The Tragedy Of Mark Skidmore….
Well folks, I think AVM. Skidmore will live to regret his symbolic act of resigning from AOPA, assuming that the AOPA letter is the cause. The only people cheering will be the iron ring of reactionary CASA managers who have created the mess that is Australian aviation regulation. AVM. Skidmore has aligned himself with them either out of solidarity or disgust at AOPAs studied insolence in writing directly to a Minister.
What this action by AVM Skidmore means is that regulatory reform prospects at CASA are now officially dead, D_E_A_D because without government acceptance in principle of the actions proposed by AOPA, GA and recreational aviation is finished and AVM Skidmore has just refused to support reform.
I did predict this. AVM. Skidmore has been fobbed off by the oldest bureaucratic trick in the book - reorganisation. He will be ground down slowly by the bureaucrats , allowed to think he is making progress, achieving small victories. In later years he will reflect on the opportunities lost and will most likely date the start of his failure by his knee jerk reaction to the AOPA letter, after failing to prevent AOPA writing to the Minister in the first place.
AOPA is right. The Act must be rewritten. CASA needs to be broken up. The regulations need to be chopped up and replaced by FAA equivalents.