23 November 2021
I usually avoid politics in this column, but a couple of things have happened recently, so I’m going to have to jump in with both feet. I know that we’ve generally lost the ability to talk about differences sensibly, but I’m hoping that my views on the following two observations are sufficiently far apart (politically), for everyone to be able to see them as non-partisan observations. Some hope, but here goes anyway.
Last Sunday there was a piece in the Sunday Times about the UK’s Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps. It was a two-hander written by one journalist specialising in Whitehall and another in property. I’m oversimplifying, but it basically said that Shapps was fighting for General Aviation and General Aviation airfields unfairly. That he was lobbying against his own government by creating the Airfields Advisory Team at the CAA, and that he was using taxpayers money to do so (as well as to offer pilots money off on equipment – this relates to the Electronic Conspicuity scheme). It also pointed out that Shapps owns a Saratoga, which he flies from a farm strip, and that it was worth £200,000. The CAA’s AAT’s comments on both Coventry’s proposed Giga factory and Chalgrove’s new village were cited as evidence, as was FLYER magazine, for campaigning against building on airfields.
The story even generated a letter from Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner to Lord Geidt, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests (even that mentioned FLYER magazine). What a croc of band-wagon chasing shite. It’s a real Minister in ‘looking after his portfolio’ shocker kind of thing, served up with a helping of disgust at the CAA chiming in on, erm, airfield matters, and FLYER magazine doing its best to point out (along with many others) that dismantling an essential part of our national aviation infrastructure in a non-reversible manner is dumber than a dumb thing on a dumb day. Get real people, I know the current Conservative Party is barely treading water in a sea of corruption, but this is weapons grade ignorance that presumably has one or more people behind the scenes nudging things along.
Now that’s not to say that Grant Shapps walks on water (erm, I mean air) when it comes to General Aviation. We all know that he’s paid more attention to GA than any Transport Minister that I can remember. He’s created a few waves at the CAA, and he’s generally done good things for GA. This, for the benefit of any Times journos, is part of his actual job, and part of what we all pay him for.
“The wheel will still be round, but we can pin a (made in China) Union Jack on it”
But perhaps, inevitably, he also toils under the cloud of collective responsibility. This means upholding the notion that Brexit is a good thing for aviation. As far as I can tell he actually believes it too, and that might be funny if it wasn’t so tragically wrong. Being outside of EASA may have brought us the chance of an advantage here and there (open goals that we have largely missed so far – take the DfT’s mad action on pilots flying on FAA certificates), but it also dumps massive problems on the industry. A couple of examples… Right now there are hundreds of ATPL students faced with choosing between a CAA and EASA licence.
Given there’s next to no long-term mutual recognition, many of them have been pretty much forced into training for both licences, and that means more study, more exams, more time and more money just to get back into a position that’s still worse than they would have enjoyed 12 months ago. And, I haven’t even mentioned the loss of freedom of movement that would have allowed UK professional pilots to live and work for an airline anywhere in Europe.
Then there’s the slightly awkward problem of people with a LAPL. You know, that lower cost licence that used to permit you to fly throughout Europe. Not any more. It’s a sub-ICAO licence so your horizons have shrunk considerably.
Oh yes, those LPV approaches that provided relatively low-cost precision approaches. Well, for political reasons we couldn’t possibly sign up to something with the word European in it, so we trashed that advance and have fallen back on whatever hugely expensive and late national solution that someone dreams up. The wheel will still be round of course, but at least we’ll be able to pin a (made in China) Union Jack on it, if the Union survives that is.
Last example – certification – and yes I have mentioned this before. The sensible pragmatic solution would be to recognise FAA and EASA certification, but no, it seems that the Department for Building Better and Rounder Wheels will swing into action ensuring that our stature as a truly independent nation flourishes in isolation, while missing out on all sorts of progress that pilots in much of the rest of the General Aviation world will be able to enjoy.
I know it’s a bit (OK, very) naive, but maybe the political class can be left to argue the toss with a few ignorant mainstream journos, while the sensible grey people in suits can get on with the day-to-day pragmatic business of making things work better, without having to worry about dogma or appearance…
Publisher, pre C-19 often found flying something new and interesting
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