Easa

However, McNulty did assure Lindstrand that, when the Easa dis gets round to producing its own standards, it would be easier for him to sell throughout the EU.

Booker Richard 2005

Why do Dr Lohl and Dr Holtgen now insist that the British firms should have come to them long ago about these problems, when until January this year the Easa website asked people not to contact them because they were not yet ready for business?

Booker Richard 2005

Over those last 18 months, the firm has indeed lost millions of pounds, a nightmare that started on 28 September when the new European Aviation Safety Agency Easa took over from national agencies the responsibility for all aviation safety regulation in the EU.

Booker Richard 2005

Yet they had never raised with Easa officials the question of what Mr Lindstrand then called "the worst injustice I have ever encountered in my 27 years as a lighter-than-air manufacturer".

Booker Richard 2005

There was no way of contacting Easa directly as on its website was posted this message:

Booker Richard 2005

Because Linstrand's tethered balloons had not previously been certified as aircraft, however, the manufacturing company had to make a new application to Easa – and therein lay the makings of the drama that was to follow.

Booker Richard 2005

Easa had not devised its own set of standards, so Lindstrand was in a position of having to apply for a certification which did not exist.

Booker Richard 2005

What irked him even more, as he was losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a month, Sir Roy had made a speech accusing the Easa of being unable to "get their act together", because they lack sufficient technical expertise.

Booker Richard 2005

By contrast, under Franco-German law, Aerophile's vehicles were certified as aircraft whether free-flying or tethered and, when Easa took over, they retained “grandfather rights” and could continue in operation.

Booker Richard 2005

Meanwhile his rival Aerophile continued to enjoy its lucrative monopoly – thanks to the Easa – the regulations for which, as we had learnt, its managing director had been proud "to have helped develop".

Booker Richard 2005