‘PART-NCO’ to become UK law on August 25th
New EASA regulations governing the ‘non-commercial’ operation of aircraft are set to come into force in the UK on the 25th August. Although many of the ‘PART-NCO’ provisions closely resemble regulations previously published in the UK Air Navigation Order (ANO), some new requirements have caught aircraft owners and operators off-guard and there have been complaints that the new requirements have not been well-publicised in advance. The...
Blackbushe is 75
Not looking a day over, well, 50 anyway, Blackbushe Airport to the west of London is celebrating its 75th birthday and to mark the occasion an anniversary festival is being held at the airfield on the 1st and 2nd July. Although virtually all airfields of any size have some sort of story to tell, Blackbushe has a particularly rich history and a more important place in the history of post-war civil aviation in the UK than many will...
Grounded! Aviation faces its greatest peacetime crisis
There is now no doubt that measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic will include the longest ever grounding of Europe’s General Aviation (GA) fleet, in addition to the well-publicised suspension of virtually all airline operations. From mid-March onwards events moved quickly in Europe and by Friday 20 March most non-essential businesses had closed in the UK, adhering to government social-distancing advice, encapsulated by the phrase,...
APPG GA visits Wycombe
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on General Aviation has visited Wycombe Air Park to talk to businesses and airfield operators about the challenges facing the General Aviation sector, and how they can be overcome. A number of businesses at the Air Park spoke about the highly-skilled jobs they provide in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) roles. The APPG also heard about the wide range of employment...
UK Government issues advice on General Aviation operations
Through mid-March, as the number of coronavirus cases in the UK began to rise sharply, many General Aviation businesses began to introduce ‘social distancing’ measures. Some businesses chose to increase their hygiene measures, modify their operations or stop all dual instruction given that in the confines of a GA aircraft, maintaining a six foot separation between instructor and student is not possible. The closure of cafes and...
