Het volgende komt uit de IAOPA enews voor september. Het tweede deel zegt niets over het vliegen van FAA toestellen en FAA piloten in Europa, maar zegt des te meer over de manier van werken van EASA. Interessant om dit ook te weten:
EASA railroads its N-reg attack through Parliament
The European Parliament yesterday approved EASA-FCL despite a last-minute attempt to have it sent back to EASA for redrafting because of unresolved issues surrounding third-country licences. The vote was very close – 16 against approval, 22 for – and a surprise for IAOPA was the fact that the Parliament's Transport Committee chairman Brian Simpson and his socialist group voted in EASA's favour. Mr Simpson had expressed support for IAOPA's position on the N-register in the past and it had been hoped he would vote accordingly.
The passage of EASA-FCL despite the deleterious effect it will have on the general aviation industry illustrates not only the absence of any real democratic control over EASA but the failings of the whole European governmental structure. EASA-FCL was born out of a Basic Regulation written by European Commissioners with no electoral mandate; the details were added by bureaucrats at EASA who paid lip service to the idea of consultation with industry. When the time came to vote, the elected members of the European Parliament were denied the opportunity to pass judgement on the components of this long and complex document – they only had the power to accept all of EASA's proposals, or reject them entirely. Because the Commission's deadlines (themselves entirely arbitrary) are bearing down on us, MEPs are under enormous pressure to pass the legislation; failure to do so would have caused chaos and confusion among the national aviation authorities who are expected to begin implementing EASA-FCL by April next year, and it is a measure of the extreme level of concern MEPs have over the N-registration issue that many of them were prepared to 'throw the baby out with the bathwater'.
The decision was effectively taken on August 31st by the Transport and Tourism Committee, which speaks for the whole Parliament on this issue. Thanks in part to the work of Herbert Habnit, founder of AOPA Netherlands, two MEPs, Peter van Dalen and Philip Bradbourne, had sought a resolution saying that EASA's third-country licensing proposals meant that many pilots would be severely disadvantaged, subject to additional training, examination and 'notable costs', and that the requirements were 'disproportionate'. EASA claims the shortcomings in its regulation can be overcome by a bilateral agreement between Europe and the US, but the van Dalen/Bradbourne motion points out that 'there is absolutely no evidence nor clear future prospects for the potential bilateral Aviation Safety Agreements being drafted and to be concluded before April 2014'(by which time the third-country provision of EASA-FCL must be fully implemented) that would solve these problems. It goes on to say there are no safety issues behind EASA's regulation, and adds that the draft regulation does not even conform to the requirements of the Commission's own Basic Regulation.
Four more votes would have tipped the matter in general aviation's favour. Mr Habnit was particularly disappointed at the failure of Mr Simpson and those in his sphere of influence to support the resolution. Mr Simpson had, says Mr Habnit, abrogated the provisions of the European Parliament's own 'Agenda for a Sustainable Future for General Aviation', adopted in 2009. There has, he adds, been no real attempt to quantify the cost of this politically-motivated attack on the GA industry. 'Even EASA does not understand the consequences of its actions.'
IAOPA Senior Vice President Martin Robinson said afterwards: 'It's a sad day. The MEPs were put under enormous pressure to push this through and were denied the ability to address the huge flaws in it. This could not have been railroaded through in a truly democratic process. Economically, the vote is seriously bad news for our industry. Many of those who have been flying perfectly safely for decades on FAA licences are not going to make the extraordinary investment of time, effort and money needed to get European IRs or other qualifications – they will simply give up. The European Parliament has blown a great hole in our industry with this vote, and because it has been bamboozled by EASA, it doesn't even know it.
'We now have to focus on the detail of the FCL annexe to the Bilateral Agreement to make sure that EASA and the FAA reach sensible agreements on what credits they will give to each other's training systems. It is unlikely that the 2014 deadline will be achieved given the amount of work that needs to be done, and the Commission has accepted that the deadline may need to be extended. Retrospective legislation like this is damaging and the Commission should now work hard with the industry to reduce as far a possible the negative impact of these decisions.'
EASA-Ops – some amelioration, but not enough
EASA's final proposals on Ops were published yesterday (August 31st), and while they have matured considerably since the original poor-quality document was first made public, there are still areas with which IAOPA is not satisfied. It is important that members look at Notice of Proposed Amendment and make their observations clear to EASA. Failure to do so may mean we are saddled with the undesirable, pointless and in some cases expensive requirements which remain in the proposals, despite the best efforts of Working Groups to have them removed.
IAOPA's representatives on the two Working Groups were Jeremy James (non-complex ops) and Jacob Pedersen (complex ops). Both are happy that the most onerous requirements have been cut out of the regulations. In complex ops, the absurd requirement that a single-engined aircraft be capable of continuing its take-off after an engine failure has gone, as has a requirement that would effectively have prevented a single engined aircraft from taking off at all in IMC conditions. In non-complex ops, a requirement that all helicopters be fitted with floats when flying over water has been modified to exempt aircraft flying within 50 miles of land, and the demand for steerable landing lights has been finessed. The contentious demand that all aircraft be equipped with a fixed ELT has been replaced with a more sensible requirement for a PLB to be carried on an aircraft with six or fewer seats. Proposals to require two horizons for night flight have gone.
However, a demand for heated pitot heads for night flying has been re-introduced at the last moment after having been cut out at the Working Group stage. This is a particular blow in the helicopter world, where heated pitots are generally fitted only to aircraft which will operate in IMC and where retrofitting costs will be enormous. The requirement is all the more baffling because it was not contained in the last draft regulation, produced only three weeks earlier, and there has been no explanation for its reintroduction.
Other issues are:
1. Oxygen requirements – mandatory above FL130 and if you fly between FL100 and FL130 for more than 30 minutes.
2. Mandatory fire extinguisher, with no exemption for aerobatic flights as requested.
3. Poor dangerous goods regulation, not adapted to non-commercial operations.
4. More than doubled minimum visibility for an IFR take-off without a special approval – now 400 meters RVR, as opposed to the existing 150 meters RVR, with no justification for the change.
Jacob Pedersen says: "Items 1 and 2 prevent the pilot from taking responsibility and selecting the safest course of action in a given situation. It should never be the case that a safety regulation forces a pilot to choose a less safe option, and in both situations EASA goes directly against the recommendation of EASA's own review group. Consider the pilot who is crossing the Alps at FL110 and finds himself on top of a cloud layer after 30 minutes. Should he be forced to leave FL110, with smooth air and blue sky, to descend 1000 ft, bringing him closer to high terrain and into the clouds that might contain severe turbulence, rain, hail or worse? EASA may make it the only legal option, but is it also the safest? Germany has had good results with allowing operations between FL100 and FL120 without extra oxygen, and it is exactly these altitudes which are so important, particularly for the Alpine regions."
The dangerous goods rules will cover EASA's back but add to cost and do nothing for safety. Few non-commercial pilots will ever apply for dangerous goods approval, nor will they intentionally fly with dangerous goods. Yet EASA's rules will require all pilots to buy an ICAO document costing €100, plus an update charge. In practice what will happen is that most pilots will never know that they are violating ICAO recommendations on dangerous goods since they will never obtain what is in fact a document produced for the commercial world.
Jacob says: "The first three cases above are clear examples of the fact that EASA is not writing safety regulation to promote safety but to absolve EASA from liability if something goes wrong. If a pilot wants to take what he considers to be the safest course of action, he could be forced to break the rules, which is absurd. Item 4 is an example of EASA changing regulation to prevent operations that have been conducted safely for decades, without providing any evidence as to why this change is necessary."
