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Aviation History
1995
1995 - 1055.PDF
SAFETY An invasion of privacy Involvement is seen as the tool which will improve general-aviation safety in the future. DAVID LEARMOUNT/LONDON Private aviation is, understandably, regarded as just that: private. Pilots often consider it their right to disregard established practices, especially outside controlled or busy airspace. As private pilots cannot be denied privacy and freedom, the only effective method of softening their resistance to regulation and safe practices is persuasion and education, often through industry involvement. This has long been acknowledged in theory. In prac tice, methods used for circulating information and for involving industry need constant revi sion, according to the US Federal Aviation Administration. The USA, which has the world's largest general-aviation (GA) community, had a safe GA year in simple accident-numbers, but the rates look marginally less good. The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) believes that the USA sets the global GA benchmarks because 60-70% of all GA activity takes place within its boundaries. Europe, which has a large and varied gen eral-aviation community — although its per formance is less well-catalogued in most European nations than GA is in the USA — is about to face a major challenge. When the European Joint Aviation Authorities QAA) finishes drawing up the continent-wide oper ations regulations for commercial airline fixed-wing operations — Joint Aviation Regulations (JAR) Ops 1 — it will try to reach a pan-European consensus on the regulations for fixed-wing GA operations, JAR Ops 2. There is one increasingly used European technique intended to control user charges and increase the involvement of the GA com munity in its own regulation. This concerns devolving the standards-surveillance task to officially recognised representative organisa tions for various parts of the GA community. The British Gliding Association, for example, has always tested pilots and issued gliding licences on behalf of the UK Civil Aviation Authority. In future, predicts the CAAs head of gener al aviation, Alan Daley, the devolvement of GA standards-monitoring tasks in Europe GA is going to be progressively required to police its own standards will probably occur in civil air-displays, remotely piloted vehicles, parachuting, microlight flying, and the issuing of permits- to-fly for kitplanes. MONITORING TASK The aviation authorities will continue to cer tificate types, set standards and take ultimate responsibility for them, but the monitoring task will be shared with the GA community. For example, the JAA would certificate a new kitplane type, but the Popular Flying Association may take on the task of testing and granting permits-to-fly to each airframe when its assembly is complete. The aviation authorities' motivation for devolvement is definitely cost-based, Daley says. He explains that, under European regu lations as they are expected to develop, the newly deregulated airlines will not accept that the user charges which they are required to pay should subsidise the GA sector. Devolvement of surveillance tasks to the recognised associations has desirable spin offs, he adds, appearing, in practice, to bene fit safety awareness while extending effective resources for standards monitoring. Daley sees JAR Ops 2 as being a good opportunity for the cross-fertilisation of safe ty ideas, and regards the European Union, 20 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 12 - 18 April 1995
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