A CASA Christmas Present Again?
I have been trying to follow whats happening to the CASA Avmed Consultation on medical self certification and I am prompted by Ben Morgans (AOPA) excellent summation of the situation including the evident foot dragging by CASA. My opinion, FWIW and, since the Public Service is renowned for dropping bad news on public holidays, is that we are in for a very nasty Christmas Present from CASA Avmed.
This review and consultation of Australia's archaic aviation medical standards was foisted on CASA/Avmed by the obvious and now undeniable success of private pilot medical self certification in the UK and America.
Until 2021 (?) CASA / Avmed had successfully frustrated the push for reform of private pilot medical standards by pretended reform - the introduction of the "Basic Class 2 medical Certificate - available from any GP" this reform, as intended, was stillborn because it carried at least three poison pills; it required the application of a commercial drivers licence standard that was modified by CASA / Avmed with the addition of exclusions, it required the GP to report to CASA any "conditions" the GP might think the applicant might have and most importantly it required the GP to attest that the applicant "unconditionally" met the modified standard, Once the GPs and their insurers worked out who was going to be liable, since everyone has "conditions", this alleged reform was stillborn. From a CASA / Avmed viewpoint this program was successful since it staved off meaningful change for a further three or four years.
Once the industry had digested this bitter failure, they raised a new argument that CASA, now under obvious pressure for reform on multiple fronts, could not ignore - equity. The RAA, gliding federation and parachuting body have successfully operated under self certification schemes for decades; why should such a scheme by denied to Australian private pilots considering the success of self certification overseas? CASA had no answer.
The result is another consultation deliberately set up in my opinion to frustrate reform by the simplest and crudest method possible - restore equity by the destruction of RAA, GFA and parachuting self certification schemes. Misery loves company; 'there now, you are all equal again"!
What rattled my was an anecdotal comment that CASA is pressuring RAA to toughen its criteria. This was in addition to an earlier instruction by CASA that any pilot refused a Class 2 medical certificate by CASA was to be ineligible for an RAA operators certificate (in other words, "No escape).
Further evidence of CASA recidivism is the resurrecting of the entire color blindness restriction disaster.
I would imagine that unfettered access to pilot medical records is still on Avmeds agenda.
In addition the tone of the submissions by obvious Avmed insiders as well as multiple AAT transcripts indicates that Avmeds is a deliberately adversarial approach. The messages are always the same;"All pilots lie", "it is our job to discover what they are trying to hide", "drone operators should require medical certificates too", "only sick pilots want the system changed".
Be prepared for a very unpleasant discussion paper to be released during the Christmas holidays. CASA / Avmed is not going to give up without a fight and destroy the industry in the process. Whatever happened to "First do no harm"? This is going to be a repeat of the 2016 debacle, as I wrote then; "there is not a snowballs chance in hell that CASA wishes to voluntarily reduce surveillance and control of medical certificates, they have too many staff whose careers depend on maintaining control and institutions NEVER voluntarily surrender power ever..
All you will get in the end is: " I know the FAA has agreed to XYZ, but the Aviation Act does not permit that because of ABC, risk to the public blah, blah".. The desired end result is that CASA can say they responded to change, consulted widely and came up with a revised class 3 medical certificate that looks like its overseas equivalents, but still ties us into the medical straitjacket we now have to wear. Pointless exercise until the Act is changed."