AOPA Latest news
View our latest and past news items.
- Details
- Published:
 |
Civil Aviation Authority review: Report and summary of responses |
A call for evidence on the effectiveness and efficiency of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was published on 28 November 2022 and remained open for responses until 29 January 2023.
The Report, with Ministerial Foreword, Executive Summary and Review Recommendations can be found here.
Stakeholders, individuals and organisations submitted responses to questions using an online web form. In total, 444 responses were received online or by email. The majority of responses followed the call for evidence questions. Where email responses did not follow the call for evidence questions the review team analysed them individually. These 26 responses could not be included in the call for evidence quantitative analysis but they were considered by the review.
The call for evidence asked questions spanning a range of areas relating to the work of the CAA. A wide range of stakeholders responded. Some responses were very detailed and expressed a broad range of opinion. This report summarises the key trends from major stakeholder groups, as well as some question responses which have informed the recommendations.
Responses to the call for evidence were split into 2 main groups:
- responses from 287 individuals
- 157 responses on behalf of organisations
418 of these responses used the web survey and 26 organisations provided email responses. Some of these email respondents did not follow the structure of the call for evidence, and we have analysed these emails separately rather than attempting to assess how they might have responded to the call for evidence questions.
A list of respondents, including the organisations that responded, can be found in overview of individuals and organisations who responded to the call for evidence.
This report is exclusively a summary of responses to our call for evidence and does not include feedback gathered at the stakeholder events and consultations held with commercial airlines, airports, General Aviation (GA) sector, airport community groups and emerging technology companies as well as meeting with numerous other stakeholders. These meetings also informed the review’s recommendations.
The full summary can be found here. From the summary:
Trends in responses from General Aviation
To account for the breadth of the GA community, we combined responses from a number of the individual sub-categories, including private pilots, professional drone operators and sports and recreational aviation participants. In all, we received 135 responses from these subgroups.
Responses from the GA community were generally more negative than average across all individuals. 59% of responses from the GA community expressed negative views and 13% of responses from the GA community expressed positive views.
Like other individual respondents, the GA community felt most positive about the CAA's enforcement of consumer protection, 35% of responses being either agree or strongly agree and effectiveness at regulating the sector, 27% of responses being either agree or strongly agree.
The GA community gave the most negative responses to the question on how the CAA's customer service compares to other regulators with 84% of responses being disagree or strongly disagree. and the CAA's effectiveness at acting on feedback 83% of responses being disagree or strongly disagree.
Trends for individuals
Questions in the call for evidence were structured to give 5 options, ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Strongly agree was always a positive response to the question.
In total, around 70% of all respondents were individuals expressing their own opinions.
Across all questions and individuals, 15% of responses either agreed or strongly agreed with the questions and 57% of responses either disagreed or strongly disagreed.
Looking at sub-groups of Individuals, members of the public and passenger or cargo customers of UK aviation had the most positive responses, with 27% responses from members of the public and 30% responses from passenger or cargo customers of UK aviation being agree or strongly agree.
By comparison, aeromedical examiners and commercial pilots had the most negative responses, with 69% of responses from aeromedical examiners and 67% responses from commercial pilots being disagree or strongly disagree.
- Details
- Published:
| David Ogilvy OBE FRAeS 1929 to 2023 |
It is with great sadness that I have been informed that David Ogilvy passed away, aged 94 (1929-2023), on Friday 14 July 2023.
David was involved with flying throughout his life. In the RAF he flew the mosquito mostly on PR operations at the end of the war. He went to have a long career in flight training and he ran the London School of Flying.
He was deeply involved with Historic and Vintage aircraft being a founder member . He was also involved with the ABAC later BLAC and was one of the founders of AOPA UK.
Through the years that I worked with him at AOPA he was totally dedicated to fighting for Aerodromes particularly those under threat of closure. Along with Jack Wells ( who passed away last month) they established the General Aviation Awareness Campaign/ Council. As David leaves us his legacy will be in the 17 books he has written the last has just gone to the publisher. My friend and mentor RIP.
David was interviewed in 2012 for General Aviation when he retired from AOPA. You can read the detailed interviews, which chronicles Davids' life in Aviation here.
Martin Robinson
CEO AOPA UK
- Details
- Published:
 |
Updated Safety Sense Leaflet: Aerobatics |
The CAA have published an updated Safety Sense leaflet providing guidance to pilots on Aerobatics, covering an introduction to the subject and associated best practices.
This forms part of the popular Safety Sense series which the CAA is currently updating.
You can find a list of AOPA Corporate members who offer the AOPA Aerobatics Certificate training course here.
Your training organsiation will provide you with the relevant syllabus. You can purchase your own personal copy of each syllabus here, but NOTE that the syllabus is NOT a reference book or training manual.
- Details
- Published:
|
Infringement team podcast and resources for pilots flying in the Solent area |
How Local Airspace Infringement Teams work, our latest General Aviation podcast, looks at the work of the Wessex Local Airspace Infringement Team (LAIT) to help reduce infringements.
For pilots planning to fly in the area we’ve published new resources from the team, including a new hot-spot narrative and local Frequency Monitoring Code guide on the Airspace & Safety Initiative website: airspacesafety.com/solent
There are 12 LAITs across the UK. Each covers an infringement hot-spot and is focussed on helping to reduce airspace infringements through local initiatives and targeted actions.
- Details
- Published:
|
VHF Low Level (LL) Common Frequency |
The VHF Low Level (LL) Common Frequency is being permanently introduced in the UK.
With an ever-increasing trend of Military versus Civilian aviation AIRPROX below 2000 FT AGL, the aim of the LL Common Frequency is to improve the barriers to mitigate against Mid-Air Collisions in the UK Low Flying System (UKFLS).
The channel assigned is 130.490 MHz and is to be known as the “LL-Common Frequency”.
Details of the LL Common Frequency can be found in AIC P 047/2023
- Details
- Published:
 |
Flying Reporter Aerodrome Reviews |
Airfields are critical to the infrastructure that allows General Aviation to be sustainable. Not only do they provide a place to take off and land but also provide a base for numerous employment opportunities including essential maintenance services. Far too many are under threat and we must all do our part to protect them and it is one of the key themes under the AOPA influencing agenda.
Jon Hunt, the Flying Reporter, is currently undertaking a series of airfield reviews to promote a range of different General Aviation aerodromes around the country that will hopefully encourage pilots to try new destinations. We think this is a great initiative and so AOPA have sponsored those reviews and Included in each review is a new membership offer to join AOPA.
You can find out more about the Flying Reporter here.
AOPA do not interfere with the content of the reviews nor decide where he goes and any views expressed by Jon are his alone.
I hope that you find Jon's review's of interest and try out some new destinations as a result and maybe you can use this new found incentive to spread your wings and make a step towards your next AOPA Wings Award level.
Martin Robinson
CEO AOPA
- Details
- Published:
|
Talking Radio Telephony |
The latest in the General Aviation podcast series is a special episode focussing on Radio Telephony.
We speak with David Woodward and Anthony Hatch whose original idea for this podcast came from their work with Local Airspace Infringement Teams.
With flight instructor, RT examiner, aerodrome FISO and NATS ATCO experience between them, we talk through some of the general issues surrounding the use of RT. Looking at both pilot and controller perspectives, with some practical guidance and a request to let us know what you might like to hear covered in the future.
- Details
- Published:
|
Department for Transport: General aviation handbook |
The Department for Transport have published this guide: General aviation handbook.
This handbook provides an introduction to the general aviation (GA) sector. The sector includes all non-scheduled commercial civil aviation and represents a diverse range of activity ranging from emergency services to recreational flying.
It outlines the economic, social and infrastructural value of GA and the sector’s supporting airfield network.
It also explains how the sector can work with stakeholders, such as local authorities to improve operations, safety and services for the benefit of businesses, the economy and the community.
The handbook is for stakeholders including:
- the GA sector and associated organisations
- local authorities
- other private organisations
- Details
- Published:
 |
Farnborough Airspace Change Proposal - Post Implementation Review Update |
The CAA has received the Farnborough Post Implementation Review sponsor’s report. The CAA's Farnborough Airspace Change Proposal webpage has been updated with this information:
Post implementation reviews are a rigorous assessment by the CAA of whether the anticipated impacts and benefits, set out in the original airspace change proposal and decision, have been delivered and if not to ascertain why and to determine the most appropriate course of action.
The CAA’s review will include an assessment of aircraft using Farnborough airport, of aircraft using the airspace that was the subject of the change and of aircraft flying in the vicinity of the airspace that was the subject of the change. The CAA has specified data requirements for the PIR that will enable that assessment.
The CAA has received specific queries from stakeholders and confirms:
safety is the CAA’s primary statutory duty and the CAA will be carefully reviewing the PIR data to assess the impact of the new airspace design on safety; and
the CAA will also be assessing the impact of the change on noise based on an analysis of the number, type and height of aircraft on which data has been collected by the sponsor as required by the CAA.
The CAA now invite stakeholders to submit their own observations via email to
The CAA will aim to produce a PIR review report within three months.
This activity is not a review of the decision on the airspace change proposal, and neither is it a re-run of the original decision process.
Upon completion of the CAA’s review, we may:
- confirm that the implemented design satisfactorily achieves – within acceptable tolerance limits – the objective and terms of the CAA’s approval, and the change is confirmed; or
- require modifications to better achieve the objective and terms of the CAA’s approval
- Details
- Published:
|
Flying over gliding sites |
- Details
- Published:
|
New and updated Safety Sense Leaflet: Distraction |
The CAA has published an updated Safety Sense leaflet providing pilots with the right strategies to help avoid distraction and interruption, be more aware of the dangers and reduce the risk to your flying.
Consider mitigations within your Threat and Error Management (TEM) approach. More information on TEM can be found on the Airspace & Safety Initiative website.
This forms part of the popular Safety Sense series which the CAA is currently updating.