Luce and Sunfish
Good morning Sunfish, and I very much appreciate the spirited support, but took absolutely no offense at the question, and in fact, I think it’s a very legitimate question. It is something that my management team considered from very early on.
I'm heading off to "Fat Daddy’s Breakfast Club" shortly. A tradition of 15 years now where a group of elite athletes in their mid-50s gather every fortnight to have breakfast and take the piss out of each other. An important process to maintain ones mental health, and look in awe at the one member who has for his own reasons decided to buck the trend and remain under 100kg, yet still insist on maintaining his membership. His membership is tenuous, and he shows almost no resolve to “let himself ago” but we tolerate him.
The answer to your question is quite easy to be honest. Its all about “intent”. Is this a well-intentioned operator with something to bring to the group?
The Operator would be operating under my AOC to my procedures with me as the authorisation holder, and my CASA approved Key Personnel taking on full responsibility, in law for that operation. Not one of the management team would tolerate a “dodgy” operator, as potentially it was us that may have to stand before a coroners inquiry in the event of a tragedy and we needed to be able to justify every decision made.
I need to clarify that in the case of Bruce Rhoades, it was a charter business whereas we chose to operate in the flight training environment only, and had no short to medium term plan to incorporate charter, although I appreciate the point of your question.
Importantly however, the starting point was "intent". What type of operator are we dealing with. Is it someone with "good intent". Someone trying to do the right thing in the flight training industry, and somebody who “shares the vision”
In the case of Bruce Rhoades, my feeling is that he was well intentioned. It’s a highly complicated legislative environment we operate in, and often operators were somewhat stuck in the past. The good intent was there, although I cant speak to the quality of his product.
Once we ascertained that the Operator was of “good intent”, most likely we would proceed with the application. At this stage I would refer you all the way back to Post 46, and the attachment being the “induction checklist that was designed with CASA personnel, approved by CASA personnel, and utilised by CASA personnel as part of the CASA required approval process.
The process was rigid, and in my opinion the quality of the operation would improve substantially, and the operation was closely monitored and supervised.
From my experience, most people are well intentioned, and given the correct robust systems and procedures and extremely high levels of supervision, they will see the benefits of a well run operation.
In short, it is fair to say that had he have run a flying school, I’m confident that we could have transformed that operation to a demonstrably safer and highly compliant operation.
Regarding the attachment to the Bruce Rhoades matter, that’s a bit more personal and rather close to home. I spoke to Mr Rhoades before his passing. He was a man, in my opinion, who was a victim of a “reverse engineered process”, where CASA determines their desired outcome, and manufactures the process to achieve that desired outcome, exactly as they did with me.
Mr Rhoades was somebody dealing with the same three characters as I was. Graeme Crawford, Craig Martin and Jonathan Aleck, so there was a “bond” there if you like.
Mr Rhoades like me, was particularly critical of the conduct of Craig Martin in particular, and in fact made some YouTube videos that you may have seen of Craig Martin.
Sadly, Mr Rhoades died with his reputation in tatters, and I have no doubt that at his funeral, there would have been attendees who in the back of their mind had their own questions about his character, with the knowledge of the CASA attack on him.
In my own case, I am someone who had their business shut down overnight, with an impact on my own reputation. Something that I am fighting to restore while I am still alive. My greatest fear is that something happens to me, before I get to fully clear my name in front of my family, colleagues, past APTA members, employees etc.
I hope that goes someway to explaining in it, and I’m sorry I don’t have more time to address the question, but please feel free to come back to me if you have a follow up question, and with a breakfast in my belly, I will respond.
Cheers. Glen.