Pilot in Command

[El Oso]

Re: Pilot in Command

I must conclude the original poster may have had had the fortunate circumstance of either coming from money, being well connected in aviation or was an airline / RAAF cadet. And as such perhaps has never had to take whatever flying job they can get to get some hours and / or feed their family. Those who worked their way up through GA will know that it can be very difficult to get any flying job and that few GA operators play by CASA's rules. Equally they would know how careers can be destroyed by being sacked in the very competitive pilot employment market. The typically young, financially poor and career concious pilot is alone in that decision, and so may revert to questions of; is it practically safe, dangerous or illegal or a combination thereof, and this is where it gets needlessly complicated and dependent of the level of experience and common sense. Yes you need to have some "balls", and on a number of occassions I stood my ground in GA, but I was lucky to be in a strong enough position to do so, others are less fortunate. CASA does not ramp check every GA operator on a regular basis, nor do airline HR people usually take kindly to sackings on your CV.

I remember what its like to be put in such situations by a GA CP, and saw careers buggered for saying NO. IMHO some GA CP's are nothing more than burn outs who have the job because they do whatever the boss wants and demand the same out of the line pilots. I know one pilot who was sacked for challenging such a CP and then was immediately blacklisted by phone to every GA airline the CP knew - he left the country to find employment. It is especially bad in developing countries were many Antipodeans find themselves in GA, where CAA's are politically hamstrung from doing their job and where standards can be, in my view, low.

These guys do not operate in a TV episode of "Neighbours", the newly sacked GA newbie will unlikely be immediately approached by an airline saying "what a good upstanding chap/chapette you are, heres your job as a reward". Throwing all the blame on the kid at the front is simplistic and puerile. Most pilots can make legal, safety based decisions; when they have management and regulator support for doing so. The real safety problem is others adding the stress of employment / career jeopardy to the simple GO / NO GO one. So pointing the finger at CASA has some merit as keeping the operators compliant and maintaining safety oversight IS THEIR JOB. IMHO CAA's should go beyond paper audits and waiting for dobbers. They should get pro-active and send out "sleeper" investigators as paying passengers, etc and catch these dodgy operators out & also canvas (in confidence) the new hires in airlines about the truth of their former employers operations so they can target effectively. I never knew a GA pilot who wanted to fudge things, its only their bosses who push them into it - so go after the bosses, not the powerless they push around. And thats CASA's job...

When CASA does their job well, it can really make the difference. One WA charter company I know got sprung years ago by CASA for maintenance issues and was then completely turned around by its owner. Now being pro-safety and emphasizing legal ops to their crews. This became a part of successfully marketing to the safety concious mining charter business. So it can be done!

Sermon over.