OZBUSDRIVER

See your point, JR. If AF were to vet...or...be seen to vet their volunteer pilots wrt their professionalism in the task, would it avert the CASAs gaze? I look at from the initial contact on, to present myself as confident to act professionally as a pilot....but this is not the problem. The former is the case. Changes the argument somewhat.

Cart/Horse...demure and watch and learn.

tecman

Interesting thread, and some big issues to consider, not all of which are black-and-white legal ones. I'm a PPL and have done a little bit of "community flying" (not AF) and, while admiring the volunteer spirit in all its forms, I struggle to see how the needs of sick people on a schedule are compatible with VFR operations. However, even if a transport system is designed so that it's based on opportunistic VFR flights with a road back-up (or similar) plan, it's reasonable to require the pilots involved to have pretty substantial aeronautical experience, including a current NVFR or instrument rating.

I'm all for having a look at statistics (here and internationally) but some part of me says up-front that 250 hrs PPL experience is simply not enough. At 250 hrs I hope I was a good pilot - should have been, what with all the endorsements, ratings etc around that point. But unless a pilot has an exceptional background, s/he just hasn't seen enough operational reality at that point.

I can appreciate the argument that the AF and similar flights are no different to any other PPL operations and, indeed, maybe there may actually be more informed consent with AF than on your average joy-flight. And yet... Somehow, the whole chain just looks harder to break with all those expectations around. Maybe I've just become more conservative over the years: for example, these days I'm less free with invitations to colleagues to accompany me on work flights. The legal aspects were sorted out long ago, so no dramas there. But expectation management on a non-recreational VFR flight can be a tricky thing, despite all the up-front briefings and explanations.

The CASA discussion document is actually pretty well written and clearly thought out. (They should give that guy a job writing the regs). Not all of the options are grouped as I'd combine them but, after all, it is a discussion paper. And it's entirely proper that a "safety" authority review community service flying, just as it would be entirely proper for them to ultimately decide to leave it to AF and others to administer agreed volunteer standards.

Creampuff

So let’s say we set the standard so that a student pilot can conduct AFs.

Run me through the actual costs and actual benefits of setting the standard there.

Let’s say we set the standard at ATPL/RPT AOC to conduct AFs.

Run me through the actual costs and actual benefits of setting the standard there.

If there is no reliable cost benefit data and analysis, setting the standard is merely someone’s arse pluck (and if CASA’s making the decision, it will always be an arse pluck).

We (probably safely) assume that if the standard is set ‘higher’, there will be fewer accident and incidents. But that’s the easy bit. Even CASA can make that assumption. The hard bit is measuring the opportunity costs of moving the standard ‘higher’ and deciding whether it’s a cost worth paying or not. CASA’s not competent to make those measurements or decisions.

tecman

It'd be entirely possible to pay any number of consultants a shirt-load of money to do a cost-benefit study, typically on the basis of derived financial metrics. Of course, they'll still include a section on what they can't turn into money, and you'll be back at exercising some judgement. Mind you, this particular investigation would be far more tractable analytically than many they turn their hands to.

Would it be a good idea? Probably. Who pays? Don't know. Maybe find a community-spirited consultancy. As an aside, a few comparable studies of volunteer organizations have returned verdicts of substantial previously-unquantified benefits - might even be the case with AF. Of course, many people in those organizations didn't need boy-scout consultants to tell them that they were doing good things.

Jack Ranga

Why would you need an ATPL?

I'm talking about having a mentor program for the low timers. I'm talking about having a senior pilot within the organisation monitoring pilot activities/experience/recency. Setting standards.

It doesn't need CAsA intervention if it's done proactively & consultatively.

I merely said at the start of this 'why wouldn't they have a look at this if people using the service have been killed'

It's their frigging job to monitor it, if they didn't you'd whinge about that.

kaz3g

Why would you need a CPL or a NVFR rating?

Isn't the issue one of flying within one's limitations at all times? Surely, that's what each of us must do every time we press a starter button?

I've flown in every State and Territory in the country, much of it in remote areas. I plan carefully, I check the weather, I carry my emergency rations and equipment and I'm always prepared to put it on the deck if things look iffy. I cruise at 100 knots (and my stalling speed is 28 knots) with an endurance of 0330 only. My Auster has an 0-320 160 hp engine and is maintained by a LAME.

Clearly, this means I am more limited in my flying versatility than some one flying something bigger, faster, with substantially greater range and lots more instruments to play with than a 6 pack. But I can't see that it means I am any less safe than the speed driver in his Mooney or whatever.

Each of us has to fly within our personal capabilities and the capabilities of our particular aircraft.


Kaz

TBM-Legend

Time for this to hit the media. TV, print and Alan Jones

ozbiggles

Well it didn't work too well in the case at the heart of this thread did it

Not referring to the mentoring, that would be a good idea.

TBM-Legend

Good to see Bill in The Australian today telling it like it is...

Mach E Avelli

Not wishing to argue the case for CASA interference, but Bill Bristow's statement - to quote: "In short, there is nothing about our charity's operation that needs addressing" would be guaranteed to ring alarm bells at Fort Fumble.

Creampuff

Let's go crazy and think this through.

What happens if the standard is set to e.g. current IFR rating as a minimum, and there's an accident? The response must be: Set the standard to e.g. current IFR rating and CPL as a minimum.

Why not do the logical thing and just set the standard where it must inevitably be set? ATPL/RPT/CATIII ILS operations only.

On what ground would the standard be set other than the highest possible standard?

Frank Arouet

Before setting new regulatory standards we should remember the spirit in which most of these flights are made and use this as the template for common sense. I can remember the standard for declaring a "mercy flight" and from memory very few successful flights garnered more than a verbal explanation. A quick but probably inaccurate search found this link: http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dl...=ac091-170.pdf


There are two ways of constructing a regulatory design standard. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult. This is why CAsA opt for the latter.


Some may find the following link both enlightening and entertaining in the current thread.


Nancy Bird-Walton (1915-2009), Australian Pioneer Aviatrix

BlatantLiar

Expect more of these to pop up at an airport near you!

http://i.imgur.com/U0xnsLX.jpg

sprocket check

When has regulatory over****e instigated by CASA helped anything other than reduce the amount of aviating done?

Jack Ranga

Exactly, better off sorting it out yourself.

Aerodynamisist

Somebody has to stick up for CASA in this case, and as much as it irks me to back them up, its Just CASA doing the job they are employed to do.
That job is protecting the PUBLIC from risk, that means in many cases protecting the public from poorly conceived though well meaning pilots. Australian pilots need to be disabused of the notion that CASA are here to look after us and facilitate our activities, the days of old mate the FOI who looks after the locals went out with smoking on airliners.

Allowing medivac flights and walking wounded and "transport to to care" to be provided to the general public in single engine piston light aircraft flown by Walter Mitty ppl's is allot or RISK with little to no justification.

I have seen allot of angel flights take place and they were all single engine piston with a PPL at the controls. You can't tell me that a there is not a higher level of risk involved in this type of operation. When you consider A whole fleet of king air, PC 12, caravans, bell 412 and dauphins are parked on aprons all around Australia with trained professional pilots that are ready NOW to go help the sick and injured. I call bull**** on the "mercy flight excuse".

Creampuff

So where do you reckon the minimum standard be set, and what do you reckon should happen if someone is killed or injured while being carried at that standard?

Aussie Bob

Yeah yeah yeah, let's just shut them down. Let the bastards travel by road. AeroD, who is paying for your suggestions and how many Angel Flights have you really witnessed?

kaz3g

I agree that allowing Walter Mitty PPLs to undertake any flights would be a high risk scenario but I disagree with the implied assertion that this is regularly or even occasionally the case, I note, too, that you include SE types in your list of those just waiting to be flown by "professional" pilots so perhaps your blanket inclusion of them in your proscription is a tad unwarranted? The 0-320 Lycoming would have to be the most reliable certified piston around. Yes turbines are nice but they are bloody expensive and we are talking about the work of a charity here, not a profit-making corporation.

Perhaps the whole AF ought just be shut down, eh?

That old "trained professional" v the volunteer chestnut. We need to separate the different connotations of "professional" to get some sense of what you are saying: the "professional" that is making her living from the activity or the "professional" who carries out their activity competently and with exactitude?

It's surely about the pilot operating at all times within the limits of her capability and the capability of the aircraft and I don't think that is achieved simply because she has a stripe on her shoulder and 300 hours AE.

Kaz

Frank Arouet

A "mercy flight" can be "declared" by a pilot during the course of a flight if the need arises, and may have put a different outcome on the Victorian Angel Flight prang if it gave the pilot an option for assistance before he was dangerously putting lives at risk and possibly breaking the law. A bit like declaring an emergency if a VFR pilot is stuck on top. Nobody (except CAsA) think badly of you for it. There used to be amnesty's for pilots who put the legality of the flight below the safety of the immediate situation. The concept needs exploring rather than regulating the intent and spirit of altruism. Calling it bull**** simply exemplifies the confused professional elitism over amateur enthusiasm in the general aviation community. All Olympic athletes were once amateur. It's a pity in many ways that professionalism put paid to much that was fair and has cost much in tarnishing athletics by drug cheating and the like.


To be fair I haven't met anybody that was a professional pilot before he was a private pilot. Indeed the hour building at that level improved the ability of the pilot by exposure to experience.


Finally, if CAsA think anything needs regulating I am opposed to it on principle until I have independent proof to the contrary. Their record speaks for itself.