BARS and its effect on GA companies?
Last Friday there was an article in the Australian which alluded to the new set of standards referred to as the Basic Aviation Risk Standard (BARS). This was also mentioned during a recent audit of our operation.
The intent is that all resource companies in Australia will use this set of standards when writing/evaluating tenders or auditing their current aviation companies. Which is a great idea in theory. If you have a read through the document (http://flightsafety.org/files/bars_v3.pdf) there are a few sections that may have a big impact on the current GA companies that are servicing resource companies.
- On page 15, control 9.1, states that all single engine aircraft need to be turbine powered! How will this effect survey companies and small charter operations with C206, C210, GA8 aircraft? Might have to place an order for that C208 after all.
- Pg 20, Appendix 1, states the aircrew experience required. For single engine operations, 2000hrs total time is required. This may be a big ask, considering 2 years ago you couldn’t find someone with 1000hrs to fly single engine aircraft. It also states that Captains of >5700kg aircraft require 2500 command hours. How will this effect the WA charter companies that have cadets now getting promotions who have very little command time and total time less then 3000hrs? 2500 is a lot of ICUS. Qantaslink, REX, Alliance, etc may also have to limit some of their resource work to certain crews that meet these requirements.
- Pg 21, Appendix 2, outlines the minimum equipment required to meet the standard. For multi-engine aircraft TCAS and EGPWS are required. This may have an effect on those charter operators with 30 seat aircraft such as the EMB-120 as most of those aircraft are not required to and don’t have TCAS. Also how many PA31, C404, etc have EGPWS?
I am interested on people’s opinions on this document and its effect on GA in Australia. Has anyone been audited to this standard yet and if so did you meet all the requirements? How hard is it to get exemptions for certain criteria?