Yes indeed.
If it wasn’t for airfield politics one could use freelance mechanics working in the hangars, and immediately halve one’s maintenance costs.
If the situation were at its root caused by airfield operators, you’d see the same at ULM airfields. I think the problem is with vast European over regulation, and in large part the airfield politics issues are a symptom, not the root cause.
European aviation regulation is a social disease, created largely by government.
What’s largely happened in Europe is that the non-certified community (which correlates heavily with STOL types) has made a wholesale move to “farm strips”, which are run on a casual basis and nobody cares what you do there. So they get a refreshing freedom from most (not all) of the airfield politics.
There are downsides to “farm strips” e.g.
but that community accepts this, since they mostly don’t need a decent despatch rate; they fly for fun and mostly just down the road.
The famous changing horses thread shows this very well.
Unfortunately it is not a solution for everyone.
Most people at most airports fly mostly for fun and mostly just down the road. The solution is to make them welcome at any airport via regulation on certified light aircraft and private pilots that recognizes this fact, bring them close to home in any shape, form, status or cost level…. and built critical mass. Not to leave ridiculous over regulation largely intact and create a separate marginal utility activity that would not have needed to exist if the core problem had been fixed instead.
More and more and more regulation and divisions is the solution to nothing.
Not to leave ridiculous over regulation largely intact and create a separate marginal utility activity that would not have needed to exist if the core problem had been fixed instead.
I don’t think that was ever the intention, and it’s not what happened even though it may look like it today.
Homebuilts have always been a part of aviation. It’s impossible to certify a homebuilt. UL were initially nothing more than powered hang gliders. As such it was meaningless to include them with certified aircraft.
It’s more that human ingenuity has developed those two groups way beyond initial imagination. Modern kits and super sleek carbon UL. Nothing has happened with certified aircraft in the same time period other than increased bureaucracy.
Silvaire wrote:
If the situation were at its root caused by airfield operators, you’d see the same at ULM airfields.
No. Because the ULM fields are operated by people who have fled the regularly licensed airfields because of this. The ULM community is largely left alone to do whatever they please.
I think the problem is with vast European over regulation, and in large part the airfield politics issues are a symptom, not the root cause.
You can argue that airfield politics are a consequence of them not being regulated in a way to prevent the abuse they inflict on their customers. The underlaying reasons for airfield politics being what they are can not be found in EASA’s regulation concept because most of this stuff is not regulated there, particularly PPR and these kind of things. EASA has been trying to influence things like this in favour of GA and in some cases even CAA’s have interfered with airports GA banning and outpricing plans in favour of GA.
In my opinion, the main problem with airfield / airport politics is that owners are given far too much leeway in what kind of restrictions they can think up to effectively ban traffic they do not want. The reason for this is that to this day airports and airfields are not considered public infrastructure to the degree they should be. Part of the reason for this is, that they are in private hands, up to large intercontinental hubs, who depend on private companies to run them and therefore are primarily profit orientated and not regarded as public infrastructure. What happens if you do that and let the licencees go wild can be seen in many sectors, where formerly public service units had the clear task of providing infrastructure. Once the services were privatized, pricing skyrockets and service level goes down the drain.
I think that airfield and airport operators should be regulated in such a way that any restriction imposed on the use of the infrastructure needs approval and regular review by the CAA and, if they support the abuse, a right of appeal exists to EASA. PPR and in particular slot regulation should only be approved if airports can prove they are unable to handle the traffic in volume and numbers, any form of compulsory handling for airplanes with less than 10 seats should be banned by law. Airfield operators who violate this premis should in extremis loose their permit in favour of someone who will operate it in the way of infrastructure.
The biggest problems regarding airports/airfields are PPR, Slots and outpricing, with the latter two being the worst. PPR can be a very different animal depending, there is PPR which means basically no other restriction than looking at a website and there is PPR where you need written permissions 10 years before so to say. Slots and outpricing however are both safety issues and direct hampering with the usefulness of infrastructure.
My issue with all this is that in all the factors we see, the attitude in aviation is almost everywhere “us vs them”. UL vs certified, airlines vs GA, airport operators vs users, gliderstrips vs everyone else, e.t.c. There is no common goal, no united front and no concept on how to improve things. I would go as far as to say GA in the US does not so much depend on the FAA but on the efforts of a huge and powerful lobby in the form of AOPA to keep them going. Otherwise I am almost sure things would have gone a very similar way and in some cases have or are under threat.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I would go as far as to say GA in the US does not so much depend on the FAA but on the efforts of a huge and powerful lobby in the form of AOPA to keep them going.
Absolutely. The influence that AOPA and EAA have is vast. They provide the comfort to members that a strategic road, the promotion and development of GA, is kept on track. However even they cannot save airfields from closure.
AOPA and EAA work closely with the FAA and ABS/COPA which keeps the train on the tracks. There is nothing similar in Europe and other aware that I am aware of.
However is does also come down to numbers, membership fees, and influence that these organisations can keep funded to be there for the members and that has been a challenge of late.
BeechBaby wrote:
However is does also come down to numbers, membership fees, and influence that these organisations can keep funded to be there for the members and that has been a challenge of late.
I think it has largely to do with the “tradition” of being member of the local (and via local the national) aeroclub first, which in many airfields is a requirement to fly there. AOPA here has the uncomfortable situation that they are always the “other” club where people are supposed to join, but few ever do. The aeroclubs vs AOPA is not always a healthy construct. Experimental associations again operate outside of AOPA and ULM’s are again all for themselves.
AOPA is the only organisation which is as one body available in all of Europe, so for GA it should be the rallying point of all the others. If the divide and conquer tactics stop to be so extremely effective, then maybe we can get somewhere.
Having talked to people within the EASA GA roadmap crew on several occasions, my guess would be that at least they will welcome such initiatives with open arms.It is quite remarkable where EASA has gone from being a total disaster to today, where they are mostly responsible for keeping overbearing CAA’s at check.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
AOPA is the only organisation which is as one body available in all of Europe, so for GA it should be the rallying point of all the others. If the divide and conquer tactics stop to be so extremely effective, then maybe we can get somewhere.
There is also Europe Airsports of which almost all national aeroclubs in Europe are members, and also several other airsports organisations – and PPL/IR Europe.
Europe Airsports does have an influence on EASA decision making by having a seat on many EASA committees.
Tha main reason for the revenue-raising practices which lead to most of airport politics is that not many people are making a lot of money in GA. The whole community is under pressure.
It is a psychology similar to the former communist bloc where it was easy to recruit informers (particularly in some countries) and people were generally happy to stab a friend in the back.
Airport politics affects mostly owners, and one needs a healthy owner community.
