bushy
I take exception to your assertion that I have a commercial motivation insofar as my comments on the safety issues here are concerned and I think you have chosen to misunderstand me.
Just for the record, I have not been involved in new aircraft sales for over 15 or used for around 10 years now, neither do I have any direct or beneficial financial interest therein.
Having said that, I think you are confusing the message, safety
is and always
will be a commercial imperative, why otherwise would we spend so much time and money on maintenance and inspection.
Old equipment costs more to maintain properly, than is commercially viable. Just today I was talking to a mate in the sales business who had to spend $13,000 on a 100hrly on an aircraft he had just traded and has since found another $8-12,000 that needs to be dealt with, before it can be presented for sale. Yes it was a charter bushy and yes not the least bit uncommon. Tell me that the operator had been maintaining
that aircraft to acceptable Charter standards and where was the airworthiness Regulator.
They are not all tarred with the same brush, but neither does the age of the equipment help them either.
The youngsters are having to fly that sort of gear.
The whole regulatory routine is a farce unless there is also regulation of the revenues. To leave it to the market, in GA in any event, will inevitably produce the result that we now have.
You may be surprised to know that I totally agree with much of what you say;
A young man has died and this is serious. Operating small aircraft in the outback is essential, difficult work which demands a very high degree of skill, Knowledge, and self discipline. It is a very unforgiving and can appear to be deceptively simple. Lapses of discipline are a human trait and can be deadly
and absolutely with;
What is really needed is a far more positive attitude, and some more experienced pilots. This will not happen while G.A. is only considered as a way to get hours and get out of there. It will not work properly with pilots who do not want to be there. It takes time to get to be a good bush pilot, and it is an honourable profession.This is the most important flying in the country, and it is not easy.
But we are going to have to disagree on.
Most G.A. aeroplanes in the outback are about one third of the way through their useful life, and their condition depends on how well they have been looked after. New aeroplanes will not stop the accidents.
Trust?
If you had been following my posts for the last 5 or 6 years you will have seen that I have consistently argued that it is the
lack of revenues and regulatory control that has forced/allowed the situation to develop where the operators simply have no option but to keep old and yes sh!fight aircraft going that have no place to be doing so and were
not designed to be so.
You may have a different opinion, but that is a fact.
Shall we have a discussion on the 400 series and Navajo spar life.
It became an issue when it became clear that these types were going to flying way past what the manufacturers had intended.
And you can
trust me to keep on about it too, until there are some positive changes and yes IMHO it is a legitimate role for AOPA.
Unless of course you subscribe to the idea that bushies should be required to accept a lesser standard of equipment than the townies.
In most States now, you cannot register a Public Taxi or Charter vehicle, bus, or whatever that is more than 10 years old, and/or does not meet some fairly strict criterion in appearance, condition and serviceability. And by law/regulation, they all have to charge the same fare, and that is rigourously monitored.
Try turning up in your immaculately maintained EJ Holden with a taxi sign on the roof and see whether you can get a fare , other than the Vintage Holden buffs or Wedding Cars. You couldn't now get compliance on one, if you presented remanufactured versions without extensive modification that would cost more than it would be worth.
The world has moved on a little since 1967.
Which takes me back to:
What is really needed is a far more positive attitude, and some more experienced pilots. This will not happen while G.A. is only considered as a way to get hours and get out of there.
Is is axiomatic that if the operator is properly capitalised, financially resourced and actually profitable, then perhaps the experienced pilots and CPs would have the real resources and the time to properly supervise and train the youngsters and not have to waste it on chasing up spare parts trying to keep the old stuff together. Why otherwise would the Airlines of this world keep their fleets young, it's about saving money.
Tell me that you would rather be flying an old clunker than something new and modern.
How do you maintain that positive attitude and experienced pilots around and what is going to keep the youngsters of whom you speak motivated when the boss wont charge enough to be able to afford a modern well equipped fleet.
The "badges of honour" often described here by the youngsters about how they had to "borrow" the toilet paper from the airport toilets and "scrounge" food to make ends meet, might be a "rite of passage" but are inexorably linked to the age and decrepitude of some of the equipment the operator makes them fly.
We all know who they are and are not.
There are operators out there reequipping with new gear.
New gear is very expensive and focuses the owners attention like nothing else on its operation and by whom, every body wins.
If you had read my profile you will see that I was also directly involved in the beginning of the modern GA business as we now know it. I have been there and done it then and more recently having no trouble whatsoever getting top revenue dollar for top equipment.
It is the dills who undercut
your rates, just so that
they can stay in a business that never existed for them in the first place. The regulators State and Federal stand back and watch the race to the bottom.
And try to bring in even more regulations to stop the rot.
We have to break that poverty mentality for all our sakes.
I promise you if the Australian fleet wasn't as
old as it is you would not be seeing anything like the type of regulation they are attempting to impose.
Shall we talk about the QLD Govt medical contract that allowed the replacement of younger aircraft with a much older C90, it can only have been on the basis of price, which took a young pilot and his passengers to their deaths.
I'd be happy to discuss my evidence and the subsequent acceptance and recommendation by the Coroner on this and the Transport category issues in relation to a recent turbine fatal. It will take a little time to wind its way through the system, but it will mean better, safer and younger equipment for passengers and pilots to fly. Everybody wins.
Further if you want to have a snipe at my AOPA aspirations feel free, but ask yourself this question, unless someone is buying new equipment and traditionally it was the operators, where do you think the late model used for the private market is going to come from.
Anything that is not a C172/182 in the private market
is being snapped up by the operators desperate for lower hour equipment.
Because the operators have not been able to maintain their revenue rates, that, market supply has been skewed to the detriment of the private guy.
Get it back into balance and everybody wins.
The public get better safer equipment, you seem to have ignored the FAR23/25 argument, the pilots get better and more modern equipment, the owners can afford to pay other than slave wages and just maybe, they will see that GA as a career, is indeed an honourable and satisfying one. It certainly was for me.
We have 2 options, accept the status quo and resign oursleves to second best or change it.
One last thing, you choose to take
"if you are to become a professional pilot"
out of its proper context, what I said was.
I recommend for your study and information if you are to become a professional pilot the complete FAA FAR 23 and FAR 25 both the performance and design sections.
I did
not say that you were not a professional pilot. It might sound to you like one of those "fine" Bill Clinton "I did not have sex with that woman" distinctions, but it is nonetheless.
Doesn't matter how many hours you've got, I 've met types of pilots driving all manner of whizbangs, airline corporate and charter who have not the faintest idea of the fundamental difference in philosphy between the two.
They may know how to apply the rules pertaining, but not the underlying reason beyond that the aircraft weight is over or under a now arbitrary 5700kg.
FAR23 = safe = private, business and recreational.
FAR25 = safest = the conveyance of the public = Transport category.
As a result of a thread I started in Reporting Points on this subject in relation to the deaths of a C404 crew and their dead heading airline pilot and FA passengers, that airline and the others in the UK who hadn't already, changed their deadheading policy completely in response. Did I bag the type or the crew, no, just made those who should have known, better educated about the issues. That's right, very few in the airlines and certainly the great majority of the Airline pilots who responded really understood what this public transport category was all about.
I think the regulator reviewed their policy on it as well.
I copped a fair bit of flack about that too, but I would do it all over again. Everybody won.
Those operators who had been operating this market in the older piston twins found that they had to operate and could get paid for modern whizbangs, pilots got upgraded, passengers were safer and so it goes.
I think its time we all had that discussion as pilots and owners in Australia. We do not have any alternative.
NC
These airframes deserve more care and TLC, not more stressful flying than its manufacturer intended.
