The major expense in maintaining an AOC is obtaining a set of Operations Manuals and the application fee for CASA to vet the organization and the manuals. About $5000 to have the manuals written and several hundred for the CASA fee. Any on-going expenses are safety related in complying with the AOC.
If CASA were to get their act together they would set up a standard set of manuals, freely available and require operators to produce an appendix covering differences. Surely then organizations could get up and running a lot quicker and without the expense and delays we experience now.
I suspect CASA is protecting the public once again by requiring operators to maintain a safe and legal operation. I don’t know what legislative ‘bite’ the AUF has but certainly an AOC holder is brought under a raft of legislation.
If the ultralight scene has some unscrupulous operators endangering the unwitting punter coming in off the street then I guess requiring AUF schools to hold an AOC is a good move. But then the requirements haven’t had a lot of impact on some charter operators!