As I understand it the beach patrol is run by Edith Cowan University and you have to go to or have been to the uni to fly the 172RG ECU around. The people organising it were x ECU students and the lecturer from ECU and weren't paid either. The chance to get some valuable experience from the uni was about the only valuable thing I got from 3 years at that joint.
Just for my 2 cents worth I believe that a few hours for a couple of starving uni students trying to get into a plane once in a while is not exactly taking a huge contract out of the hands of any charter company at YPJT anyway. So give the kids a break and let them buzz up and down the beach for a few hours a week and mabey save a life or two. Perhaps even make people feel a little better about the aviation industry by looking out for them in the skys.
