Timothy wrote:
This could easily turn into a debate about the nature of Freedom. It would save lives to ban aviation altogether, to ban private aviation, motorbikes, horses, cars, crossing the road, sex, living in tower blocks. There are risks in life, and, at least in my opinion, people should have the opportunity to understand risk and the freedom to expose themselves to it.
That wasnt my point.
The point was there must be aspects where we (as a concensus) agree something carries too higher a risk. If it does we dont leave it to the party to disagree. For example, rightly or wrongly, we think alcohol above a certain level is too risky (there are many people who disagree and feel they are just as safe to drive a little over the limit), and there are may other examples. In these cases we remove the risk assessment from the person conducting the operation leaving them only with the question “is, what I am about to do, illegal”. If it is, even though I am happy to take the risk, the law does not allow me to do so. On the whole we recognise where the risk taking couldnt impact on anyone else in a meaningful way, do as you will. For example there is nothing to prevent you climbing a sheer 1,000 foot rock face without any ropes or means of securing yourself to the face. That seems reasonable, even if some would argue it might end up putting the emergency services at “risk”.
Inevitably as soon as passengers or “innocent” people around the activity are involved the consequences change. There are risks to people around taxing and departing in zero zero viz. There are risks for the passengers, The first are not really party to the risk, other than placing themselves on an airfield. The passengers may or may not be party because they have been informed but there is nothing to say they must be informed, and nothing to say that the terms in which they are informed are sufficient for them to understand the risk. They may also be under "pressure to accept the risk because they dont want to “spoil” the day", and yet have serious reservations.
I am the last to wish to cotton wool society – I really am, but I do accept leaving risk assessment to the person taking the risk in circumstances where most of that person’s more experienced peers would agree the risk was too high is an abdication of regulatory responsibility.
To return to my original analogy, you might as well conclude we will leave drivers to assess how much alcohol it is safe to drive with in their system, because all drivers are responsible individuals, and if we set any limit we are condoning driving just under that limit. I suspect that would be out of line with the majority view.
Moreover, if you leave it to so called qualified and responsible people, for various reasons, there will always be one that is willing to do something totally unreasonable.
and, it seems to me in this discussion we end up discussing the actual departure, but somehow you got to the runway in the first place, and getting there is zero zero viz is going to be an experience in itself! I seem to manage to get lost sometimes even when I can see, and am at least mollified when the infamous BA crew take out half a building in 10/10 vision albeit at night.
I would say (indeed I know, from 20 years of seeing such things exposed) that the analogy is wrong.
We do not limit how much alcohol someone can drink in their own home. The danger then is to people who consent to being in the same room (pace all the Domestic Violence stuff, which complicates matters.
We do have laws about public drunkenness, because they impact on the public (by definition.)
We have reasonably strict laws (not strict enough, in my opinion) about how much alcohol can be consumed before driving, because of dangers to the public. (Uninvolved third parties are often the victims of drunk drivers.)
We have stricter rules about public transport drivers (and pilots and train drivers) because the level of public risk is higher. (Personally, I would reduce drink driving to these levels, which are a quarter of the private levels.)
I doubt that further debate will bottom this out. As @Peter says, and I said earlier, it seems unlikely that Linate and Tenerife would have been prevented at 400m. The only real solution would be not to fly at all. It all comes down to how loudly you shout “Freedom.” 
Timothy wrote:
I would say (indeed I know, from 20 years of seeing such things exposed) that the analogy is wrong.
Ok, but I dont follow from your post why you think the analogy is wrong? Sorry I am missing the point.
Maybe you are relating this to not limiting a situation where only members of your immediate family are involved – but that is not the case with this discussion, although I accept it could be only family members involved.
We tend not to be too draconian about regulating what happens in the “family circle” for all sorts of good and not so good reasons which might well come into the discussion if that were the case here, but surely we are discussing circumstances where the passengers arent family members, and where the people around dont even know the pilot. I agree if you could regulate in such a way that would enable a lone pilot to take off from a grass strip in the middle of no where in zero zero viz at night in freezing rain then if he fancies his chances good luck .. .. .. sorry being flippant.
The argument is that very few uninvolved third parties are killed by NCO type operations. It is around one every 20 years from memory.
Passengers are considered to be voluntarily party to the risk. That point could be argued, but that is a general point that needs to be dealt with separately outwith this particular discussion, because it covers so many aspects of what we do.
If one were to protect the private GA passenger in the same way that PT passengers are protected, then that would mean the end of SEPs, Class 1 medicals for all, operation only from licensed airfields and a thousand other things that would kill GA in one strike.
Why single out take-off minima?
Timothy wrote:
The argument is that very few uninvolved third parties are killed by NCO type operations. It is around one every 20 years from memory.
Arguably, because certain things are not allowed. If we allowed every aircraft to be self maintained woud we see more accidents with collateral? If we allowed anyone to do anything on instruments without instrument training would we see the odd puppy farm wiped out? If we allowed pilots to fly drunk if and only if it was an NCO operation where would we be?
Timothy wrote:
Passengers are considered to be voluntarily party to the risk. That point could be argued, but that is a general point that needs to be dealt with separately outwith this particular discussion, because it covers so many aspects of what we do.
Yes, but as I said earlier, why have any “bans”. Let pilots do any work they wish on their aircraft. Let any pilot fly in IMC without an IR. Let pilots make up their own mind about take off and stopping distances. We draw lines because they are solid lines (hopefully). This may not be a line drawing occasion which is a different discussion, I just dont follow the argument that if we all agree something crosses a line in terms of being too “risky” we shouldnt deal with that something by having a ban.
Timothy wrote:
Why single out take-off minima?
Why single out anything? For the reasons I have said. Perhaps for the reason that even here a few commercial pilots with all the relevant training appear to be suggesting that the risk involved is very high – we are, as Peter reminded us, discussing zero zero ops, and and as mentioned, not just the runway ground roll, but getting to the runway and dealing with the immediate climb out in IMC.
Look at it another way, what we do is “risky”, but we demonstrate we can manage that risk, we are required to demonstrate we can deal with a FL in “normal” circumstances, we demonstrate all sorts of ops, but we dont demonstrate zero zero departures, on the whole I reckon most pilots dont even consider a zero zero departure, but if you allow it sure as a few will try and a few of them will not have a clue about what they are doing. They will kill themselves, and their passengers, and as remote as it maybe, kill someone on the ground, and then some bright spart will ask why these rich boys were allowed to take off in conditions they couldnt see their hand in front of their face, to be told that the CAA had banned that one, unitl recently when the ban was lifted. I think it is just asking for trouble, for something that as I said earlier, is hardly ever required anyway or limits the activities of private pilots to any meaningful degree.
I am actually quite surprised for these reasons that PPL/IR would be promoting this one.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
I am actually quite surprised for these reasons that PPL/IR would be promoting this one.
It’s not so much as promoting anything as resisting this recent change.
The rules were around the 175m-250m mark (depending on lighting and centrelines) until last year. PPL/IR is resisting an arbitrary and unjustified increase without any evidence to back it up.
Timothy wrote:
The argument is that very few uninvolved third parties are killed by NCO type operations. It is around one every 20 years from memory.
….. and that is precisely the same argument made by the aerobatics fraternity immediately after Shoreham (I think they used 60 years). Not wishing to get bogged down into the details of Shoreham, but regulatory change is in the pipeline here, much of which is imminently sensible.
Timothy wrote:
Passengers are considered to be voluntarily party to the risk. That point could be argued, but that is a general point that needs to be dealt with separately outwith this particular discussion, because it covers so many aspects of what we do.
I disagree, it is fundamentally part of the argument although I do agree with you that take-off minima shouldn’t be singled-out. In fact, the low RVR discussion is merely a subset of a far bigger issue. To me this is about the entirety of the private flying landscape (I won’t call it NCO because that also encompasses commercial operations). There is enough evidence to demonstrate that given a mechanical means of transportation and some rules, Man will explore the boundaries and, in the process, (more) often succumb to the greater risk. We can use numerous analogies such as speeding, flying "VFR’ when IMC etc etc but the outcome is the same. Many pilots simply are not capable of making sensible decisions. For sure, we can play a bit of Darwinian theory but the outcome of reduced regulation regarding things like RVR minima will inevitably be more ‘events’ and increased risk, to both directly involved individuals and third parties.
I think Fuji’s argument is far more eloquent than mine. There is more than enough evidence to show that pilots already kill themselves and their passengers by ignoring some very sensible rules and codes of practice. Remove those rules and the list of ‘ignorant’ pilots will increase.
That is all true, but carries an elasticity. If you over regulate, you kill the industry, or at least exclude all but the super rich. A balance must be found, and there is no evidence to suggest that moving from 175-250m up to 400m is justified in reaching that balance.
Making everyone carry a radio, Mode S ES transponder and ADSB-In device would be a much better example of “something that should be done”, and look at the resistance to that (to take but one example )
I suppose the exam question is whether any form of Risk Assessment has been done, for either 175-250 or 400.
Clearly you’re more experienced in the fundamentals of law but it has always been my understanding that the basis centres on actions that are deemed to be acceptable by the majority of society. In the professional arena, this extends to being ‘judged’ by your peers. Personally, I think the balance as far as Parts SERA and NCO are concerned is about right, that includes 400m for a non-LVP departure.
Timothy wrote:
Making everyone carry a radio, Mode S ES transponder and ADSB-In device would be a much better example of “something that should be done”, and look at the resistance to that (to take but one example )
However, that would have a material impact for all of the reasons usually rehearsed.
Ask the same questions in the terms you suggest – what impact would increasing the departure minimium to 400 metres have the vast majority of GA?
As Dave so well put the case with the Shoreham even,t the impact of the changes that have come and will come, actually impact on very very few pilots, but the consequences of a single event were very serious. As unlikely as it maybe, and as much as I agree with a quantative assessment of legislative impact, allowing essentially private pilots to depart in zero zero viz as is all but the case now contrasted with increasing the minimium to a level that has a feel about it of being about right seems difficult to resist, if for no other reason we feel comfortablish driving a car if we can see the road and white lines a reasonable distance ahead, but would feel very uncomfortable if we were travelling at even 50 mph with 50 metres of viz.
