Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
....
As I’ve said: That $1 has profound regulatory consequences - according to CASA - even though the $1 has zero safety consequences.
Devil's advocate here for a moment:
IF you accept that a CPL holder has had to fulfill certain requirements and been tested to a higher skill level than PPL then, arguably, they should present a lower flight risk.
Following this logic, conversely a PP flying is, arguably again, a higher risk. One way of mitigating that increased risk to the general populace is to restrict and/or discourage a number of people flying with them (better one person damaged in a crash than 15 say).
Now, were I a PPL holder and I had the opportunity of flying your 15 seat machine around with contributing passengers I might be interested, but if I had to shoulder the entire cost I'd almost certainly say no. Thus CASA's attempt at risk mitigation is achieved in their eyes, crude and somewhat misguided though the implementation may be.
As I've previously posted on this thread you'll see I don't agree with the apparent conflation of commerce and competency, there's no fundamental logic to that, however I think CASA could present an argument to refute your claim that "the $1 has zero safety consequences". And before you point out the difference between 'safety' and 'risk', please bear in mind I'm acting as an advocate for CASA here!
This entire situation is, of course, somewhat of an ambiguous ar$e, which is why IMV the current PPL and CPL etc should be replaced with a license system that regulates (or mitigates) more on experience and skill, rather than commerce. It may be sufficient to simply remove the 'reward' aspect from the license regime and replace it with, say, passenger limits and/or a/c size+complexity, and thence call the licenses something like Pilot Grade 1 - 3, or whatever, but however it is done I don't see any logic for commerce being the arbiter.
So, while acknowledging the present difficulty, and that it's good to pursue the issue, I wonder if the time has come to actually present CASA with a reasonable alternative and a way out of the mire? Better perhaps to do this and engage in meaningful dialogue before they think something up themselves?
FP.