Have tried posting here but with no success until today jopefully, I think my server actually times out. Have started this thread on the Helicopter Association of Australia site as well, as CASA also need to be reading your thoughts guys otherwise your opinion will not matter.
Here is a copy of my post on the HAA site.
Currently there is a thread on <a href="http://www.pprune.org" target="_blank">http://www.pprune.org</a> about flight and duty times in Australia, worth a look. be nice if some of those comments could come over to here so CASA gets to hear what we are thinking.
For my part here is my reply to the last post on pprune
Interesting thoughts.
Regardless of what your opinion is the fact remains that the current flight and duty regime stipulated by CASA is completly unworkable, unenforceable (spelling is not my strong point) and in my opinion actually adds to the individual pilots stress levels.
The current regime was made for the airline industry and there it should stay.
Each operation has its own merits for more or less time. For example the Ag industry, they may do 600 hours a year but its all in 3 months, or how about fighting fires where you work a 7 hour flying day then Mrs Jones house starts to burn but you have to go home because you are out of hours and if you bust your hours CASA will prosecute, or mustering where you live in your helicopter for 9 months of the year, or.........
In my opinion flight and duty times should exist and be set for charter and RPT operations, for aerial work operations it should merely be a work place health and safety agreement between the operator and his/her employees.
I think CASA may be on the right track here, this allows the industry to be self regulating and keeps them out of our hair.
Bottom line is this - if you are fatiqued you should be able to land and have a zzzzzzz (even if that is after only 30 minutes in the cockpit) conversely if you are having a power day, and can fly 10 hours you should be able to.
I like the way the Americans do their flight and duty times for aerial work ops.
You can fly 8 hours a day as long as you have 14 days off within a 3 month period (per quarter)
Basically you can do 8 hours a day every day with 1 day off a week. No duty time.
OSCAR
As an aside the Helicopter Association of Australasia (www.haa.net.au) is looking for comments and threads like this as CASA actually read the pages and your opinions can then go towards industry consultation. You may actually effect change that you want