When bureaucracy and overregulation pose a major hazard to safety

Let’s not derail this conversation by throwing in more details. The question is extremely simple: Which former 472,5kg types have already been certified for 495kg under the new regulation w/o any changes other than paper?

It’s in the basic regulation. You can mount floats on them, and voilà, 495 kg.

Sometimes the devil is in the details though. MTOW is not a big deal in itself. CG is, but seldom a problem for 1 by 1, 2 seat configuration, and the lowest stable speed in landing configuration could be. Besides, as I said, they (the older ones), are typically designed for an MTOW between 500 and 600 anyway. Some are indeed designed for 600 since long ago. According to you this is all myths, which is nothing but speculations and internet tales.

Malibuflyer wrote:

No – the equivalent of closing airfields if mandatory personal is not present is closing parking garages if mandatory personal is not present – and guess what! At least in Germany there are many garages that close over night!

Not here. Pretty much all car parks are open 24/7/365 and are unattended.

Some of the pettifoggling bureaucracy we have here, which serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever:

1. PPR. Imagine the uproar if we started insisting you had to phone Tesco’s to ask for permission to park every time you wanted to use their petrol station and shop.

2. Logging requirements. Legally, to fly my 2 seat LAA machine for a half hour flight, I have to fill in all these logs:
- airfield log (book out/book in)
- pilot log
- journey log
- airframe log
- engine log

In the USA, the only log I have to fill out for a similar operation is my pilot log and then only if I need to make the log entries to prove recency of experience or required instruction. In the USA the quite pragmatic approach of using the tach hours meter can be used for maintenance intervals, so you just need to know what it was at the last maintenance event.

3. If I want to drive from Eire to Northern Ireland, I just do it. If I want to fly a tiny single seat aircraft on the journey, I have to give the police exhaustive details of myself and my journey, no less than 12 hours in advance.

4. If I want to sail from the Isle of Man to England in a boat that radiates no kind of conspicuity signal, I just do it. If I want to fly my 2 seat LAA machine, radiating mode-S for all to see so much so the fueller at Ronaldsway knows when I’m inbound, I have to fill out a pile of paperwork 12 hours in advance. Because of course you can load so many more guns and bombs into an Auster compared to a 30 foot motorboat.

There’s plenty more examples of where this came from.

Excellent post, alioth.

I agree with the sentiment, expressed by several users in this thread, that the operating restrictions on private light GA aircraft should not be more burdensome than those placed on operating private cars under 3.5 tons.

As an emergency physician, I also question the safety advantage of having a person on the field who can call the fire bridge in case of a crash. Strictly from a medical perspective, it seems unlikely to experience a crash scenario where the fire brigade – unless on standby at the airport, fully equipped, which is only the case at major international airports anyways – will make a difference to your survivability.

If we take my homebase of EDVM as an example – a 1200 m hard runway right at the edge of a city of 100.000, then even there the fire brigade will probably take 5 to 10 minutes to arrive at the scene. If your aircraft starts burning after the crash, that will already be too late for you. For most rural airfields – the majority of German and European GA – the fire brigade will need even longer to arrive. If your aircraft does not burn, but you suffered a survivable injury, then it is quite likely you will be able to call emergency services yourself.

@alioth just imagine if you flew your Auster into the nuclear power station at Heysham. You might damage its paintwork or blow up the security hut.:)

I have flown out of many airfields in France, many unmanned, some International airports after ATS have closed and I have never told or been asked to tell anyone that I am taking off, unless you include telling the wife that I’m going flying.
In fact the only time I ever do tell someone, other than via a FPL when needed is if there us a friend in the clubhouse or the tower is manned.

MedEwok wrote:

…but you suffered a survivable injury, then it is quite likely you will be able to call emergency services yourself.

It is for this reason that I never, ever, ever, operate a chainsaw or climb a ladder or do any ‘risky’ work around the house and garden without my mobile phone in my pocket.

Graham wrote:

It is for this reason that I never, ever, ever, operate a chainsaw or climb a ladder or do any ‘risky’ work around the house and garden without my mobile phone in my pocket.

A very good strategy. The last case of an injury with severe bleeding that I treated was a teenager, who was alone safe for another teenager. He did not lose consciousness at any point and was able to talk to us normally all the way. Later blood tests in the hospital showed that he would have died from exsanguation (blood loss) if it weren’t for emergency surgery. He made a full recovery.

That’s one of the good things about adrenaline in our body: Unless you suffer a head injury and lose consciousness immediately, it will allow you to function and call for help.

LeSving wrote:

It’s in the basic regulation. You can mount floats on them, and voilà, 495 kg.

Clearly not! Not a single line in the basic regulation says, that it is legal to take a design that is approved for 450/475 kg on wheels, mount floats under it and w/o any additional tests/certification is certified for 495kg.

Basic regulation says, that you can apply for 495kg certification – but you need to prove the feasibility.

LeSving wrote:

According to you this is all myths, which is nothing but speculations and internet tales.

It’s not “speculation and international’s tales” but just facts: None of the manufacturers of these planes you are talking about that are “designed for 600kg since long ago” but due to former limitations were only able to certified them to 472,5kg by now managed to rectify them to 600kg w/o design changes.
Are those manufacturers all just stupid? They could add multiple 1000 EUR value to their customers by just writing some paper but they don’t ?!?

Let’s look at these points:

alioth wrote:

1. PPR. Imagine the uproar if we started insisting you had to phone Tesco’s to ask for permission to park every time you wanted to use their petrol station and shop.

PPR is a decision of a (private) operator.
Tesco is a bad example – because Tesco typically operates a non PPR parking lot. (However, here in Germany we have some store operators closing their parking lot off hours as there are questions around liabilities if people drive their w/o license).
But I am absolutely sure, that there are much more car parking spaces where you actually need PPR of the owner before you can park your car there. Just for documentation: The parking space in front of my garage – and my garage – are actually PPR for every car but mine!

2. Logging requirements. Legally, to fly my 2 seat LAA machine for a half hour flight, I have to fill in all these logs:
- airfield log (book out/book in)
- pilot log
- journey log
- airframe log
- engine log

I feel sorry for you – when I take my Malibu on such a 30 min flight I have to fill 2 logs, one line each: pilot log and plane log.

3. If I want to drive from Eire to Northern Ireland, I just do it…..

This (as well as your point 4.) are sad example of border control bureaucracy of the Brits. They choose to do so. It’s not on me to comment. But for sure both are not safety issues…