Leadsled, your defence of the fixed reserve fuel regulation fails under most circumstances because you would have to prove that the conduct, landing with less than Thirty minutes fuel was unavoidable.
In practice what that means is that you can no longer exercise any discretion - the Thirty minutes fuel has to be counted as "Dead fuel", to the point where, if I ever decide to continue with the acquisition of an aircraft, I'm going to have the gauges and dipstick recalibrated to leave Thirty minutes worth at empty.
Let me make myself clear. Under this regulation, the very minute you determine in flight that you are likely to chew into that Thirty minute reserve - which I will now call the legislative reserve, for whatever reason, wind, cloud, leaks, engine malfunction, you must take immediate avoiding action if such action is available to you.
If you fail to take immediate avoiding action once it became obvious that you would break the legislative reserve, and instead press on, you are guilty of the offence, unless you can prove that no other course of action was available to you.
That means divert to the nearest available airstrip or turn back.
The interesting legal argument in court will be whether an outback station strip qualifies as an available airport and exactly when the potential low fuel state event ought to have been discoverable by the pilot.
oh! and a P.S. Kharons comment is spot on - The presentation of the new part 91 to the industry in the existing oppressive regulatory language and format indicates that CASA has no interest whatsoever in regulatory reform.
The issue for new entrants to the GA industry now is whether they can live with this regime. It would appear that GA is dying fast, which is why it appears that CASA has now decided that recreational aviation is a potential new host for it to feed on.
Last edited by Sunfish; 4th Apr 2011 at 21:27.