Lead balloon and others
Lead Balloon, '
your input, although on rare occasion not so encouraging, is valuable. I dont need to know what im going to say. I already know that. The suggestions regarding Mr Alecks "take" are important, because i need to know how to counter them, so please keep firing away as time and motivation permit you to.
I understand your argument, although i am probably too close to the argument to understand the counter argument.
Where a pilot draws his income is in my opinion, (with absolutely no legal background.) not relevant.
Over the years i permitted a number of Organizations to operate under my AOC after a robust induction. These included Airforce cadets out of Darwin and Scouts down here in Melbourne. My own pilots would often volunteer for charity events that we provided. We had a Company Policy of assisting every Organization that contacted us for a "donation" provided they weren't a commission based contact.
I considered my responsibility and accountability exactly the same. It made no difference if they were volunteers, paid by me, or in fact paid by someone else. There is no distinction in the law that I am aware of. Many thousands of pages of CASA rules and regulations state very clearly the responsibility and accountability of the Authorization Holder and the Key personnel. In fact no-one else is mentioned in the legislation.
Every professional, qualified Commercial Pilot is fully aware that they are obligated and in fact electronically sign to say such, that they will operate in accordance with the Exposition. They do , on every single flight that they depart on under my AOC..
My Key Personnel and i could lock any pilot fully out of the system, from anywhere in the world at any time. From start to finish probably a 3 minute exercise. I doubt any Aeroclub Committeee Member could achieve that. If the pilot departs on a flight he has clearly demonstrated bad intent. He knows that his flight is unauthorized, and that he is committing an offence. Imagine the poor car rental Company when someone steals the keys to a car and crashes it. How much liability does the rental company owner have, assuming the keys were secured and not in the vehicle.
I know its intended as the extreme example, but in my 25 years in the industry its a scenario, i.e. refusing to stop flying, that i haven't encountered.
If the pilot is fully and properly inducted into the one Authorization, with the one Exposition, he is my responsibility, and its a serious one.
If something goes wrong, the simple fact is that the CASA Employees keep working 9 to 5.
Its me as the Authorization Holder that has to be prepared to appear before a Coroners Court, and justify the robustness and quality of my Systems and Procedures. I know that in such an environment my systems have to be watertight and substantially ahead of the industry standard. I have to be honest and act with integrity, and seek ways to prevent it ever happening again. But i really have to be able to get up on that stand and know that me and my Organization had done more than could be reasonably expected . I had to walk out of there affected but not feeling guilty. Thats the way i would hang on to my business.
Of course, i never factored in the Aleck factor