“SIDS compulsory because of CASA Regulatory Structure?”
Interesting article in The Australian newspaper this morning, “Inspection Edict Tearing Light Aircraft Apart” - see article reproduced below - particularly the comment by Jeff Boyd that, “it was not the original deliberate intention to make SIDS compulsory, but it ended up so because of the regulatory structure.”
This seems very strange. Perhaps Cream Puff or someone with expertise in the regulatory system can explain why this was so. Surely CASA can bring in advisory material just like the FAA?
Article as follows…
Inspection edict ‘tearing light aircraft apart’
In general aviation circles they’re calling it SIDS — and it’s leaving the carcasses of light aircraft, some with their engines gone, some with tails and wings amputated, strewn around regional *airports.
SIDS stands for Supplementary Inspection Documents, and according to Tony Brand, who runs light aircraft repair and maintenance company Horsham Aviation Services in western *Victoria, it’s killing the industry.
The Civil Aviation Safety Authority is enforcing a program initiated by the large US light *aircraft manufacturer Cessna of *special inspections of its older aircraft to check for problems like corrosion, wear, cracks, and other mechanical risks.
In Australia, Mr Brand said, that covers 3800 Cessna aircraft, and $285 million in additional compliance work.
“There was no industry consultation for this,” he said.
For Mr Brand SIDS means boom times, with his 11 aircraft mechanics including two apprentices working flat-out on aircraft flown in from all around the *country.
“I could put on another five people tomorrow and still not keep up with the work,” he said.
But his concern is that SIDS will financially cripple many of his customers. “It’s driving people out of the general aviation industry one after the other,” Mr Brand said.
“They have just got it so wrong you wouldn’t believe.”
Flying school operators who spoke with The Australian this week all complained about SIDS.
“I had to take one plane *completely apart then put it back together again and it cost me $30,000,” said Ray Clamback, who runs a flying school at Sydney’s Bankstown airport.
“It turned out there was nothing wrong with it.”
Mr Brand said the cost of SIDS was leading some aircraft owners to sell their planes overseas in countries such as the US where the program initiated by Cessna is not mandatory as it is here, but voluntary.
Other older aircraft are just not worth taking abroad, and those are being cannabilised for parts, explaining the carcasses.
CASA chairman Jeff Boyd said it was not the original deliberate intention to make SIDS compulsory, but it ended up so because of the regulatory structure.
“It just got caught up in the way our regulations are written,” Mr Boyd said.
He nonetheless defended the compulsory nature of the *program here, saying it was essential to deal with a real safety issue.
Mr Boyd, a licensed aircraft mechanical engineer and former regional airline owner, said he had done the SIDS exercise *himself on the 1977 Cessna 172XP he owns and flies.
He used it as an opportunity to fully renovate the aircraft.
Mr Brand is scathing of the people he describes as technocrats at CASA who have “not worked a day in general aviation, in the hangar.”
But Mr Brand has nothing but praise for Mr Boyd who has worked in the hangar, and still does from time to time as a *consultant, such as oversighting maintenance for the Thai military.
Mr Boyd, Mr Brand said, was bringing some much needed real world private sector sense to those technocrats.
“He’s been doing an excellent job,” he said.