What Chance Of This in Australia?
It's alive and well in Aus. It's definitely more expensive in Aus but you wouldn't believe what people are willing to pay, particularly over 65s desperately trying to spend their kids inheritance.
Take a look at The Tailor, Kirkhope Aviation and Dick Lang, three more operators who pretty much only do air tours.
Take a look at The Tailor, Kirkhope Aviation and Dick Lang, three more operators who pretty much only do air tours.
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Perth - Western Australia
Age: 75
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Just spent a month in Broome (W.A.) and the air tours to the Horizontal Falls seem pretty popular. In fact, aviation movement in general around Broome seemed to be in pretty substantial numbers.
Heron Airlines has been operating out of Bankstown for the last 25 years and still going strong as far as I know. Tours around Australia from 4 days lenghts to 21 days to just about every destination through the year.
Folks,
What has died, thanks to CASA and the ASIC card, is "fly yourself" tours by foreign pilots and their families, particularly those with a flying tour guide and a gaggle of aircraft.
It is not so much the expense of the bureaucratic bull****, but the almost totally impenetrable nature of the "process", and the degree to which CASA has made it an almost impossible obstacle course, both in time and process, to validate a foreign pilot license. With six/nine months or more pre-arrival in Australia preparations, it can still take three/four weeks before you can actually go fly.
It is just so much easier for a Yank, Canadian or any brand of European to say: "Sod Australia, I'll go for a fly around South Africa/NZ/almost anywhere else outside a war zone".
Tootle pip!!
PS: Mind you, "the industry" is not entirely without fault, the attempted rip-offs with so called "CASA mandatory" validation flight tests taking up to 10 hours including a 5 hour cross country, around AUD$4000.00, leave a very bad taste. and bad news travels with the speed of light (or the speed of twitter).
What has died, thanks to CASA and the ASIC card, is "fly yourself" tours by foreign pilots and their families, particularly those with a flying tour guide and a gaggle of aircraft.
It is not so much the expense of the bureaucratic bull****, but the almost totally impenetrable nature of the "process", and the degree to which CASA has made it an almost impossible obstacle course, both in time and process, to validate a foreign pilot license. With six/nine months or more pre-arrival in Australia preparations, it can still take three/four weeks before you can actually go fly.
It is just so much easier for a Yank, Canadian or any brand of European to say: "Sod Australia, I'll go for a fly around South Africa/NZ/almost anywhere else outside a war zone".
Tootle pip!!
PS: Mind you, "the industry" is not entirely without fault, the attempted rip-offs with so called "CASA mandatory" validation flight tests taking up to 10 hours including a 5 hour cross country, around AUD$4000.00, leave a very bad taste. and bad news travels with the speed of light (or the speed of twitter).
It's alive and well in Aus. It's definitely more expensive in Aus but you wouldn't believe what people are willing to pay, particularly over 65s desperately trying to spend their kids inheritance.
Take a look at The Tailor, Kirkhope Aviation and Dick Lang, three more operators who pretty much only do air tours.
Take a look at The Tailor, Kirkhope Aviation and Dick Lang, three more operators who pretty much only do air tours.
DF.
Ah yes - loved those. When they came to YLEC the aircraft would be left there & the passengers bussed to their destination just down the road. One day I was treated to a display of the F27 doing training in the circuit area. 
DF.
DF.
Folks,
What has died, thanks to CASA and the ASIC card, is "fly yourself" tours by foreign pilots and their families, particularly those with a flying tour guide and a gaggle of aircraft.
It is not so much the expense of the bureaucratic bull****, but the almost totally impenetrable nature of the "process", and the degree to which CASA has made it an almost impossible obstacle course, both in time and process, to validate a foreign pilot license. With six/nine months or more pre-arrival in Australia preparations, it can still take three/four weeks before you can actually go fly.
It is just so much easier for a Yank, Canadian or any brand of European to say: "Sod Australia, I'll go for a fly around South Africa/NZ/almost anywhere else outside a war zone".
Tootle pip!!
PS: Mind you, "the industry" is not entirely without fault, the attempted rip-offs with so called "CASA mandatory" validation flight tests taking up to 10 hours including a 5 hour cross country, around AUD$4000.00, leave a very bad taste. and bad news travels with the speed of light (or the speed of twitter).
What has died, thanks to CASA and the ASIC card, is "fly yourself" tours by foreign pilots and their families, particularly those with a flying tour guide and a gaggle of aircraft.
It is not so much the expense of the bureaucratic bull****, but the almost totally impenetrable nature of the "process", and the degree to which CASA has made it an almost impossible obstacle course, both in time and process, to validate a foreign pilot license. With six/nine months or more pre-arrival in Australia preparations, it can still take three/four weeks before you can actually go fly.
It is just so much easier for a Yank, Canadian or any brand of European to say: "Sod Australia, I'll go for a fly around South Africa/NZ/almost anywhere else outside a war zone".
Tootle pip!!
PS: Mind you, "the industry" is not entirely without fault, the attempted rip-offs with so called "CASA mandatory" validation flight tests taking up to 10 hours including a 5 hour cross country, around AUD$4000.00, leave a very bad taste. and bad news travels with the speed of light (or the speed of twitter).
I hoped with Part 61 that the brain dead people at CLARC would be taken out of the equation and this put into the hands of the flying schools, as other countries do. Unfortunately not. ASICS are a little easier than they used to be but until CLARC is abolished and people with some kind of brain function are put in charge of this it is pointless even advertising Australia as an ideal holiday destination for pilots, which is a great pity for GA and the areas these people would go to spend their cash.
To give people an idea, I had an American gent coming over for a flying holiday. He was very well organised and we started the process several months in advance and were assured that it would be processed by the time he arrived. The day before he got here, I checked up to see where it was as it hadn't arrived and was told that the person dealing with it had gone on sick leave therefore it was not going to be processed until he got back, probably not for at least two weeks. This gent had spent hundreds of dollars already.
I got the problem solved with a call to another CASA department altogether, who were able to make happen in a few hours what had taken CLARC four months with no result, but it was too late. Stuff like that now spreads like wildfire on social media.
