Gonzo230 wrote:The confidentiality is nothing to do with the ‘rights of the people’, or VTTS attitude toward them.
For a start I imagine any discussion with the Airport will be commercial in confidence by default. VTTS will not be able to just ignore that. The airport is a commercial company struggling to make a profit, and competitors and current customers/tenants might well be able to use any information gained from publishing details that you seem to be asking for their own gain.
As to discussions with UK CAA, there are many reasons why this should be kept private. I’ve been involved in constant discussions with UK CAA in my professional capacity over the past twelve years. If you’re sensible in aviation, you cultivate a close relationship with whichever part of the CAA you need to deal with. This needs confidence to discuss matters which might be formative and immature, not fully thought through, but would certainly make headlines if they got out. I doubt those headlines, be they in major national news outlets, or aviation enthusiast websites, would be accompanied by narrative which would fully describe the able the context, assumptions and background of those discussions.
I could understand some things being commercial in confidence, but not necessarily just letting the public know - even roughly - what the requirements are that DSA have set to taxy the Vulcan. Its not as if anybody wants chapter and verse, just the gist of things; it would help understand why its taking such a long and difficult route to seeing it happen. Is it a serviceability issue? A support issue? A crewing problem? Are the local authoritoes weighing in as with the last flight, fearing massed hordes blocking all the roads? None of these are queries likely to cause significant loss of funding to either party - if anything it might get more of the people here and elsewhere back behind VTTST.
The same applies to some extent with the CAA. There will have been something in the discussions that will have been a dealbreaker - VTTST have already admitted in the past they looked at a ferry flight and rejected it. No headlines, no stopped presses. No answers either. Still, one small e-mail and now CAA have 20 working days to tell me. If I can't get the answers out the monkey, I'll go to the organ grinder.