Subsonic jet transport has been with us now for about a quarter of a century. There are young people starting their careers today who have never known a sky without jet noise and the V-wing silhouette of a passenger carrying aircraft. Indeed, it must seem to them as permanent a feature of our world as the steam train between the world wars was to people such as myself; the big difference is, as I hope to show, that air transport has not yet reached a development plateau.

Aviation has always been a dynamic industry, with a rapidly expanding technology and opportunity which has now taken it beyond the atmosphere, into space and onto the planets. The spectacular steps have not been taken in the first place for the benefit of commercial transport operations—although there have often been consequential advantages. Advances were pursued because they were thought necessary for the maintenance of effective armed forces and the provision of efficient weapons.

My first comment is about the term ‘third level'—I believe it to be bad. I think it does the operators concerned an injustice. I think it inappropriate because, as we all know, almost anything with the word ‘third’ applied to it is widely accepted as being sub-standard. In some cases, as in the bad old days of third-class railway travel in the UK, it was virtually an admission that the standard offered was poor.

For these reasons the term is quite misleading in the aviation context, for third-level operators are in fact actively engaged in raising the standards of air transport in the regional areas. In doing this they are following the trend in aviation generally. The introduction of jets over intercontinental routes was inevitably followed by their use over major domestic networks. Today we are witnessing their increasing adoption in regional air transport, one of the principal reasons being that passengers accustomed to top class amenities on intercontinental flights are not happy about anything much less comfortable or less speedy when they leave the big jet at ths major international airport; they have come to expect comparable standards from the feederline or regional service by which they are to complete the journey.

Section 8(2)(h) of the Civil Aviation Act 1949 gives power to make provision in the Air Navigation Order ‘generally for securing the safety, efficiency and regularity of air navigation and the safety of aircraft and of persons or property carried therein’. When it was decided to institute a Mandatory Occurrence Reporting system, there was therefore no problem about including a requirement for reporting in the Air Navigation Order, since the whole purpose of the system is to secure the safety of air navigation.

Provision for Mandatory Occurrence Reporting was first made in the summer of 1974 by the Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 1974 which added to the Order a new article, Article 80(A), which specified classes of persons required to report to the Civil Aviation Authority ‘any reportable occurrence … which is of such a description as may be prescribed’. ‘Prescribed’ in the Air Navigation Order means prescribed in regulations (in this context the Air Navigation (General) Regulations) and Article 80(A) did not in fact bite until regulations had been made.

I think I need say nothing more today about why we have a Mandatory Occurrence Reporting system; we have it and it has been working for well over a year. It has had the inevitable teething troubles, and we still have a long way to go before we get the level of reporting right and get the right balance in the frequency and quantity of information we re-publish. Nevertheless we can see many of the aims of the system being achieved or within sight of achievement. What has not changed significantly from the previous voluntary reporting system is the proportion—the very small proportion—of reports which reveal human error, especially reports by people who have themselves made errors. Human nature being what it is, there is a little less reluctance to report other people's errors!

No one, least of all professional pilots as a body, would wish to condone evasion of the issue where a pilot has wilfully or recklessly hazarded his machine and the lives of those on board. Equally there is common ground throughout the industry that air safety demands the rigorous selection of pilots for ability, together with extensive training to create and maintain necessary pilot skills.

Bearing in mind the initial licensing requirements that the State lays down and the regular re-examination that a pilot submits to in competency checks there is, on the face of it, every opportunity for rejecting basically unsuitable applicants and for correcting later shortcomings in the performance of an established pilot.

This seems to imply that we have to look further for the possible origins of whatever comes to be called ‘poor airmanship'.

Before beginning my contribution to this symposium, I must make it plain that I do not claim to speak here for employers of pilots, other than myself. For that matter, I do not even claim to be speaking for my own Company. The opinions I shall express are my own and they result from a modest experience in the management side of the air transport industry. They are not the product of any discussion or agreement with other employers of pilots.

Concerning the title of my contribution, I shall assume the word ‘employer’ to mean an air transport undertaking, operating under an Air Operator's Certificate, and the word ‘pilot’ to mean a qualified aircraft captain engaged in public transport operations.

I am going to broaden the picture somewhat from what has already been said so far in order to try to put the topic of employment in its general legal context from the point of view of passengers, operators, flight crew and air traffic controllers.

When a person is injured in an accident on land, he must prove negligence by somebody, e.g. the driver of a motor car, and if he can do so he can get judgment for full compensation for all his injuries, loss and damage. Recently, awards in severe cases have been up to £100 000, and sometimes more.

If however the Defendant proves that he was not negligent, or that someone else caused the accident, the Plaintiff will get nothing from him, no matter how serious his injuries.

In the following paper I shall discuss briefly the past history of aerospace cost prediction for budgetary purposes within government, the position which it has now reached and some of the problems which lie ahead. Some of the paper will be philosophical, but I make no apology for that. It is all too easy to become involved in detailed discussions of statistics, operating procedures and the like and to lose sight of the objectives of cost predictions and the major uncertainties surrounding all attempts to forecast the future.

The ability to operate when runways are flooded or slush-covered to some degree, must be demonstrated during the certification programme of any new civil transport aircraft. Failure to meet the requirements laid down will result in operating restrictions which may jeopardise the sales prospects of the aircraft. Most other types of aircraft will also have to operate occasionally in these adverse conditions.

The main problems result from the spray generated at the wheels, and are engine malfunction due to spray ingestion and damage due to its impingement on the airframe. An associated problem is the packing of slush into ducts, flap cavities, undercarriage bays, etc, with the attendant risks of damage to internal systems and jamming of mechanical parts. There is also a large additional drag load on the aircraft, due to the displacement of fluid by wheels and to spray impact on the airframe: this increases roughly in proportion to the depth and effectively limits the slush depth that can be tolerated on the runway. For many aircraft this limit is little more than one centimetre.