Australia will go to EASA – Not FAA – as EASA is Closer to ICAO

[Dick Smith]

I have recently been told that the reason we are moving towards European Aviation Safety Agency (“EASA”) standards rather than FAA is that EASA is closer to ICAO. Can you believe it!

The only obligation Australia has in relation to ICAO is to notify if we have a difference. In fact, follow ICAO too closely and you will send your aviation industry to ruin.

ICAO rules are set up by literally the worst bureaucrats in the world – their own countries have been able to get rid of them to sit on ICAO boards. They typically have no business sense at all, no idea of costs and they dream up more and more expensive ways of regulating and oppressing aviation.

I was recently told the reason we can’t go and follow FAA regulations as New Zealand do is because the FAA regulations have lots of differences with ICAO. Of course they have! The Americans aren’t stupid. It looks to me as if the aviation industry’s viability is going to get a lot worse in the next few years. I don’t see any light on the horizon at all.

What do others think?

[Andy_RR]

It sounds to me like the policy will suit Australians down to the ground... :rolleyes:

[Jack Ranga]

Too late now Dick :cool:

[Hempy]

So we need to be just like the rest of the world, but not when we don't need to be??? Jeezus Dick...

[Old Akro]

The EASA regulations are too complex, convoluted and costly. Even EASA recognises this and they are running a programme to try and unwind some of their regulations.

We had a policy of generally following the FAA regulations (remind where most of our aircraft are made again?). Now its EASA. Why? When was the change? Was there consultation / was the change made transparently?

Is it just that CASA thought they had seen as much of the US as there was to see and they needed a new travel destination??

[chimbu warrior]

Having operated under Kiwi regs all I can say is that they are a breath of fresh air.

You can download a PDF for each applicable part, and actually read and understand them. Compliance is therefore available to all..........

As for Mr McCormick stating that the NZ rules "would not suit our legislation", I take that to be an admission that CASA would prefer to blunder on with poor legislation than fix the problem.

I have had only a brief exposure to EASA regs, and they appear to be a reflection of all that is wrong with the EU. Way too many cooks, all trying to put an oar in the soup to stir it.

[thorn bird]

EASA rules are a complete and utter disaster for GA in Europe, and a very expensive exercise for RPT.


Is Europe any safer than the US? Nope......So why inflict an extra cost burden on your industry for no safety benefit?

As the Europeans have discovered and are frantically on a rewrite program to try and resurrect their GA industry.

If anyone thinks Australia's version of EASA regulations are even close to actual EASA they are deluding themselves.

So why are we adopting uniquely Australian rules modeled on a failed system that inflict a MASSIVE cost burden on our industry with no safety benefit?

The Guvmint really needs to make up its mind, do they want an aviation industry or not?..

If NOT then say so, and we can all get on with doing something else and let the foreigners in to look after our domestic air transport, on foreign registers of course, airfares would halve and the VOTERS would be ecstatic.

If you DO want an Australian industry then for gods sake do what the Kiwis did, get rid of the scumbags that inhabit fort fumble, rewrite the act, and adopt Kiwi regulations. It may be too late for GA, but you might just save our RPT operators.

[004wercras]

Dick, you have given me a good laugh! However now that I have stopped laughing I now start shaking my ageing old head in disbelief. If your source is correct Dick, I would love to know if your source also knows the identity of the :mad: who are pushing EASA? What a :mad: nightmare, and no great surprise. CAsA wouldn't know a worm farm from a pot plant. EASA is :mad: in comparison to the NZ regs, or even the FAA's. There is no 'perfect fit' for Australia, however NZ is the closest. And I agree with what someone else said, Montreal must be getting boring and Europe obviously holds a lot of potential troughs from which the Fort Fumble pigs simply can't resist! EASA would be an unworkable cess pool of legalese, confusion and totally inappropriate regulations, so I guess it isn't hard to see why Fort Fumble would like their regs. It would create a new 50 year regulatory reform program for CAsA to adapt to and adopt and implement those regs, plus it would create a new long term toy for the next generation of Witchdoctors and consultants to play with :ok:

And Dick, you are correct mate, as much as I hate to say it ICAO are one of the most archaic, bureaucratic, disconnected group of philosophising old codgers to grace a single building. The aviation industry, bureaucracy, democracy and common sense is tailspinning into oblivion.

TICK TOCK

[Strainer]

And Dick, you are correct mate, as much as I hate to say it ICAO are one of the most archaic, bureaucratic, disconnected group of philosophising old codgers to grace a single building

You didn't get that quite 004. That title absolutely, positively belongs to all those useless ****heads who pontificate about nothing of any consequence over at the UN.

......hang on, I forgot. The UN is ICAO's parent organisation. Figures. CASA would fit right in.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

I have recently been told that the reason we are moving towards European Aviation Safety Agency (“EASA”) standards rather than FAA is that EASA is closer to ICAO. Can you believe it!

No idea if correct or not. I think Byron clearly had reasons for making the change. But many of the issues have been compounded by having half FAA based and the other half EASA based. A good example is Part 21's use of PMA parts approval. All good but EASA based Part 145 needed amending to accept PMA parts as EASA (Airbus) doesn't routinely accept their use.


Dick, the Swiss regulator has adopted EASA regulations. Their Part 145 just points you to the current EASA part.

Could CASA simply do the same with NZ, FAA or EASA where they agree no differences needed? Any areas needing tweaking could be handled quite easily by managing differences.

EASA and UK CAA are going through a red tape reduction exercise for GA.

Spoke to a UK CAA surveyor a while back and they are struggling to make sense of some EASA rules.

Funny how Montreal has fallen out of favour.

[Jack Ranga]

Does anybody think that after 20 years & 200 million dollars that there will be a backdown over these rules? Lawyers & CEO's DONOT admit mistakes no matter how blatantly obvious they are.

[Capn Bloggs]

ICAO must be good. Leadsled swears by it's radio procedures (or was it philosophy...or was it style...I dunno...)!! :}

[dubbleyew eight]

swears by or swears at :E

[LeadSled]

[QUOTE] ---have lots of differences with ICAO. /QUOTE]

Dick,
Just like Australia has, right now, the difference being that all the FAA differences, of which I have some knowledge, all have a very sensible basis, and sensible outcomes. In fact, in most cases, if you look closely, it is often the US interpretation, occasionally simplified, of the ICAO SARPs. The "non-compliance" is all too often in the minds of our Canberra/Brisbane aviation bureaucrats.

Australian "translations" of the SARPs are just what you would expect from Australia, almost unrecognizable from the original. I sometimes wonder if CASA starts of by translating the official Chinese version of the Annexes etc., rather than starting with the English version.

There is another thread on this subject of differences, we are just about the world champions, we leave the FAA for dead.

I hope nobody is looking at CASR Parts 42/145, and using that as an example of "EASA", the Australian "EASA like" maintenance regulations are absolutely nothing like the EASA equivalent, or indeed, anything like the drafts produced by Bruce Byron's hand picked industry team.

Don't anybody forget, the Brussels based EEC government is the gold standard for churning out mountains of red tape, the reason a number of countries, principally the UK, are threatening to leave the EEC, if the avalanche of regulation is not only halted, but severely wound back.


PS: As a matter of interest, in the area of design standards, when you drill down deep into JAA/EASA documentation, it leads you back to the original US standards.

[halfmanhalfbiscuit]

I hope nobody is looking at CASR Parts 42/145, and using that as an example of "EASA", the Australian "EASA like" maintenance regulations are absolutely nothing like the EASA equivalent, or indeed, anything like the drafts produced by Bruce Byron's hand picked industry team.

Totally agree. I have no idea on what they are based on - unless it's the old ones!

[004wercras]

Does anybody think that after 20 years & 200 million dollars that there will be a backdown over these rules? Lawyers & CEO's DONOT admit mistakes no matter how blatantly obvious they are.
Jack old son, hate to depress you but it is now 25 years, $250 million and believed to be as high as $280 million. Aren't they a bunch of w:mad:ers?
What these fools don't get is this - They spend a quarter of a century and a quarter of a billion dollars trying to make something, from nothing, work. If these f:mad:wits had introduced something 25 years ago that was lets say 80% effective, they could have (along with industry) massaged the other 20% to the point that we have a 100% regulatory effective system.

Fools

[yr right]

We had an engineering system for licensing that altougj was not prefect at a stoke of a pen could have been changed to a system that now isn't worth the paper it written on. I have more things on my lic that I can't do than I can. When employing someone it's now what can you do but what can't you do. And still it's a sham. You get a letter and it says we given you this but we not sure if it's right. If you don't know how are we suppose too. This system is broken and requires an urgent fix to what we had. But that will never happen.
Can't fly with the eagles when your surrounded by dobbledocks.

Cheers

[Berealgetreal]

Any chance that will lead to an easier licence conversion? Or do we still have to start with BAK after doing 10,000 multicrew jet and turbo prop?

As for hard or easy of doing things of course we will go the hardest most complex way as we are Australia. World leaders and experts on everything, just ask us.

[Aussie Bob]

Jack old son, hate to depress you but it is now 25 years, $250 million and believed to be as high as $280 million. Aren't they a bunch of w:mad:ers?
What these fools don't get is this - They spend a quarter of a century and a quarter of a billion dollars trying to make something, from nothing, work. If these f:mad:wits had introduced something 25 years ago that was lets say 80% effective, they could have (along with industry) massaged the other 20% to the point that we have a 100% regulatory effective system.

Fools Even bigger fools are the succession of politicians from both sides of the fence with their snouts so deep in the trough that this sort of stuff passes them by.

It is indeed proof positive that only the deluded think that voting can make a change.

[Hempy]

who started it?

[Bidule]

"A good example is Part 21's use of PMA parts approval. All good but EASA based Part 145 needed amending to accept PMA parts as EASA (Airbus) doesn't routinely accept their use."

At the origin, Part 21 had to be amended as well to accept PMA parts. As FAA, EASA has no objection to PMA parts.
The main issue for PMA parts is not the regulation, either FAA or EASA, but the leasing and financial community. This community believes - wrongly or not - that the residual values of their financed aircraft will be lower if some PMA parts are fitted to them.

[SIUYA]

Hempy...

Who started it probably isn't really all that important any more...

What IS important though is who is going to have the common-sense and determination to finish it without further, and totally unnecessary, waste of taxpayers' funds.

And unfortunately, at this stage I'm not too sure that the current Minister is showing that he's capable of taking that responsibility. :(

[yr right]

I changEd a hydraulic pump on a Uk rego aircraft. They did not won't use to install it as it did not have the correct jar paper work. The S# was ABC 1. Afyer a lot of back wards forwards we were allowed to fit it. As by chance on the air rafts return we we're ask to change the pump over to the new pump. S# ABC 2 was fitted. As this pump had the correct paper work with a jar form instead of a standard FAA release. Same pump same part number just the next pump along with a jar release. And you wonder why people can't make a dollar out if aviation.
Bit like the new seat belt ad. If you follow it just about all seat belts will have to be replaces as they don't have a European stamp on them. Look it up

Cheers

[JandakotJoe]

I was recently told the reason we can’t go and follow FAA regulations as New Zealand do is because the FAA regulations have lots of differences with ICAO

"Can't"? Says who? "Can't" is a politico-speak line of bluster intended for the ignorant.

There is enough aviation experience and knowledge in this country to determine our own procedures, orders and regulations without simply carbon-copying and then of course adjusting something that was designed for Europe or the USA, two very different operating environments and cost bases.

Australia shouldnt be adopting either set of regulations but should be focussing on re-examining and developing what works here and what needs to be re-jigged specifically for our purposes to make things work right for us.

This is lazy, cheap policy work at play here, much like so many acquisition programs which seek to take off the shelf developments intended for other environments and fit those square pegs into our round holes (so to speak).

[LeadSled]

Totally agree. I have no idea on what they are based on - unless it's the old ones! Half n Half,
A perfect example of the "CASA preferred drafting style".
The lay (plain English) drafts from the industry (with a couple of CASA blokes of limited background) expert committee were really plain English, simple and easy for anybody to understand.

The you subject it to the legislative drafting process, using the CASA preferred style, and you get something almost unintelligible, uncertain, full of contradictions and far to many "suitables" and "appropriates" --- ie: A regulation written as criminal law has many undefined offence.

Just imagine the plod saying to a magistrate: "In my opinion, the accused committed burglary "
Magistrate: "Well did he or not, what is the evidence of burglary":
Plod: "Just my opinion, we have no other evidence., and I am an expert, because I am (on the CASA payroll) a policeman. "

Silly as it may seem, within far to many of the "reformed" CASA regulations, that is how it goes. As we have seen in the AAT, even showing the work was completed as per the CASA CAAP is no protection against a AWI opinion.