Call me paranoid, but
There are a number of reasons that CASA might have taken me off their Xmas Card list just prior to October 2018 when they shut the operation down. Reason Number One. In the middle of a house move now, into a smaller residence. Lots of tip runs, Gumtree, and moving going on. So just the one here.
I had been a vocal opponent on elements of the introduction of CASAs Part 141 and 142 legislation for many years prior to its introduction. I did this via attendance at CFI Conferences, correspondence, engagement with CASA personnel at every opportunity, and without looking up my posts from many years ago, I suggest on here.
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Flying schools were operating under legislation that was not fit for purpose. As a flying school owner I was dealing with legislation and operational requirements that were no longer practical. Most of these pertained to matters such as supervising, mentoring, developing and ensuring quality outcomes.
Most of the applicable legislation was written before mobile telephones and the internet were used. Many on here wont remember it but, the only way a CFI could supervise when away from the office was by a landline at his home. If you were out of the house, you had to check in from a public telephone. If an accident or incident happened, you didn't know till you played back the answering machine. The weather came via fax machine, and that's how you submitted a flight plan. All student training records were handwritten entries into a record of training retained in a filing cabinet at the school. The only way to supervise a junior instructor was to be over his shoulder, and to check his work.
Advances in technology changed all that. You could mentor and supervise from anywhere in the world effectively. Review training notes, get images of aircraft, weather unserviceability's for advice and guidance, get real time weather updates, and transfer information in so many different ways that make the job so much more different today.
CASA introduced a Regulatory Reform Program for the flight training industry referred to as Part 141/142/61.
It was scheduled to be completed and fully implemented by 2005 from my memory. Hopefully a reader on here has access to the old advertising from CASA. Anyway it finally came in well over a decade behind schedule and many hundreds of millions of dollars over budget allegedly. By the time it came in over a decade behind schedule we got something that once again was outdated, not practical, negatively impacting on real safety, and costly to deliver.
I opposed some of the changes that were proposed.
First CASA proposed the two Commercial Pilot Licenses continue as they are now. A 150 hour option or a 200 hour option. CASA proposed that if a pilot on a 150 hour course didn't complete his PPL component in 6 months (from memory) and his CPL within 15 months from commencement, then he would not be able to continue on the 150 hour course and have to complete a 200 hour course. Whilst i saw some merit in what CASA was trying to achieve it had significant flaws.
In my communication with CASA i used the Tasmanian school as an example. A student is coming towards the tail end of his training, and the weather in unusually bad compared to previous years, and the already tight 15 month program seems likely to blow out by a month. There was to be no consideration, That student would be forced to do an additional 50 hours flying at a cost of approximately $10,000. What does that commercial pressure do to decision making. Does the school and student feel pressured to push the margins to try and complete the course on time. There were a number of scenarios. I just didn't think that a fixed date increased safety at all. After all the test is the test. If you are at test standard at 150 hours even if it is just outside the 15 months, the transfer to the 200 hour course seemed unreasonable. After all we are testing competency. That the important point. Mandating an additional 50 hours seemed unreasonable. Common sense prevailed and this change did not go ahead.
My second objection to Part 141 and 142 was not successful, and it went through in a format that i thought was unfair on smaller schools and those in regional areas.
Without going into the background here, Australia has two different Commercial Pilot Licenses as i said before. i.e. the 150 hour course and the 200 hour course. What's the difference. 50 hours and GST on the 200 hour course. The similarities are more noticeable. Both candidates train to the same syllabus. They do identical CASA theory exams, they can get trained by the same instructor, they can do the test with the same examiner to exactly the same standard, the same paperwork goes off to CASA and the identical pilot license is issued, not even indicating whether the candidate got there in 150 hours or via the 200 hour course.
Under the new regulations the 141 school could only deliver the 200 hour CPL, and the 150 hour CPL is the exclusive domain of the larger Part 142 schools. Whilst i don't have access to current figures, i suggest that there isn't an Australian Owned flying school with Part 142 capability in regional Australia.
My argument was that if its competency-based training with all of the same requirements, surely any candidate who meets the competencies should be entitled to conduct the flight test at 150 hours. Why would the smaller rural school with only part 141 capability have to deliver an additional 50 hours training? This would only encourage rural kids commencing training to move away from the regional 141 schools towards the city based 142 schools. This seemed to me to be an unreasonable new stipulation, that would only further fuel the decline of general aviation in rural areas. For clarity, I had to head down the path of the 142, otherwise i was going to lose access to my 90% of my revenue, being the 150-hour CPL. My interest in this matter was that despite it potentially benefitting my own organization, it would lead to increased difficulties for regional aero clubs and businesses, and lead to students gravitating away from the smaller Australian Owned businesses to the larger schools which are increasingly under the control of foreign ownership.
I thought my argument was valid, I was passionate about the Australian Owned sector of the industry, and I robustly put forward my case. Unfortunately, I gave Mr. Barnaby Joyce a bit of an emotional display at the Tamworth rally on this topic.
Anyway, that's one reason that I may have annoyed someone high up in CASA.
Last edited by glenb; 1st Jul 2021 at 02:45.