1 August 2017
The option to go on an airspace infringement awareness course may now be offered to pilots who bust airspace. A special training package has been developed by the UK CAA and the General Aviation Safety Council (GASCo).
The CAA says it is one of the options open to them when deciding what to do about an airspace infringement. Each case is assessed individually based on the incident, the pilot’s actions and whether the pilot has previously been involved in airspace infringements.
Rob Gratton, Principal Airspace Regulator at the CAA, said. “We have always tried to prioritise pilot education as the way to deal with airspace infringements. The new course that GASCo has developed provides an excellent, in-depth option to help pilots learn from an infringement to both avoid future infringements and also to improve their general airmanship and planning skills.”
The GASCo course follows the style of the speed awareness courses offered by the police for offending drivers.
“We looked at the key elements of a typical course and developed an engaging and educational version for pilots employing threat and error management techniques,” said Mike O’Donoghue, GASCo Chief Executive.
“The GA community has said that educating a pilot post an infringement is the way forward. With this course the CAA and GASCo will deliver a significant part of that work.”
The process that the CAA uses to deal with infringements is set out at www.caa.co.uk/cap1404
4 comments
That sounds great… and maybe there are lots of pilots who might want to go on the course in order to learn how not to infringe in the first place…
I agree with Eric Avery; prevention is better than cure, and anyone can ‘get rusty’. I would happily spend a day to re-learn, refresh and bone-up on the important lessons. We do ‘weather school’; why not ‘infringement school’?
Surely it is possible to have an on line course for students and a remind and revise package for qualified pilots, this either being Voluntary or part of a competition, with simple awards/prizes such as an organised visit to Swanwick, Police Helo,
Whilst airspace infringements are a problem, it seems the CAA are dealing with it in the wrong way. Don’t deal with it after people have got their licence but deal with it at the training stage. The CAA know that there are illegal flightschools out there and by their own admittance they aren’t going to do anything about it. They aren’t not keeping an oversight on who is training, licenced flight school or even licenced instructors, if you don’t learn to do it properly you will do it wrong until something happens…