Lead Balloon post #2516
Dear Lead Balloon,
First let me apologize for the delayed response. You have been an exceptional supporter, and i didn't mean to be disrespectful. At the insistence of my family and Doctor, I attempted one month completely free of this matter for my mental health. I bought myself a fishing rod and went off air into the bush for some solitude, up around Jamieson, Woods Point.etc. I took my laptop along with me, and on day one stepped on it accidentally and broke it into two pieces, inadvertently ensuring i didnt break my commitment to my doctor and family.
Im back into it and full steam ahead.
The relatively short answer to your question from post #2516 is......
The trading restrictions had been in place for over 6 months at this stage. The very business model that i spent two years working with 10 CASA personnel on was established to handle 10 schools initially. Once Mr Aleck had changed "CASA"s mind in October 2018,, and prevented any further schools joining APTA, as you are aware i personally incurred costs in excess of $10,000 per week in order to meet the payroll. Once my own family funds had been exhausted, my parents had stepped in and contributed $300,000 to continue operations and meet my payroll obligations. By now, understandably, staff were becoming less confident that this matter would be resolved and began seeking alternative employment. The business was getting hit with some large payouts of entitlements. I appreciate that Im not directly answering your question here, but I am trying to set the background. I was under enormous pressure, my parents had offered one final tranche of money to maintain staff, but by now there was no doubt in my mind that Mr Aleck had no intention to resolve this whatsoever.
So what do i believe happened.
There are two categories of school the less complex Part 141 and the more complex Part 142. APTA was one of Australia's first Flight Training Organizations to obtain the Part 141 and 142 Approval. Approximately 95% of revenue derived from Part 142 operations.
Part 142 operations were referred to as the Contracted Checking and Recurrent Training regulations. If you read the Part 142 legislation, you quickly ascertain that it is in fact written for exactly what I was doing, and CASA had approved me for years earlier.
Our Part 142 operations made up over 95% of revenue. The Part 141 Operations were minimal and non-consequential to the business. You will note that all CASA correspondence refers to Part 141 operations and approvals only, which were of little or no interest to me.
CASA had not even begun to address the Part 142 issues, which is what I needed resolved.
What do i think really happened? CASA knew that they had right royally ballsed this up and were trying to cover it up. I had asked them on multiple occasions to address Part 142 operations and not Part 141 operations. They ignored my requests. Most likely because by now they knew that in fact Mr Aleck had absolutely no valid basis to take the action he did, and in fact I was not acting unlawfully. CASA couldnt address the Part 142 matters because that would have exposed the matter, and exposed the Achilles heel in CASAs case.
The matter was obviously many months awy from being resolved, and it was most likely that it would never be.
A bit brief sorry, back to work and just typing awy on the side of the road.
Cheers all, Glen
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