safety Event for some time. Their handouts had “Fly Safety Altitude” prominently at the foot. In Scotland this is lunacy for VFR, with valleys providing good routes clear of cloud.
That was the CAA. Then they passed it to GASCO.
I went to one GASCO event. Part of it was outdated vision information, and then they encouraged us to contact a SW English airfield when passing it – event was at Inverness.
Peter wrote:
The standard way to get around that is to draft the spec so that the parties which you do not want to get the contract cannot [economically] meet it, and/or your mate can meet it.
By the way, if you ever see oddly specific job advertisments, it’s usually because the company hiring already has someone in mind – but that someone requires a work permit. The job ad is just to get the visa by demonstrating no one suitable with citizenship can apply… same principle.
alioth wrote:
By the way, if you ever see oddly specific job advertisments, it’s usually because the company hiring already has someone in mind – but that someone requires a work permit. The job ad is just to get the visa by demonstrating no one suitable with citizenship can apply… same principle.
Yep – I wrote such an advert to get one of the guys in my team his Australian visa ;-)
It’s often just a change of geography for an existing employee and in reality there is no vacant job.
This local copy as the website changes all the time is pretty bad.
Somebody sends a student out on a navex, dead reckoning, map+stopwatch, around airspace which I would right now not want to fly with a GPS unless fully programmed and on autopilot. And he makes a tiny error and infringes and gets busted.
Fortunately, looking at the historical CAA sentencing data they are letting students off (though the guy will probably get a black mark on his CAA file, for ever) but I would be amazed if this poor sod didn’t just chuck in the whole thing there and then.
The amount of time spent writing up that self-congratulating report would have been better spent doing something useful.
Peter wrote:
Fortunately, looking at the historical CAA sentencing data they are letting students off (though the guy will probably get a black mark on his CAA file, for ever) but I would be amazed if this poor sod didn’t just chuck in the whole thing there and then.
I don’t see why the student should be discouraged. The report was quite positive and pointed out that the student had handled the situation in the best possible way once (s)he realised the mistake.
Peter wrote:
the compass/stopwatch brigade is what is produced by the PPL training system!
This one is hilarious. Straight out his PPL he goes out with his compass and stopwatch and gets done for busting Birmingham…
Also featuring a badly folded chart…
EDIT: Just a repeat of the previous post. Delete if appropriate :)
Airborne_Again wrote:
I don’t see why the student should be discouraged. The report was quite positive and pointed out that the student had handled the situation in the best possible way once (s)he realised the mistake.
The point is that with the CAA taking the approach they are, why is anyone (let alone a solo student) trying to dead-reckon their way around a lap of the Birmingham CTR?
I wouldn’t choose to fly that route without a moving map. I could do so if it were absolutely necessary, but why would it be?
If you want to practice dead reckoning from EGBO then there’s plenty of space to the west and the south with no risk at all of busting airspace. A far more sensible route for that flight, assuming the desire was for some nav and a landaway at EGBW, would have been via Worcester and Evesham.
