You can train your way to a standard, but you cannot check your way to a standard. However, the perpensity towards checking has become the standard paradigm within Australia.
A box ticking exercise to ensure compliance, just never mind the content.
Its ironic that in a number of "second/third world countries", the concept of training is thoroughly understood..........but then they see the results of accidents more often.
The phrase "race to the bottom" is unfortunately accurate in the Senators speech, as we pass those aviation regimes whom we once considered inferior.
Exactly right. Such is the australian ethos. If your box is ticked then by definition you must be safe. So too, if you posess an aircraft manual you must be trained.
I fear that the good senator may only achieve (if anything) an increased checking regimen. Why? Because it's cheap for the beaurocrats to implement and to the idiot public it looks as though serious action is being taken.
IMO the biggest threat to aviation safety isn't 200 hr FO's. The biggest threat to aviation safety is poor quality training and
FATIGUE i.e. the two major factors in the Colgan accident. Neither of which have been addressed in the U.S. or here.
Then again no one can vilify fatigue. You can't put a face to it on the 6 o'clock news, nor can you impress people with daring stories about how it let you down on a dark and stormy night (but you used your superior ability to save the day).
No, the problem is not fatigue; the problem is definitely 200 hr pilots. The sooner that we drag these individuals out into the street and publicly execute them, the sooner we, and all the travelling public, will be safe from this menace.
We can then go back to not being bothered by fatigue, who has been with us for a while now and has never hurt anyone.
