Flight safety, training and class struggle.

Reply to the Vol Moteur editorial of November 2019

In its November editorial “Six mismatched microlight classes, our Achilles' heel”, Vol Moteur asks the federation to publish accident statistics by class so as to allow a finer analysis. It even makes this a condition for showing that the federation has an active flight safety policy. One cannot answer an editorial with an editorial. A fuller explanation is therefore needed to remove any ambiguity.

Quantitative analysis, qualitative analysis

First of all, since 2015 (when the BEA resumed investigating microlight accidents after a break from 2009 to 2014), fatal accidents class by class, and even model by model, are known. The table is below:

What can we conclude from these figures? We can conclude anything and nothing if, alongside this quantitative approach, we do not have a qualitative one. In terms of analysis by class, no two years look alike, so it is hard to draw any conclusion. Since March 2017 (the start of the term of office), we have changed our approach very significantly. The Federation cannot work alone, and we hold very regular meetings and have permanent contact with the BEA and the DGAC and, from a different but complementary angle, with the GTA and our insurers.

We therefore decided to count not the number of deaths but the number of fatal accidents. Whether an accident claims one or two victims obviously has a considerable human impact, and an insurance impact too, but little on the analytical side. We have also paid greater attention to the ratio between serious and fatal accidents. The dividing line depends heavily on chance (fire on the ground, passive protection, delayed rescue…). The sadly famous 2015 season must therefore be put in perspective when set against the serious accidents of previous years. It should also be recalled that the Federation takes into account all accidents, whether or not the people involved were members. That may seem strange to say, but other federations count only “their victims”. We also wished to isolate the case of accidents that occur on machines registered in France, with pilots who hold French certificates but who fly abroad all year round outside the federal framework. The Federation has no influence over these pilots. That covers the methodological choices.

Counting and statistics

Let us return to the analysis by class. It goes without saying that these figures, which incidentally deal with small numbers, must be set against the whole fleet of machines. And strange as it may seem, this is not simple. There are mainly two channels for knowing the fleet: the DGAC, with its validity cards, and the Federation, through the taking out of licences. For historical reasons, the Federation created an insurance system (the famous pilot third-party liability cover) that is attached not to the machine but to the pilot. It was only by recording the types of flying (first, second, etc.) that we could know the class. I have always regretted this thoroughly skewed system. And you should know that the statistics published for years took account only of the first type of flying; besides being a mere survey, the notion of first type of flying tended to favour one class over another. It is, among other things, in the face of the very summary nature of the information collected, but also because of the difficulties of a slow and costly system, that we decided to change our licence-entry software, moving from GOAL (orange) to the EXALTO system. The transition was not without its bumps; it took place for the 2018 season. The new system makes it possible to collect objective information (certificates, machines). If we summarise the information available to us, at the end of December 2019 there were 15 400 members, and 30% of members do not have machine third-party liability insurance. This may be either students or members who are insured elsewhere. Licence and insurance must indeed be carefully kept apart.

People can take out a licence for reasons other than insurance, even if federal insurance is a good reason to do so (see “Why take out a licence?”). 8 100 machines are insured. In this fleet, 27% are paramotors, 17% weight-shift microlights, 47% three-axis microlights and 8% gyroplanes. By extrapolation, the fleet can be estimated at around 10 500 machines. On the DGAC side the figures are somewhat different: the fleet is much larger (around 16 000 machines) with roughly the same breakdown (more paramotors, however), but keeping a validity card does not mean that all the machines fly.

Percentage of machines by class in 2019, DGAC and FFPLUM:

DGAC source: number of microlights with a valid identification card on 14 October 2019.
FFPLUM source: microlights insured through the federal programme and declared by their owners on 05/11/2019.

So we have a lot of work to do to refine the data. The Federation has decided to launch a study in 2020 to gain a finer understanding of the fleet of machines. This study will cover various aspects: model type, average cost new, second-hand, and so on. The flight safety aspect is not decisive from this angle, however. For what do we know for certain? The percentage of machines by class is roughly the one mentioned. To make up for the lack of comparison with traditional aviation, the Federation has for several years asked members for their estimated number of hours per year. The average is around forty hours, but this method also has its flaws. It remains a declaration-based system, not always filled in correctly, depending only on members, and in a comparison with the certified aviation world that has its limits. It nevertheless emerges that microlight pilots, who are largely owners, naturally fly more.

The long timescale of analysis

In the end, what can we conclude from these elements? First of all, the number of fatal accidents (which, let us remember, deals with small numbers) is largely proportional to the fleet of machines. The number of serious accidents must be added to give a coherent picture. Can we say that one class is more dangerous than another? Take the paramotor, for example: it is significant that there are on average two fatal accidents but a large number of serious accidents, which are taken into account significantly in insurance terms. If we also look at free flight, which does not come under the supervision of the Ministry of Transport, we see around twenty fatal accidents a year for about 140 serious accidents, which is a lot when set against the number of hours, for example. The history of microlight flying was built on this diversity of classes (from the very beginning), even if the paramotor and the gyroplane came along later. This history is coherent, and the classes have always stood together in dealing with overall risk. Drawing up statistics by class shows nothing truly significant. We will take care to leave aside the creation of the recent class 6, which will be assessed once enough time has passed. To bring some clarity to this sensitive subject, however, the Federation secured (September 2019) that the DGAC, with the BEA and the Federation’s help, produce a study on “20 years of flight safety in microlights”. Our hypothesis, to be refined, is that the very significant increase in the fleet of machines over 20 years has not led to a proportional rise in serious and fatal accidents. A downward trend in their number can even be seen. The recurring prejudice about microlights is often tied to a supposed danger specific to them. This idea is very largely wrong. Perhaps it is also time to stop comparing our activity with others (aeroplanes, free flight). We have enough perspective to assess our own share of risk. After 40 years of activity and a well-established regulatory environment (1998, 2018), we need to take full responsibility for ourselves. That is what we have undertaken. Enough talk of figures; let us talk about concrete action.

Typology of accidents and actions by the Federation

With the help of the BEA and the DGAC, we have set about establishing a qualitative typology of flight safety every year. The main characteristic of our activity is the diversity of machines, which the Vol Moteur editorial rightly stresses, and which in fact suggests that a typology by class is of little interest, because within each class the machines are very disparate. Unlike traditional aviation, which is marked by a certain uniformity of types. This diversity is our richness (a regulation that allows innovation) but it is also a weakness. The other characteristic is the diversity of organisations: small clubs, large owners’ clubs, clubs with or without an instructor, and companies, which account for 30% of the 1 200 organisations. There is no such thing as a typical microlight club. We also have 1 100 instructors affiliated to the Federation, which is relatively few for the number of machines. We must therefore do everything to energise this community without touching the regulatory lever, or as little as possible. That is what we expressed by saying “raise the safety culture without changing the regulatory framework”.

Return to Flying (REV)

This finding led to the setting up of the Return to Flying (REV) scheme (April 2018). The principle is to encourage a pilot to fly with an instructor, helped by a contribution to the cost of the flight, on an entirely voluntary basis. This scheme, which was at first reserved for owners only, was extended to all pilots (January 2019). We plan to simplify the application interface (March 2020). In 2018: 180 registered for REV; in 2019: 600, in every class! If every instructor did one REV, we would already have 1 000. This is a scheme that has taken hold and is gradually gathering strength, putting the instructor back at the centre of our flying.

ENAC partnership

We have also decided to bring together every year (June 2018, June 2019) all the affiliated instructor training centres (which make up 95% of centres) to exchange on practices. It is notably through this channel that we set up the partnership with the ENAC. The observation was that we needed a framework to bring our practices into line, without falling back into the logic of a National Microlight Centre, which had its merits and its limits, and without falling into regulatory obligation either. On this occasion we discovered in particular how notoriously weak material support for our instructors was compared with traditional aviation, for historical reasons that should not be disowned but that have also reached their limits. Most training courses or refresher courses are indeed funded for aeroplane or glider instructors. We obtained (March 2019) that our instructor trainers or trainee instructors who wish to can attend the educational psychology week run by the ENAC at its Muret site. Most of the trainers have already taken part, with unanimously positive feedback. The mix of instructors from completely different backgrounds enriches the experience, and we have as much to learn from the ENAC as the ENAC has to learn from microlight flying. A trainee paramotor instructor being able to talk about his flying with an airline captain from a national carrier is interesting for both. This partnership is also gathering strength, and it allows all instructors to benefit from this shared experience during their refresher courses.

Material support for instructors

As for concrete material support for instructors, we obtained from our insurers (January 2019) the creation of a special instructor user third-party liability policy, with a premium sometimes lowered by €100 for identical cover. Some regions (for example AURA) have set up an annual grant for instructors, and we will ask the National Sports Agency, which has just been set up (November 2019), to help us extend this scheme. We have also worked on the equivalence of qualifications between the instructor certificate and the sports world. This is an ongoing and complex subject, which will allow better support for professional careers. We have also helped, on an ad hoc basis, with requests that were made, driven by specific motivations. In this respect, the Federation is open and reachable. In two years, the Federation’s staffing organisation has been profoundly reshaped, and you now get answers every day on instructors, organisations, regulation, insurance, legal matters and communication. To encourage meetings and exchanges at local level, we set up (January 2018) instructor forums, which club presidents often join. The Federation supports the regional committees to the tune of €500 to set up these meetings. Subjects and difficulties are tackled with no taboos. Specific cases always get a specific answer. On the sports movement side, the audit by the general inspectorate of sports (September 2018) that we had requested helped identify a new approach, extending the notion of sport to other aspects, including training. In a context of post closures, we obtained (August 2019) the creation of a national technical adviser post covering sport, flight safety and training. This post should normally be filled early in the year, and we would like to set up a federal assistant-instructor scheme, like what exists in diving or parachuting, for example, to allow, under the instructor’s responsibility, a broader training offer. And also to allow those planning to become instructors to enter an intermediate process. Because ultimately, and this is the whole point of our new approach, the question of flight safety is obviously tied to the question of training.

Delegation of the microlight theory exam

In a way, the subject of training was approached backwards, because we began by reforming instructor training without raising the question of reforming pilot training. The reform had been undertaken in some confusion and over an unusually long time before our term of office (March 2017); its real effects were felt with the refresher course (January 2019), and we are doing our best to make things easier while supporting the new requirements, which are good practice. But the real effect actually concerns pilot training. It is a complicated subject that required many exchanges to arrive at something simple. The Federation will administer the microlight theory exam in some of its organisations (around fifty at first) by early 2021. The current exam suffered from a few defects that were not conducive to a good start in our flying. The DGAC has therefore agreed to support the Federation on this project. This means amending the 2000 order on the microlight theory exam. A new order, with a modernised, simplified pedagogy, common in its theory part and specific by class, should appear in spring 2020. The exam application needed to test the scheme is already operational (spring 2019). In the long run, this will certainly be the most significant change for our Federation. A whole, highly motivated team of instructors has joined this project, working with the DGAC. It is an enormous task and it will bear fruit. In time, we would like (March 2021) to be able to offer a new federal reference manual with e-learning alongside. In anticipation of this new environment, the Federation has already produced two seasons (2018, 2019) of safety and training tutorials, including one aimed specially at the general public (“Is microlight flying dangerous?”).

Human and material resources

To all these new actions over the past two years we should add running the network of regional flight safety officers (national meeting January 2018, March 2019), the class-by-class “microlight” presentations given at the BEA for first-response investigators (on average two sessions of 40 people a year), similar talks to the GTA (nationally, March 2020), trials and assessments in technical areas with the BEA (carburettors or investigations into specific problems), the forthcoming reissue of the Safety Memo, the monthly updates, ULM-Info, and so on. If we take into account only the REV operation, the ENAC partnership, the safety meetings and the preparation of the microlight theory exam, we are looking at an average additional financial effort of €100 000 in 2018 and in 2019. Funding comes partly from grants (REV Agreement, ENAC Agreement), from the introduction of Insurance Intermediary Agent status (January 2018) and from the federal share of licences.

Vol Moteur and class struggle

Some may think that all this is just words, speeches, “smoke and mirrors”. It is in fact an account of very concrete actions that take hours of exchanges, meetings and setting up of apparently simple initiatives. There are plenty of people involved: partners, safety and training teams full of projects, convinced instructors, managers of organisations. For a very long time in our world, people have liked “editorials” and positions taken, for and especially “against”. This is often very reductive, with in the end a great deal of immobility. Thinking that publishing accidents by microlight class will revolutionise the overall level of safety is still rather far from the reality of what can actually be done, if one has taken care to understand what is really being done. But where the subject is not entirely innocent is that this demand has often been made by those who wanted one class to be separated from the others, or who wished to establish that some classes are more dangerous than others.

Here we do need to say a little about the evolution of Vol Moteur, which has been a historic companion of the Federation from the start. For the past ten years or so, however, Vol Moteur’s editorial line has been pulled by two tendencies. First, Channel R, as in René, in favour of separating the paramotor from the rest of microlight flying. It is not put that way, but in practice that is the real wish. Along with complete liberalisation of machines under 120 kg, supposedly safer. Either the administrative complexity of aviation, which has become heavier and is “killing” flying, is invoked, or the microlight theory exam, which French people who have become illiterate supposedly cannot pass. I am only just caricaturing. There are certainly things to do, such as delegating the microlight theory exam and others (we will come back to them) to simplify access to flying, but this is not linked to the flight safety argument.

On the other side there is Channel W, as in Willy, which fills Vol Moteur with modern, heavy and sophisticated three-axis machines, in a microlight-aeroplane approach that has failed in regulatory terms over the past two years. Everywhere in Europe where the microlight movement was split between paramotors, weight-shift microlights and gyroplanes on one side and three-axis microlights on the other, growth has weakened. The problems of safety, training, airfields, airspace and development cut across all classes and require solidarity between our forms of flying, which have always sat halfway between the certified world and free flight. It is in this space between transport and sport that the microlight ecosystem took off, and it is in this space that we are best equipped to meet tomorrow’s challenge (see the latest ULM Info editorial on “crises”). It is a mistake to separate the paramotors from the rest at the Mondial de l’Aviation, it is a mistake to no longer welcome them at Blois. Of course one may disagree, but one must see each party’s interests. In this case, flight safety has nothing to do with this “class struggle”, which has always run through our history. We should also ask why machines have become more expensive, but then how do we explain the evolution of our cars between 1980 and today? Why drive an SUV in town? Can’t we feel that simplicity is in fact our best asset? It is not a matter of regulation but of mindset.

The Federation’s policy is faithful to keeping the classes together, and this dynamic is coherent. Perhaps some will also have understood better, reading us, why it is worth taking out a licence to support these choices and their implementation, not only to defend but to promote. Because whatever their merits, it is not the unions, the “European” federations, the brokers bought out by other brokers, or even the magazine publishers who carry the general interest. It is the Federation, the common home, for all classes!

That is a mid-term review on training and safety. All help is welcome; there is still work to do!

Safe flying

Sébastien PERROT

President of the French Microlight Federation

January 2020

Jean-Christophe Gibert

Head of the Training Committee