On Tue, Jun 18, 2002 at 06:13:58PM +1000, Peter Rundle wrote:
> > In view of the controversy over the proposed Recreational License
> > I would like to suggest that individual pilots contact me directly
> > with a simple Yes or No as to whether they agree or disagree.
>
> Are asking if "Yes" I agree that the Rec license is good or "Yes" the
> GFA's position is correct?
> (or just "Yes" there is a controversy ;-) ?
:-)
As usual, both sides have valid points: I sympathize with the GFA's
idea that maintaining our own standards is important, and that AOPA
has hardly had a stellar record with CASA when it comes to representing
the interests of their members on licensing issues. GFA obviously
doesn't want to become another AOPA, and keeping control over training
and operational aspects of gliding is the best way that they can
think of to avoid that.
The Mike Borgelts of the world also have a valid point: it's positively
bizarre that the mere presence of a GFA-approved Level 2 Instructor can
remove operational responsibility from the hands of an independent
operator. My favourite stupid example of this is the case of a L2
Ind Ops holder who flies his self-launcher from a paddock somewhere and
lands at an airfield which, unknown to him, happens to be playing host
to a GFA club operation. At some undefined point during that flight,
control over his operation has transferred from him to the duty instructor
at his destination airfield! And, once landed, he might not necessarily
be able to legally take-off again to fly home, if that duty instructor
doesn't approve. I think everyone will agree that that's an absurd
outcome.
If the same pilot had a GA license, and launched in the same aircraft
(on the GA register instead of the gliding register) from the same
paddock and landed at the same airfield and encountered the same
duty instructor, that duty instructor would exert exactly *zero*
control over the pilot's operations, and any attempt to prevent him
from taking off again would be met with a blank look and a brush-off.
The fact that qualified glider pilots don't have the same abilities
is a travesty.
The RPL proposal is appealing, in that it addresses that concern nicely
by providing gliding with a GA-like vesting of responsibility in the
hands of qualified pilots. As an adult, I agree with that sentiment
at a very deep level.
The GFA points to the duty instructor's non-operational responsiblities
too: she's a representative of the club's exec committee, and oversight
can partly be justified by a need to protect the club's assets (the
gliders). But that justification is misplaced: If a club doesn't
want a pilot flying one of their gliders, its refusal -should- be
communicated by means of denying the request to hire their aircraft.
The decision on whether to hire or not to hire is not an operational
issue which the instructor should be concerned with, it's an administrative
due-diligence issue.
Unfortunately, we have a paternalistic system whereby a club can prevent
a pilot from flying *at all* if they don't want that pilot flying the
club's aircraft. It's that usurping of personal responsibility from the
hands of the pilot which grates. In GA, if you come up against a
control-freak instructor who wants to ruin your day, you ignore him and
fly anyway; In gliding, the same person can actually *ground* you.
And we've all seen control-freak instructors who have gone out of their
way to call someone to account for some insignificant deviation from
common practice... yet nobody can tell someone like that to pull their
head in and f**k-off (like they could in GA), even if they're dead wrong,
because something like that will virtually guarantee a grounding.
So both sides have their benefits; despite some of the forthright
discussion on this list, it's nowhere near a clear-cut issue. So what
should be done?
I think the GFA needs to take the initiative on this: they need to
come up with a counter-proposal. At the moment, the only thing we've
seen from them is a defense of the status-quo, but that simply isn't
good enough: the RPL proposal *will* become law, whether the GFA likes
it or not (CASA hasn't opened it up for discussion just to waste
everyone's time, they've opened it for discussion because they intend
to push it through), and one of the side effects of the RPL will almost
certainly be to make GFA membership non-compulsory: If you don't need
to be a GFA member to be able to fly, why would you be a GFA member?
So, defense of the status quo isn't going to serve GFA's interests;
the end result will be an RPL, a mass-exodus from the GFA membership
list, and much cackling from Toowoomba.
... which isn't necessarily the best outcome, because the GFA's opposition
to the RPL proposal has some (small amount of) merit.
In my opinion, the best outcome can be arrived at by overhauling the
Independent Ops system. The L1 / L2 Ind. Ops ratings need to be replaced
by a single authorization (let's call it "Private Operator", to
distinguish it from the status quo). A Private Operator rating
needs to be accessible (perhaps with C or Silver Badge and an Instructor's
endorsement as a prerequisite, but nothing more onerous than that), and
it needs to carry all the privileges which have been discussed under
the RPL proposal.
In particular, a Private Operator must *not* fall under the jurisdiction
of a duty instructor. A GA pilot (including an RPL pilot) wouldn't, and
I can't see any legitimate reason why a qualified pilot shouldn't be
responsible for themselves. Granting a pilot a Private Operator
authorization would effectively be saying, "Yup, you're good enough to
handle this responsibility for yourself from now on," in the same vein
as sending someone on their first solo indicates that they're ready
for -that- amount of responsibility.
This will probably rock the GFA's world a bit, because they've never
invested that much responsibility in a pilot before (remember: Level-2
independent ops means *NOTHING* if there's a duty instructor nearby -
the GFA has *always* emphasised the primacy of the instructor, and has
*never* granted complete self-responsibility to any non-instructor
pilot, ever -- And even level-2 instructors are subordinate to the
appointed duty instructor of the day). Yes, this undermines a lot
of the day-to-day control that a duty instructor has. But that control
will be eroded anyway, because in a couple of years we'll have pilots
turning up at our airfields with RPLs, and they won't give a rat's
arse about the responsibilities of the nearest duty instructor. It's
not like it's going to make any difference to anything if the GFA
opposes it, so they'd be better off investing their effort in
*countering* it.
Commensurate with this proposal is the idea that the lead-up to a
Private Operator authorization (i.e., the time spent between solo and
C or Silver) should be supplemented with post-solo training. There's
basically no emphasis at all on post-solo training in the GFA system
at the moment, and it's a yawning gulf which needs to be filled.
The stated aim of the GFA training system is to produce competent
competition pilots, but it fails to do that: It just produces competent
solo pilots, and the work of getting from solo to competition standard
is "somebody else's problem." Lots of observers in this forum have
identified this as a problem over the years, and it sounds like now is
a perfect opportunity to start the work needed to fix it (because if
the entire GFA training system becomes obselete when pilots can get
their RPL glider rating at a non-GFA training centre, then GFA will
have lost its opportunity to make a difference here).
This is a turning point for the GFA. There is a serious proposal from
the aviation regulator on the table which renders the GFA obselete...
Unless they do something about it. The big reason why most people are
entheusiastic about the RPL is because it addresses the problems which
a lot of pilots have been grumbling about for years and which the
GFA has never adequately addressed. So now there's a bit more
urgency: Adapt and address the problems or become an anachronism.
Frankly, if I'm faced with a choice between an RPL and a carbon-copy
GFA-produced equivalent, then to my mind the GFA version would "win"
for the reasons onlined in the GFA's position statement: the Gliding
fraternity would be maintaining control of training and accreditation,
which is almost certainly better than CASA swapping their current
passive role for a more active (but ham-fisted) one.
For people who fly club gliders, very little of this whole issue makes
any difference at all. But one day I'll own a glider, and at that point
the question of who takes responsiblity for my operations will become
more important. And if I'm then presented with a choice between a
CASA-authorized RPL which says that *I* am responsible, or a GFA-
authorized system which says that someone else who I don't even know
and who is probably less current than I am anyway is responsible, I
probably won't have to exert much effort to come to a decision :-)
- mark
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried an internal modem, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
but it hurt when I walked. Mark Newton
----- Voice: +61-4-1620-2223 ------------- Fax: +61-8-82231777 -----
--
* You are subscribed to the aus-soaring mailing list.
* To Unsubscribe: send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
* with "unsubscribe aus-soaring" in the body of the message
* or with "help" in the body of the message for more information.
