GB44
Captain
Flight distance : 343848 ft
United Kingdom
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In my opinion, the key issue is with the enforcing body e.g. the CAA who appear to be sitting on the fence.
In one way the CAA are giving approvals for businesses to operate as Qualified Entities, approved training providers, but allowing them to set their own rules in my opinion is above and beyond the legal requirement. I was of the opinion that it is unlawful to contract out of a statutory requirement. In this instance, I see the statutory requirement to provide the training as agreed with the CAA. That is the ultimate remit with the CAA when they are granted the license as training providers. Training providers shouldn't then be allowed to introduce new contracts and requirements and impose fees for additional services outside of what is required by the CAA and the Law. By introducing their own contracts for training services with demands for additional flight tests is as I see it, simply contracting out of their statutory requirement to provide the basic training to comply with the legal requirements set by the CAA and Government. However this is just my interpretation and I may stand to be corrected on this so welcome any other comments or opinions.
In my humble opinion the CAA should therefore get off the fence and ensure parity across the board for all appropriately trained and qualified UAV Pilots regardless of who the Training Provider is. Should the law change in the future well that is fine, but that will be addressed as and when changes become law and not just at the discretion of a business seeking additional fees. In addition, we should not be looking to individual training providers to determine and force new laws. The CAA should sit down globally with other Aviation Authorities from other countries and agree a global standard, similar to the international protocol under ICAO then as qualified UAV Pilots, we could operate anywhere in the world and not just in the UK. If its good enough for commercial aircraft pilots then why can't it be adopted for us UAV pilots. At present we just need the CAA to enforce standardisation and impartiality across all training providers and thats not a huge task.
I agree with the other comments above that once qualified as a commercial operator there is a duty of care on the operator and Pilots to ensure the aircraft used complies with safety standards, the return to home etc. is checked, and that it operates in accordance with the Ops Manual submitted to the CAA , so why do we need to have flight tests by a third party who only sees the aircraft operating for 10 to 20 minutes especially when the CAA are not interested in additional flight tests.
I too am glad that the CAA have adopted the approach of classification of aircraft, and have a common sense approach to these aircraft. I just wish they would stand up to EuroUSC to ensure equality across the board for everyone regardless of who you decide to chose as your training provider.
On another point of interest, EuroUSC also request serial numbers for aircraft to be flight tested, but as far as I understand, the serial numbers are never actually physically checked. You could therefore take a completely different aircraft for the flight test (Same model type) and have it approved. I am also aware of others who have created their own serial number in case they change their aircraft in the future, so they can just use the same serial number, thus circumventing the need for a new flight test and additional fee.
At the end of the day its up to individuals who they select for their training needs. I simply got fed up with the whole politics of the BNUC-S and trying to seek common sense that I just got on with the process in order to get to the final hurdle and achieve the CAA Operators approval.
The CAA also informed me that once approved commercially by CAA you don't have to go back to the same or original training provider in the future when renewing your commercial license. Obviously I haven't been in that position yet so unsure how that process works however, if BNUC-S qualified, to maintain the certification, I believe you have to submit your flight logs for the past year to keep your certification valid. So a little unsure as to what the CAA are referring to when they informed me you don't have to use the same training provider.
On a final note, please understand I am not trying to persuade anyone to use any specific training provider or seek to endorse any training provider in the UK, thats a decision only the individual can make. I simply wish to give people information for them to make an informed decision, which I believe was the crux of the original post. So good luck to all starting on this process.
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