Dick Smith:
"Mr Smith cited the requirement to have his helicopter’s altimeter checked every two years instead of every five years like in the United States.
“Of course it makes it safer, if you checked it every three months it would be even safer, but with the cost of flying I’ll be the only one who can afford to have a helicopter,” he said.
“It’s a matter of that balance between cost and benefit.”
Small point. but if the Altimeter has to be removed to test it, then there is a good chance that testing it every Two years is actually less safe then every Five years. The reason? Infant mortality - stuffing up the reinstallation process.
The correct way to deal with this matter is to perfom a statistical hypothesis test: "That the difference between two and five year failure rates is statistically signifigant."
Take a sample of altimeter tests at the Two year mark and calculate the failure rate and standard deviation. Do the same at the Five year mark and do the same. Now compare. I did this sort of tedious stuff at Ansett for a few years back in the 70's and relaxed a lot of inspection requirements as a result.
My untutored guess is that the FAA would have done this. I would like to think that CASA has statistical evidence to back up the Two year requirement and hence can prove that the FAA is misinformed and seriously endangering the American public.
Hope to see you and Ian at Arkaroola this winter.