I apologise for not explaining the key point in a way that you are comprehending, Glen.
I know the ‘alliance’ ‘members’ didn’t have their own AOC. The fundamental advantage of the APTA structure was of course that the ‘members’ were operating under the authority of APTA’s AOC.
You don’t need to rush or get stressed about the following. But I do urge you to take the time, when you can and your head is in the right place, to get your head around what I’m saying.
That’s because I’m trying to help you to understand what’s at the heart of the regulatory issue that resulted in CASA doing a complete backflip after encouraging you to believe, through CASA’s approval of variations to cover additional ‘bases’, – and you reasonably believed – that the manuals and procedures and personnel and other arrangements put in place by APTA were sufficient for a structure including the ‘alliance’ ‘member’ concept to comply with the applicable aviation safety regulatory requirements (noting, as I’ve said before, CASA was at least on constructive notice of all the implications of the structure from the point at which CASA considered the application by APTA for a variation to cover the first ‘alliance’ ‘member’ ‘base’).
(And I can only try to imagine how much of your blood, sweat and tears (and treasure) went into building all that. It’s appalling that it ended up where it has.)
The pilot would enter it onto the maintenance release.
APTA didn’t know that the pilot did do what the pilot should have done. APTA didn’t know whether an instructor – who wasn’t an employee of APTA and was operating at a ‘base’ 100nms away where APTA had no continuous employee presence - was complying with his or her obligations to enter defects in an aircraft’s maintenance release (or in APTA’s FSM system).
[A]ny aircraft could be immediately locked out of the system, and completely unable to be despatched.
APTA should patent that system, because it is the first one on the planet which is, apparently, capable of preventing the magnetos in an aircraft’s engine generating a spark, the propellor from generating thrust and the wings from generating lift. (My sincere apologies for the tone of that, but I’ve seen too many garbage in/garbage out aircraft maintenance management software systems in my time. And no piece of software in a computer sitting on someone’s desk has ever rendered a 1975 Cessna 172’s engine incapable of starting and its wings incapable of generating lift.)
There was a requirement for any two of these methods [VDO; Tacho; Flight switch] to be entered into FSM.
APTA did not know whether that requirement was always being complied with by people who weren’t APTA employees and were operating at a ‘base’ 100nms away where APTA had no continuous employee presence.
I chose the examples for a reason. I am aware, from long, first-hand knowledge, of how often defects (like a nosewheel shimmy – “it always does that”) are not entered in GA aircraft maintenance releases; of how often GA aircraft are flown with an open defect in the maintenance release, with which defect the aircraft should not have been flown (like an undercarriage indicator light – “I didn’t check the endorsements section of the MR before I went flying” or “I didn’t know it was unlawful to fly with that undercarriage indicator light blown; it’s just a light bulb” said by 6 different pilots about 6 different flights); and of how often accurate TIS is not recorded in the MR of GA aircraft. All of which happens – sometimes inadvertently through haste or incompetence and sometimes knowingly – quite frequently.
If you have never come across any of those kinds of circumstances in your time in GA, you are – I would suggest – unique. Ditto if you’ve never become aware of circumstances in which the owner of or registered operator of or a business using an aircraft to make money – like an APTA ‘alliance member’ - gives pilots ‘gentle hints’ about the ‘inconvenience’ that would occur if some ‘trivial’ problem was entered in the aircraft’s MR (and the FSM system). Indeed, I’m aware of a pilot who is the subject of an ongoing vendetta as a consequence of pissing off an aircraft operator by entering defects in the aircraft’s maintenance release. (And I have to pull you up on one issue: You put the word “interference” in quotation marks. I didn’t use that word.)
All of the circumstances to which I referred would constitute offences by the individuals involved. But in the APTA structure, they would also constitute offences by APTA. That is because first, it would be happening in the course of training activities being conducted by the individuals under the authority of APTA’s certificate, secondly, APTA’s certificate was (still is) subject to conditions including that “each of the operator’s personnel must comply with each provision of civil aviation legislation that applies to the operator’s authorised Part 141 flight training”, thirdly, the inclusive (not exhaustive) definition of “personnel” extends beyond employees of APTA (which is why the stuff about 141 “contemplating” the use only of “employees who are in all respect agents of the operator” in the CASA email of March 19 is bollocks) and finally, failure to comply with a condition is – of course – a strict liability offence.
This is the key point you have to get your head around: The answer: “It was a requirement of our system” or “it was a requirement of all of the base-specific operations manuals” or “we had a computer program that stops this happening” or whatever is not a sufficient answer to these kinds of questions:
How would APTA know if – let’s take an example – all damage and defects in aircraft utilised for flying training at an ‘alliance’ ‘base’ are always being recorded in the maintenance release?
What would APTA do when it finds out that an instructor at an ‘alliance’ ‘base’ has been failing to enter defects in the maintenance release of an aircraft used at that ‘base’? [Note the question is “when” not “if”. The answer: “It never happens”, is a wrong answer. So is: “Our manuals and computer system don’t allow this, and our key personnel would be pissed off about the situation”.]
What would APTA do if, in response to the action APTA takes, the instructor tells APTA: “Get stuffed. I’m in complete control of this business, and my business has hired and has control of the use of this aircraft”?
How would APTA know that ‘base’ aircraft with open defects in the maintenance release are only ever used in the operations (if any) which may lawfully be conducted with those defects?
What would APTA do if it finds out that an instructor at an ‘alliance’ ‘base’ has been flying an aircraft with an open defect in the maintenance release, with which defect the flights should not have been conducted?
What would APTA do if, in response to the action APTA takes, the instructor tells APTA: “Get stuffed. I’m in complete control of this business and my business has hired and has control of the use of this aircraft”?
The law already requires aircraft damage and defects to be endorsed in the aircraft’s maintenance release. It’s a criminal offence not to. The law already sets out the circumstances in which an aircraft may be flown with open defects, and flights in other circumstances are an offence.
These requirements can be ‘enshrined’ in an operator’s operations manual and there can be detailed procedures about how personnel are to achieve compliance with the requirements. The law already requires personnel to comply with the operations manual. It’s an offence not to.
If being a requirement in the law or some manual or computer system was enough to achieve compliance with the requirement in the real world, there would be no certification system.
The point of the certification system is to ascertain how the certificate holder will legally and effectively get all the wandering cats that are going to be doing stuff, under the authority of the certificate, to comply in fact with requirements in laws which already exist. That’s because, in the real world, simply imposing a requirement is not, of itself, sufficient to achieve compliance. And in the APTA structure, there were many more wandering cats, in the form of ‘alliance’ ‘members’ and their people and premises and aircraft, compared with a ‘traditional’ flying school.
All of the kinds of questions I’ve set out above should have been asked by CASA and – more importantly – the answers should have been analysed by someone with half a clue about their implications, from the start of the regulatory interactions between CASA and APTA during the establishment of the ‘alliance’ structure. CASA didn’t ask those questions until the March 19 email, after the October 2018 letter in which CASA effectively pretended it didn’t know that the structure included people who weren’t APTA employees, utilising premises and aircraft over which APTA had no legal and effective control (which, I reiterate, could have been fixed, which was another of the points of the March 19 email, but by then it was too late for you as a matter of practicality, because CASA had driven you spare and broke).