Is the tide starting to turn?

[Ultralights]

During my travels today, grabbed a copy of this months Australian Aviation!
and noted an interesting story on page 18, general avaition section,

titled ASFA Calls for GA Rescue!
basic gist of the story is the Aviation safety foundation of australia calling on the federal govt to step in and do something about the crumbling GA aviation sector. namly by giving tax incentives in line with the US to lower the average age of the ga fleet (currently in excess of 25yrs) and also creating prosperity in the indusrty that will have aknock on effect of attracting more trainees in maintainence and other aviation related trades.

good to see the tide seams to be slowly turning for GA and Aviation in general in Oz!

[tipsy]

I totally agree, something has to be done to reverse the apparent downward slide of GA.

Unfortunately ultralights you will attract more accusations of being "anti AOPA" by mentioning ASFA. There are those blinkered individuals within AOPA that are positively anti ASFA to the point of irrational blind rage, fortunately they do not hold the future of GA in their hands, they are quite irrelevant.

tipsy

[OzExpat]

Tipsy... what are you doing outside your litter box? :p Aren't your owners feeding you well enough these days? :eek: In any event, I'm not sure that the Govt will heed a call by ASFA, or anyone else, for that matter. :{ GA will probably have to die before anything happens... :sad:

[Obiwan]

I'm not sure that the Govt will heed a call by ASFA, or anyone else, for that matter. GA will probably have to die before anything happens... I notice John Sharp is the mouth piece of ASFA. Does he garner much respect from his former colleagues in the Coalition? Could be handy

[Like This - Do That]

The same John Sharp who oversaw the sale of airports like Canberra? That policy has done as much to destroy GA as any other ill thought out policy of the last decade....

Watch GA crumble even further when the super fund managers and property developers who now own the GAAP fields abuse their monopoly power to force out the spam cans and build shopping malls and warehouses.

John Sharp should apologise to GA before he starts trying to call for its rescue.

:mad: :mad: :mad:

[bushy]

John Sharp also has some very strange figures about the age of pilots. Average about 50?????. We have a flood of teenagers and 20 something year olds. Whats the motivation, and where do these funny figures come from????

[U2]

There are two changing issues in general aviation.

1 The regulation of passenger operations

2 The management of private and small commercial operations.

From what I have been reading in the last several months the attitude at C.A.S.A is to focus on protecting and regulating passenger operations and move to self administration for other sectors....ag, ultralights etc.

As we all know the ultralight market in flourishing. And a good thing that is. If people want to do stupid stuff and take risks, then let them, just don't invole passengers on large aircraft. I think ultralights will keep growing and attract allot of private pilots and students from g.a.

The other side of the coin is that G.A is one of the most heavily regulated and under resourced games around and nothing seems to be changing for the better.


I think in the next five years we will see an young and growing fleet of ultralights, a young and growing fleet of airliners and an old and corroding fleet of bugsmashes.

The thing is that the lower end of G.A in many respects is becomming extinct. Road transport has taken a large percentage of G.A passenger and private market. What's left is medium and long distance travel and island transport.

Short range land transport will remain with road transport....and so it should. Road transport is far more convenient and in real time just as fast.

Everthing else is just rumour.

My two cents.

U2

[Obiwan]

John Sharp should apologise to GA before he starts trying to call for its rescue.
Maybe he's feeling guilty for what he fostered on us :rolleyes:

[Ultralights]

i get the feeling that some dont want to see GA revived! but then again, if the RAA/ Sport aircraft fleet are new, faster, safer and more reliable, then maybee the GA fleet should be left to corrode to powder? even so if people have issues with John sharp, at leaast its another voice for the cause! which is only getting louder