Originally Posted by
Dick Smith
What I “believe” is not the issue here.
Its a “ fact” that often the most important consideration is cost!
So why do the people in Canberra insist that the wording remains?
Glad to hear that you think "belief" is not the issue, but ironically, that's precisely the issue.
Over a career beginning in 1985 I've been fortunate enough to witness the changes that have taken place firsthand since the old days of the CAA.
In brief, your issue with the CAA at the time was that it was run by ex-RAAF pilots and that it was extremely conservative, which limited any real progress in the aviation industry. Like most others, the idea of user pays seemed like a good idea at the time, and it's only in hindsight that we can see how that concept was engineered to increase the bureaucracy and costs, while further restricting real progress.
After many years of contemplation, the best guiding principle to be found is the RAAF definition of Airmanship - The Safe and Efficient Operation of an Aircraft, both on the ground and in the air." Nice and simple, or so I thought…
Upon further consideration, it was realized that
Safety and Efficiency were intentionally given
equal priority, and the reason for that had to be because both are mutually beneficial. Logically, since we live in a finite world, with finite resources available to us, such as money, materials, time, energy, awareness, and patience, if any of them are wasted efficiency would be compromised, and if efficiency was compromised too much we’d eventually run out of a precious resource just when we needed it most – in an emergency. Therefore, it was deduced that for
safety to be optimized,
efficiency had to be optimized as well otherwise we’d be liable to waste energy and time doing things that did not demonstrably contribute to either.
This made it apparent that safety and efficiency must be balanced perfectly in order to ensure both are optimized. Wastage of anything, which can be simply described as “too much” of something, always produces an imbalance, which ends up destroying whatever it’s intended to produce. There are many other complicated academic safety theories but none work in practice without enormous additional resources being wasted. Ironically, knowing how to fly in balance without reference to instruments was a critical aspect of knowing how to “straighten up and fly right”, as old pilots used to say.
To further emphasize the importance of this point, consider some examples. If safety was emphasized too much, efficiency would be compromised, which would cost us more money and time, which would then ultimately compromise safety when money and time became short. Conversely, if efficiency was prioritized too much we’d be inviting an accident which would compromise both safety and efficiency as resources were wasted dealing with the ensuing drama.
Consequently, it should be apparent that safety must be balanced with efficiency by operators and regulators because we live in the real world, where belief is accepted as truth, and truth is distorted to suit an individual's belief. To answer your question though, it's obvious why CASA would insist that wording remains. Because safety is subjective - open to emotive belief, which allows a far greater scope for perpetuating the "belief system" that safety has become.