There seems to be a lot of confusion about the role of ICAO in aviation regulations. Maybe this is largely caused by a large portion of the community being from the US? Although the US is an ICAO member state, the FAA tends to prefer making their own rules, rather than adopting ICAO Standards and...
@Shalvenay Really? On a country road, I would agree. But I'd hate to see what would happen in downtown New York if all the traffic lights went out... The same thing could be said for a place like Chicago O'Hare and ATC.
@JeffTeoh FYI, I'd argue it's a bit more nuanced than @Shalvenay is letting on. Admittedly, he's correct for most small planes at small airports (there are many many airports in this country that have no ATC at all, and they work just fine.) But at big airports with big planes.... ATC is a bit more essential.
I think it might actually be an interesting question for the Stack in general. "What would happen if ATC went down for 30 minutes at a major airport and there wasn't another major ATC center nearby to take over the load?" Or something like that.
I mean, the site is literally for questions, so... I mean, it's not a bad thing to ask questions here too. I just tend to think if a question is one that other people might find interesting, you might as well ask it on the Stack.
@voretaq7 What, you're not even IFR! You dissapoint me sir! I looked up to you! Go get your whole ass on that thing already! (I provide these motivational services for free even...)
45 hours on a Tiger Moth is about £9k, if you can even do it in the minimum hours; add to that about £100 for a medical and £300 for the knowledge tests, plus however much it costs to get an examiner for your skills check
@Pondlife Fun Fact: Because of vestibular damage I have effectively no natural sense of balance (it's all visual, watching me get on "down" escalators is really amusing!) - makes the whole "Fly without looking out the windows!" thing a lot easier :)
@JayCarr Not a problem for me, I can't trust it in VMC either :) "Which way do you think the airplane is going?" -- "Man, I haven't a fucking clue until I open my eyes and see either the instruments or the horizon!"
it was on the turn onto crosswind leg; I looked all about and suddenly thought "if I didn't know to compare the wings against the horizon I'd think we were level"
also probably too kerspensive or something, we're really cheap. If we bought every cop a portable brethalyzer and a supply of cardboard tips we couldn't afford the urban assault vehicles at the army surplus sales!
@DanHulme See, YOUR country (despite the brexit vote) is actually not STUPID
that must be a nice feeling, knowing your country isn't STUPID, not having to take your shoes off and get groped by a troll to get on a jet, having a queen!
@DanHulme And it gives cops some, er, 'discretion' that they wouldn't otherwise have. Drink driving is pretty common in the US, in my experience, and in rural areas I think they like to have some way to scare someone but let them go.
here we arrest you for it, sell your car at auction, and then you get acquitted (probably because the cop fucked up the brethalyzer or sommat) and you sue the county for millions because they sold your busted-ass hoopty.
@JeffTeoh Actually, I was offered my first paying flying job last week: a photography flight for 2 hours. I'm pretty sure it would take me a long time to make 100K that way!
@DanHulme That has some practical issues in the US: it's a huge country with limited public transport and many people living in small towns. And many of those people are not interested in drinking one beer and then going home...
I mean, you make it sound like you are a teenager or something, you're probably in a good position to really get this figured out if you want to do it.
Do they not have colleges in Australia that you can get a degree in aviation from or something? Maybe give you access to scholarships and loans and such?
You and everyone. The key is to do your reasearch and figure out how hard different options are, and do you best to figure out how much you might enjoy them (and it's of course good to know if you can pay for your existence too.)
But it was a really really odd and long road to get here, that's for sure.
I think it's why I recommend doing some research on where you want to go in life. Maybe save yourself a few years of aimlessly wondering about (like I did) ;)
Yeah, I remember I used to think that a lot when I was a teenager. I don't know what changed as I've gotten older (I'm only 33), but I no longer feel like life is short, that's for sure.
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