This months Flight Safety Australia will be the last for many.
What kind of Director of Aviation Safety would lead the charge to take away such an important medium for Aviation Safety? I do not accept the rationale behind the Director's decision and I believe that neither would the majority of our industry (not to mention the flying and general public).
In a letter to 88,755 aviation licence holders, cabin crew and industry personnel (source
Flight Safety Australia Jul-Aug '12 p. 2) the head of our safety Regulator (with a capital R) declared (in part):
Dear Flight Safety Australia subscriber
Flight Safety Australia magazine
Flight Safety Australia magazine (FSA) is an important means of promoting aviation safety for CASA, and is a respected and valuable source of aviation safety information by the wider aviation community. First as the Aviation Safety Digest, and then from 1996, as Flight Safety Australia, the magazine has continued to develop its capacity to inform subscribers about critical safety issues.
Subscribers will have noticed that over the last two years, in line with contemporary practice, we have been focusing on developing a stronger online presence for the magazine. Online publishing, whether for newspapers or magazines, is becoming the norm, because it offers more possibilities to feature video, audio, photographs and graphs, as well as more timely and responsive information.
All Government agencies must prioritise the way they spend public monies; in this CASA is no different.
Given the increasing use and accessibility of online media, and the constraints alluded to above, I have decided that this July-August edition of FSA will be the last printed bi-monthly issue.
The safety Promotion branch within CASA will continue to bring you Flight Safety Australia online bi-monthly, and will develop an even stronger and content-rich presence for the magazine.
I understand that this change if delivery method for Flight Safety Australia might not suit all current hardcopy subscribers, but the economic climate, coupled with technological realities, make this decision inevitable.
To continue to enjoy Flight Safety Australia, please follow the instructions on the reverse of the address sheet included with this issue.
Thank you for your past support of the magazine, and we look forward to continuing it online.
Yours sincerely,
[signed]
John F. McCormick
Director of Aviation Safety
I for one am more than happy to read online from time to time and to conduct research in the same way however removing the printed version fails the community and industry in far too many ways. It removes the very effective safety medium from the fronts of our offices, the crew rooms, engineering shop tea rooms, flight decks, ground handler tea rooms, WCs, libraries and most importantly the fronts of our minds.
The very notion that this will improve safety only serves to highlight the fact that CASA do not consider
all of us to be players in the overall outcome of aviation safety. How narrow-sighted must a desk-bound public servant be to assume that everybody out there on the tarmac towing, cleaning, maintaining, loading, servicing or flying working with aircraft, freight or passengers is going to actively seek out the latest FSA on our computers or smart phone when there are 5 spare minutes between movements or tasks? Sure, from the perspective of a desk in an air conditioned Canberra office with broadband Internet at your fingertips and on your smart phone it might seem like a good money saving idea but aircraft do not operate in Canberra's Aviation House.
This will ultimately spell the end of the magazine as an effective safety tool. From here on almost NOBODY on the front line is going to read the articles Flight Safety Magazine.
Safety promotion needs to be proactive; it needs to be there staring us all in the face with a title such as 'Oils aint oils' or big grainy photos of a B747-100 missing its fin with the attention grabbing "JAL 123, JAL 123 Uncontrollable" (
FSA, July-August 2005).
If safety is not free then neither is safety promotion. Practice what you preach CASA, put affordable safety before money.
Rant only just begun,
FRQ CB