Dear CFI,
AOC's have got nothing to do with other than an ever expanding CASA payroll making busy work. No words in an AOC will stop a damages claim when somebody is injured or killed. That's modern life, aeroplane, car or tandem unicycle.
I don't have a clue how long you have been in the aviation training business, but we used to get along quite nicely with nothing like the recent AOC nonsense. Some of the current AOC restrictions I have seen are lulu's. Would you like to be in the situation that you are un-competitive because your FOI, or whatever he is called this week, has lumbered you with AOC/Ops Manual requirements that don't apply to the guy next door.
Do you even know that you are not already in this un-competitive position ???
In US, a CFI, a certified flying instructor, can work out of the boot of his car, the commercial advantage for the "approved Schools" is that the minimum hours are reduced.
Have a look at the US safety outcomes, our GA record is about 50% worse than US, and we are not improving. Most of the JAA countries, with similarly vast, oppressive and inflexible bureaucracies, produce quite staggeringly bad safety outcomes.
The vast expansion of bureaucratic micro management in ALL levels of Australian aviation is quite staggering, and the industry by and large just supinely cops it. No other major Australian industry behaves in this irrational way.
If all this current nonsense is really required to protect us from ourselves, I just can't imagine how I survived all these years, without having my hand held.
Quite frankly, anybody who needs CASA to hold their hand shouldn't be in the aviation industry.
I think the whole GA industry is exhibiting a mass "Stockholm Syndrome". For anybody who doesn't understand what that is, look it up. I am beginning to think that this is the only possible explanation for a group of people who not only don't rise up against their captor/ oppressor/executioner, but actively support their own extinction/(commercial) execution.
There is simply NO WAY increased costs and restrictions are going to bring about a GA renaissance, but that is exactly what CASA have planned.
See for yourself, it's all on the CASA web site.
When is the penny going to drop in GA circles, that the rapid expansion of AUF flying is the result of perfectly rational people making perfectly rational decisions about spending their hard earned after tax discretionary dollars. And having a really fun time doing it!! And they are now making perfectly rational demands of their MPs and Senators, to make certain that it stays that way.
The AUF were the ONLY aviation group mentioned by the Minister in his election policy. Didn't hear any Ministerial support for the CASA/GAPA position. What jolly bad luck, the Minister's got it right on this one.
Somehow I don't think the AUF will let him forget his promise.
Oh, and by the way, CFI, have a look at the FAA morbidity studies and ALL aircraft accidents where there was an incapacitation component. There is NO relation between the class of medical certification of a pilot and the occurrence of in-flight incapacitation.
Tootle pip!!!.