Originally Posted by
CaptainMidnight
73qanda
You’ve triggered a response thus far by an unhelpful few, and a handful on this forum have the mantra that Oz aviation is going to Hell in a handbasket, and the CASA are responsible for all evils including bad breath and violating poodles.
Dear Midnight,
The first time I became aware of concerns about the nature of aviation regulation in Australia was in 1966, with Minister's annual report to parliament, raising the possibility of effectively adopting the FARs, due to the shortcomings of the Australia approach since 1920. Only later did I become aware of the history of litigation, up to and including the High Court.
The first time I became aware of the concept of "inadvertent criminal" as a result of complex, convoluted and contradictory aviation regulation was the first "Lane" Report in about 1986 or so. It has occurred many times since.
There have been more inquiries, Royal Commissions and what have you into CASA and its predecessors than any other Commonwealth instrumentality, and in every one, the difficulties cause by complex, convoluted and contradictory regulation has featured.
That the costs of attempted compliance with Australian regulation has decimated large swathes of the Australian aviation industry is beyond doubt, and not just for GA.
Very little heavy maintenance of large aircraft is done in Australia any longer, and before you shout "cheap Asian labor", convince me the Lufthansa Tecnik in Germany is a haven for cheap Asian labor, or that Qantas has built the largest hangar at Los Angeles International because of "cheap Asian labor". Indeed, it is the nature of and compliance with CASA "rules" that vastly increase the labor costs in heavy maintenance in Australia, to the degree that even smaller jet aircraft and some turbo-props are going back to USA for scheduled maintenance, because the savings far outweigh the ferry costs. And the maintenance is to ICAO (not Australian unique) standards.
AMROBA is in no doubt that CASA "regulation/regulations" is the cause of the demise of so many small aviation maintenance outfits, because they can't afford the cost of "compliance" with a vast overarching demand for "paperwork" that has nothing to do with actually hands on work, and precious little to do with the god of air safety. Indeed a good case can be made that it is detrimental to air safety outcomes, and Australian maintenance regulation certainly do not ensure airworthy aircraft, in terms of the standards to which aircraft are certified.
Formal Government statistics (BITRE by its current name etc.) support industry figure for the shrinkage of GA, CASA is clearly not the only problem, but it is at the top of the list, and many of the other problems are consequential, not "primary" causes. ie: Loss of availability of fuel has followed loss of demand because of grounded aircraft, not the other way around.
Your "unhelpful few" in fact represent the majority view of Australian aviation "so called safety" regulation.
Tootle pip!!