Truss: Aviation Safety Regulation Review

[Sarcs]

CAsA policy - GA (IOS) genocide - update.

On the road to GA industry extinction - The week just passed...

Dougy is away so instead from AB's stablemate...: The Last Minute Hitch: 19 September 2014

CASA's GA Task Force is in a state of flux at the moment after the retirement of Peter John. Nominally the new head of the GATF is Southern Region safety advisor Michael White, but he has been described as "holding the fort" whilst CASA decides what to do with the GATF. This is not good news for us. Although Michael's appointment is a bonus, the fact that CASA is deciding what to do means they aren't sure if they want a GATF at all! That's the bad news. OK, the GATF didn't revolutionise general aviation, but it was at least recognition that GA is different from the airlines and has very different requirements. That hasn't changed, so a GATF is still needed.
Hopefully, who ever gets the job as the new Director of Aviation Safety will come armed with a similar point of view.

The Australian Helicopter Industry Association (AHIA) has been hammering CASA over Part 61 again. They were given some exemptions to the rules that came in on 1 September, but is still chipping away at the new regulations and their perceived lack of consultation. Like most aviation associations, the AHIA will be resource-poor and seems to be shouting at a devil that is wearing complaint-canceling headphones. The rotary industry has been in growth over the past few years, so hopefully their issues with the new regs don't put the brakes on.

Regional Express (Rex) has never shied away from telling it how it is, and there's a hidden message for all of us in their concerns for regional aviation. The government's parsimonious rebate scheme will not do much to save regional air routes, and comes with the frightening rider that the Truss department is not the great friend of aviation that is has portrayed itself to be. That is evident in their response when questioned why the rebate scheme is only 15% of the previous subsidies: we're in a budget crisis and it's all Labor's fault. Doesn't that sort of hint that they have no ideas and so revert to blaming the other mob?

Someone needs to tell them that party-political rhetoric never does anything to fix problems.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

A much more disturbing segment from a Courier Mail Opinion piece...:

Angel Flight, set up by Bill Bristow, is under threat of being shut down. Picture: Jono Searle Source: News Limited





DEPUTY PM TURNS BACK ON THE BUSH
WHEN his cancer made an unwelcome return to his brain, Augathella shearer Gary Zohl called Angel Flight.

Like thousands of other Australians whose homes are too far away from specialist medical care, the Angel Flight charity flew into action and organised everything.

A volunteer pilot in his own plane picked Gary up in the western Queensland town and whisked him to Brisbane 748km east. A volunteer driver was waiting at Archerfield aerodrome to take him to hospital or his motel.

In his brave, five-year battle Gary has made the journey to Brisbane 20 times for doctors’ appointments, chemotherapy, surgeries, MRIs, and stereotactic radiation therapy. And it hasn’t cost him a cent.
“We’d be lost without it,” he told me.

Gary was too ill to make the 12-hour road trip to Brisbane, his wife Jan said.

Angel Flight, which was set up in 2003 by Brisbane advertising guru Bill Bristow has notched up 16,800 missions of mercy transporting 2600 patients and their families. There have been children with leukaemia from the Gulf, drovers with broken spines and an endless list of other ailments.
Volunteer pilots around the country crisscross the skies almost daily in a free service helping mostly outback families. Sometimes they ferry lifesaving drugs or blood products. Angel Flight has not received any government funding and the pilots aren’t paid.

Now the charity is under threat with the busybodies from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority proposing “regulatory changes”. That’s Canberra-speak for red tape.

“They want us to be responsible for pilot training and licences, aircraft certification and maintenance checks, not to mention a possibly unattainable burden of insurance,’’ said Bristow, 70, himself a pilot.
“We are a charity, not an aviation company.’’ He’s scratching his head because the pilots have already undergone exacting safety training.

He said CASA had shown a lack of understanding for the plight of sick people.

Bristow has been shunned. For 11 months he has tried, but failed to get an audience with the minister responsible for CASA, Warren Truss.

Insultingly, Truss is the Deputy Prime Minister, leader of the Nationals and member for Wide Bay who is supposed to look after the interests of regional Australia. He could solve this problem with a phone call.
Now Truss may be left with blood on his hands.

“There has been no consultation with us whatsoever,’’ Bristow said. “I’m just about ready to close the door and walk away.”

RED TAPE REDUCTION...easy just regulate them out of existence and you automatically get rid of the problem...

Hmm...how hard is it to migrate to NZed??