The SAAA are on the right path with this as they have mandatory maintenance classes to be able to register, operate and maintain an amateur built experimental aircraft.
VH-XXX,
Mandatory, Yes!! Rent seekers. Lobbied for years to get back some of the cash flow they lost with the introduction of the Experimental cat. in 1998.
The mandatory course is a great little earner, has little to do with actual hands-on continuing airworthiness --- unless you believe that airworthiness is directly related to the weight of the paperwork generated.
You should have a very close look at the syllabus, it looks rather adjacent to the CASA Airworthiness Administration exam syllabus.
This quite remarkable similarity is, no doubt, related to the fact that SAAA did not develop a syllabus to assist in training owners to conduct their own maintenance, but have simply accepted a completely inappropriate syllabus, at the direction of the CASA Permissions Center.
Making SAAA little more than a glove puppet for CASA ---- but a profitable glove puppet.
In the real world, the "CASA mandatory" courses will not make the slightest difference to air safety outcomes, but will result in much aggravation and expense.
Nobody had demonstrated an actual real world problem, to which the new mandatory qualifications are the answer.
But, Hey!! We have never bothered about "evidence based" or "outcome base" regulation in aviation in Australia, have we??
Nah!! Prejudice, self interest and old wives tales are a far better basis for yet more regulation.
At least we can claim, without fear of contradiction, to have the world's best aviation regulations, based on page or word count, we all know biggest is best, don't we???
Tootle pip!!
PS: One of the most common failures I see on standard cat. aircraft, GA or otherwise, is a hose failure. The ADRs ( auto design rules) are far tougher for critical hoses than aviation standards, much like auto seat belt standards are far tougher than aviation equivalents.
Don't make the mistake of thinking all aviation standards "top of the heap".