Put it down to old age and pessimism if you like but I fail to see any evidence that the Government and public service have any interest at all in fostering a thriving GA and recreational Aviation sector and I am beginning to think that the reverse is true - we are going to be sacrificed on the climate change altar to placate The Greens and Saint Greta and their followers. The policy document that will form the basis of our destruction is The White Paper.
I apologize for my bad taste and crudity and though nothing can compare with that atrocity, I suspect that the General Aviation equivalent of The Wannsee Conference has already occurred. As a child who lost all but two relatives in the holocaust, I am overly sensitive to choices of words especially what has NOT been said and exclusionary circumlocutions. The objective of the white paper and its terms of reference fill me with dread.
To explain, "maximise the aviation sector's contribution to achieving net zero carbon emissions, including ....." sounds exactly the same as " maximise the refugee sector's contribution to achieving food security" and you know what that meant. NOWHERE in the Objective or terms of reference of the white paper is there any reference to fostering Investment, jobs and the associated economic growth in a GA sector, let alone a recreational aviation sector. Nowhere. You cannot construe "support and regenerate" to mean "investment, jobs and growth either, because that initiative is already constrained by the requirement: "uptake and manufacturing of new, more efficient, transport technologies.".
I have kept these dark thoughts to myself until two things happened today; The first: the RAA CEO opined on delays in achieving a 760 KG MTOW: "
We continue to work with CASA to push through our application to operate aircraft with an MTOW of 760 kgs. I will say that it is quite frustrating that our application was submitted in August last year, and here we are in April without an approval as yet. I wish to assure you all that I have escalated this matter to senior levels within CASA to get this sorted. Whilst I acknowledge that there are some tricky regulatory hurdles to navigate, at the end of the day this is for an additional 160 kgs of take-off weight, so it really shouldn’t be this hard. We’ll keep you all updated when things progress.
Folks ,CASA knows whats coming and is back pedaling.
Then there is the DAS latest Pollyanna press release that is so laced with qualifiers as to be meaningless, eg.: " That philosophy commits us to
approaching our regulatory functions
consultatively and collaboratively while taking into account relevant considerations such as cost.
It also requires us to
communicate meaningfully with stakeholders, build trust and respect and fairly balance the need for consistency with flexibility. Here is a hint Pip: "YOU CANNOT DO THIS WHILE THREATENING TO CHARGE SOMEONE WITH A FELONY OR CAUSING THEIR BUSINESS TO HEMORRHAGE CASH.
Then there is Ben Morgans latest video on his interaction with he Department over the inputs to the White Paper
. Industry seems to get perfunctory consideration. Ben, thats because the decision to cut GA down has already been taken. The folk in the Department already know.
As for Avmed and its reform, same thing. They will not budge in any useful way.
What we will get in the white paper is happy talk about drones while at the same time strangling whats left of GA.
Below is a link to the governments real strategy for GA - to keep the greens happy. Read it and weep:
https://stay-grounded.org/report-degrowth-of-aviation/