Senator Fawcett has championed many aviation related causes and now he is banging the drum on the CVD phallacy i.e. that CVD pilots are, contrary to empirical evidence, a risk to aviation safety.
At the recent
Estimates, in an exchange with McComic & the PMO, DF made this statement:
Senator FAWCETT: Before we go to Dr Navathe on that, your previous principal medical officers—Brock, Liddell and Wilkins—have all had a different view. They respect the medical science but Brock, in particular, has gone to ICAO and some of his documentation indicates that at the vision and colour deficient working group they actually acknowledged that a lot of their current rule set was not necessarily good at determining whether a person was competent to fly an aircraft. It was just good at determining if they had a colour vision deficiency. It was for that reason that Mr Brock allowed people to do a flight test where they could demonstrate in an aircraft their ability to operate it. On that basis, there are now people who have CVD—that is proven, and they do not dispute that—who are now operating airline aircrafts as captains around the world. So CASA has in fact previously established a precedent that has shown there is an alternative third level of testing that accepts the fact that somebody may have CVD but that is not a determinant as to whether they can competently and safely operate an aircraft. My question is, with all due respect to the theoretical approach, which the CAA in the UK has taken: what steps have we taken to build upon Australia's 25 years of experience to provide an alternative means of demonstrating whether a person is safe in an aircraft and not whether he or she has a colour vision deficiency?
Do you reckon the bloke has got a handle on the CVD matter?? You bet...
Do you think he is going to
NOW slap down the matter with an obligatory wet lettuce...hmm well if his campaign on Airports is anything to go by FF/ATsBeaker/Dept etc are simply dreaming...
{Comment: Also recently DF was made the Chair of the
Parliamentary Friends of Aviation, see..
The Fawcett Flyer March 2014}