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Aviation History
1964
1964 - 1289.PDF
722 PANEL GAMES FUGHT International, 30 April I9M imposed by extreme icing or weather conditions and by its pilot, provided that the fullest and latest information about ground services is available. Many further refinements are possible, but this does represent, for the present at least, the practical limit for light personal or business aircraft. It will be seen that for any particular panel there is a suitably qualified pilot who can make the best use of it, provided that ground facilities are available and that he understands them. The experienced pilot will always fly an aeroplane better than the beginner, but most of his skill would be wasted with a panel like No 1, and in cloud he would be no better off than the man who has just gone solo. The complexity of Nos 4 and 5 increases the possibility of error and therefore makes them unsuitable for inexperienced pilots. What Use is Equipment? The foregoing observations on a series of progressively better equipped aircraft make one essential point quite clearly. Every additional item of equipment extends a pilot's scope, even though it does not enable him to operate within the full airways system. "As a corollary to this observation, it must be noted that no official rule or clearance gives the pilot any tangible benefit in return for the considerable money and effort involved in fitting and learning to use less than full airways equipment. This is the substance of what one might call, to use a catchy phrase, the "l,OOOhr gap," the hiatus in officially recognized capability between the PPL and the instrument rating, which may seem l.OOOhr away to anyone who does not methodically set out to get it. The PPL and the instrument rating are, after all, the beginning and end of the available progres- sion of qualification for the private pilot who never intends or needs to obtain a commercial licence. Pilots are frequently cross about this gap, for a variety of reasons. It is easy and fashionable to bind at the Ministry of Aviation for legislating only for the trunk operator, to the detriment of the private pilot. Restriction is piled on restriction, private pilots say, without regard for the reasonable rights and requirements of the private pilot. Light aircraft flying is becoming impossible. Only the hardy and the law-breakers retain reasonable freedom of action. But this is only one side of the coin. The Ministry have always shown that they will take account of those who have a demonstrable and reasonable demand on its attention. The civil service modus operandi may make the simplest step look ponderous, but the Ministry has frequently shown that, where a reasonably homo- genious organization puts up a considered demand it will go a very long way towards meeting it. During the post-war decade the airlines represented the only concerted civil influence on the MoA, even causing considerable modifications to the "national security comes first" position of the Services. More recently, the growing number of business operators have grouped together to form the Business Aircraft Users' Association and have obtained numerous specific concessions or adaptations of procedures and regulations originally formulated for airline traffic. The Board of Trade, Customs and Excise and Treasury have also been influenced. For some time past, through the Private and Club Flying and Gliding Committee (PATFAG) under the chairmanship of the Parliamentary Secretary to the MoA, the Royal Aero Club and its associated bodies have begun to exert a concerted and represent- ative influence. The Ministry is listening and is preparing to make definite changes and adjustments to help private pilots. But even the simplest change in regulations takes some time to formulate in loophole-proof form, to establish in its ultimate detail and to promulgate both within and beyond the Ministry's walls. An hour's evening study of the Air Pilot—some say nothing less will raise the faintest glimmer of understanding—amply demonstrates the excruciating ingenuity required to define an aeronautical procedure in the ephemeral air by unequivocal printed verbiage. Be that as it may—and Ministry-baiting is not our purpose here— there is an obvious need, under the stimulus of imported aircraft and equipment, for some rating or qualification intermediate between the basic PPL, which is equivalent to the first driving test on the road, and the instrument rating, which few private pilots yet find within their reach. But before we define our feelings on intermediate ratings, it is essential to make the point that any rating should be an incentive, Beech Queen Air 65 phrased as an achievement entitling the bearer to perform some operation of which he can be reasonably proud, and which will palpably extend the scope of his flying. It should never be allowed to appear as the stumbling block without which he cannot do so-and-so. The present PPL licence book is as dull as ditchwater. full of legalistic jargon and little counter-signed rubber stamps and loosely tied with MoA issue boot-lace. It is something which no pilot would dream of displaying to his less well qualified friends and unworthy to mark what is after all an expensive and adven- turous achievement. Powered flying could well take a lead from the gliding fraternity with their little lapel badges. The atmosphere of licensingmust be one of progress and incentive, because only by continual progress can private flying survive, lei alone flourish. Cost of aircraft and equipment can only be reduced by an increase in sales turn-over. Only by specific incentive can the present low standard of piloting be improved, with consequent reduction in the lamentable light aircraft accident rate. It is in everybody's interest, including that of the Ministry, that the general standard of qualification become higher and higher. At present the instrument rating is too far ahead and too esoteric for most pilots to have any real interest in attaining it. Yet surely ii should be everyone's aim to achieve a standard as closely equivalent to it as possible, for their own satisfaction as much as for their own safety. Many people have suggested that some compromise or relaxation of airways regulations should be effected to allow private pilots to use the lower airways levels, to enter and leave terminal zones in less than VMC minima, without necessarily having to remain VMC. This visibility limit is based on generous "see-and-be-seen" allow- ances, rather than on ability to navigate by sight of the ground or by use of radio aids. Many pilots have the equipment and basic skill to make instrument approaches, or even to fly airways, but just do not want te be bothered with the weight of study involved in obtaining the instrument rating. Why cannot they be recognized to a greater extent than the radioless beginner without instrument flying capability ? But it is worth remembering that the airways are decidedly crowded, not over their en route stretches, but at focal points or "cross-roads" on the edge of terminal zones. Airliners must have full protection and control, and at these "cross-roads" they are frequently quite low and asking for descents or climbs. The situation is such that any request for special treatment because of circum- stances not strictly related to traffic considerations can cause a chain reaction affecting aircraft a long way further out along the airways system—mainly because of the very large protected space occupied by each aircraft. Anyone with icing trouble, failed radio equipment without stand-by, single-engined problems, and similar factors caused by inadequate equipment or training cannot r>e tolerated within the system. Any suggestion that private aircraft should be allowed to fly along airways in VMC relying on visual navigation—or "VMC on top" with radio aids—is not acceptable. because no one can guarantee that a route will remain VMC a! a given flight level over its whole length. Airways flying is an all-or- nothing procedure and if you cannot play it to the hilt you shou't not join. Which is not to say that the big boys do not have then little problems and failures quite often enough—pressurizatiin snags, stopped engines, sick passengers, and so on. , The Ministry's apparent restrictiveness is often caused man ^ by the difficulty of ensuring that an individual proposing to enter
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