G'day All,
Watch out, I feel a Sunday afternoon rant coming on!! Sorry, Sprocket, it's not ignorance, it's the other one GREED and the unwillingness or inability (sad if it's inability) of CASA to tackle this in any sort of serious manner.
Maybe it's time to invite the insurance industry to get involved in all this? Everyone makes a big deal of the requirement to have completed a "Robinson safety Course" before you fly a 22 or 44 commercially and they give you a discount on the insurance for turning up for 2 or 3 days, paying lip service to the (very knowlegable and enthusiastic) presenters and retiring to the bar to brag about the things they do to and with their "flying motorbikes". I did not go the mustering road personally, but have done the RSC thing and have some good friends who did start out chasing moo's and they assure me that the same people who sit around you nodding and tut-tutting, just revert to the same old same old as soon as they go back to a CASA free zone.
I shouldn't probably shed too many tears when a mustering machine bites the dust, but all too often the poor (low time) bunny in the driver's seat has absolutely no idea how many actual hours the machine has done. After a while though, they soon realise what the boss is asking them to do and they either move on (a future professional pilot?) or just continue to ignore it (the cowboys?). The potential problem is that ex mustering machines then are sold into the "private owner" market and put on line with the smaller flying schools around the traps without the people (instructors and students) having any idea of the potential "true" hours on the machine. It's amazing what some new seat cushions and a lick of paint will do for a machine. I've flown some real s**tbox B206's that looked straight out of the factory, but at least the M/R said 18,000hrs to convince me that I wasn't imagining the rattles, etc.
End of rant!!
Thanks guys, there was a danger that I'd really get started there.
MPT