BMAA Newsletter - 12/03/2021
BMAA Newsletter 12th March 2021
Current Flying Guidance
Today the DfT has updated the guidance for GA flying in England. The change relates to flight training and is summarised at the second bullet point in the passage below. The guidance is:
· Solo, or with members of your bubble, recreational aviation can start again from the 29th March.
· Flight training which complies with social distancing requirements can also start from 29th March. Such training could be solo supervision or other solo training systems as are sometimes used for hang gliding or similar.
· Normal dual flight training can restart on 12th April.
All these dates are the earliest that the activity can happen in England and assume that the Government’s plan to ease out of lockdown doesn’t get changed.
The devolved administrations of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland haven’t published any specific guidance for recreational aviation that I have been able to locate. However, the restrictions in place for lockdown in all four countries of the UK in most cases prevent travel by their stay at home requirements, and therefore prevent the opportunity to fly for most pilots.
If there are any changes to the guidance I will let members know.
Licence Validity Extensions
Although not yet finalised, I understand that the CAA is planning to extend the period for which licence validity may be extended. The current extensions are published in Exemptions 1416 and 1418 which you can read if you follow the links. It is likely to be a further three months extension until the end of July 2021.
Permit Revalidations
Because of lockdown throughout the UK many members will have been unable to complete the inspection and check flight requirements for revalidation of their aircraft’s Permit to Fly throughout the last three months. We are expecting a higher than usual number of applications to arrive with us as soon as flying is once again allowed. We experienced the same last year through June and July. To help us to turn your application around as speedily as possible please take a few extra minutes to check that your application is completed correctly. Any error leads to delay. These are some of the common errors which can be avoided by a careful check:
- Syndicate owners not BMAA members
- Awaiting payment
- BMAA Membership expired
- No airframe hours entered on inspection
- Outstanding modification not completed
- Check pilot BMAA membership expired
Also, remember that you can have the inspection carried out up to 60 days ahead of the check flight and 60 days ahead of expiry of the current Certificate of Validity without losing any time. To help spread the workload at our end, and speed up your revalidation pleas take advantage of the 60 day buffer and not wait until the last minute to start the revalidation process.
Skyway Code
The CAA has published the third edition of the very useful Skyway Code. It contains lots of information and is a useful reference to remind you of all the details that you learned when studying for your licence, or help you learn those things if you are a student under training. The Code is available as a free download from the CAA website using this link. https://www.caa.co.uk/General-aviation/Safety-information/The-Skyway-Code/
Returning to Flying Safely
At the risk of repetition, it is important to prepare properly for a safe and considered return to flying. To remind you of the things to think about have a look at this page on the BMAA website https://www.bmaa.org/after-covid-19 and perhaps visit the GASCo website and watch their very informative video from this page https://www.gasco.org.uk/
Greg Burns has also produced a video guide which you can see here Back to Flying 3.mp4 on Vimeo
Stay safe
Geoff Weighell
CE BMAA