The old Aviation Safety Digests versus Flight Safety Australia Vive La Difference
 

Older Pprune readers will remember the Aviation Safety Digest magazine which was first published in 1951 and which became universally known as the Crash Comic. In 1964 Macarthur Job an air safety investigator took over the job as full time editor until he left DCA in 1978. I recently obtained almost a complete set of Aviation Safety Digests (ASD) and quickly noticed the marked contrast between the general content of the old ASD and the current crash comic Flight Safety Australia.

Each edition of ASD was packed with accident reports from Australian to overseas accidents.
The editorial work was superb and in many issues the editor condensed USA accident reports published by the National Transport Safety Board or NTSB as it is commonly known now, into a thoroughly informative well written narrative.

It is my view and those of close colleagues, that for many years the Flight Safety Australia magazine has been steadily sliding downhill since advertising was allowed and since graphic designers have been allowed full reign to show their undoubted technical skills. A whole new generation of pilots have never heard of or never seen a copies of the Aviation Safety Digests of old, and therefore don’t know what they have missed. Yet the type and cause of aircraft accidents has not changed. But the editorial content has changed beyond all recognition from the superb flight safety publication of the Fifties right through to the early Eighties.

Flight Safety Australia published in 2005 reveals over just two pages, five advertisements covering RMIT recruiting for managers, flying school ads selling training, other ads selling books and theory examinations, an ad for a National Aerospace Board inaugural meeting and another about obtaining ASIC cards. Flick through more pages of this “flight safety” magazine and see a half page ad for the flogging of Operations Manuals by a private company, a half page promotion ad for FSA “What went wrong” readers contributions, ads for dangerous goods courses, and four pages on airworthiness directives featuring such items as AD/CASA/26 Amdt 1-Steering System Hydraulic Installation and Boeing 747 AD/B747/130-aging aircraft Structural Inspection Programme Cancelled.

Hands up those who once eagerly devoured the pages of Aviation Safety Digest as soon as the postman delivered it to their doorstep. If it didn't arrive in time and your friends got theirs, you quickly got on the blower to DCA in Melbourne and complained bitterly your fix had not arrived on time.

Hands up now, those who look at the cover of Flight Safety Australia only when you get time to spare and flick quickly through the pages ignoring the plethora of glossy advertisements that are about as useful as a Target brochure and maybe go straight to the IFR quiz at the end. An occasional article may arise a passing interest. Where are the well written condensed NTSB accident reports that you could sit down and read and almost be in the captain’s seat as the 727 crashed short of the runway on a black night non-precision approach. Well, you certainly don’t see stuff like that anymore in FSA and more’s the pity.

The aviation internet is full of air safety reports if you have the mind to trawl through the NTSB and British AAIB web pages. But most pilots would prefer to read a dedicated flight safety magazine especially if free and interesting and delivered to your door, rather than spend the evening hunched over a computer screen.

It would be interesting to how many Pprune readers think the Flight Safety Australia magazine has lost the plot and needs a whole new approach. The first thing is to get rid of advertisements, self promotion, flashy meaningless graphic design artwork, letters to the editor, quizzes, aviation news that has appeared on the media months before, CASA hotline ads and so on.

When I obtained my set of old Aviation Safety Digests from my local Op shop I could not believe my luck. I would have willingly forked out ten times the amount of money I paid for them. They were gold to me. If someone offered for free the last ten years of Flight Safety Australia magazine I very much doubt I would be tempted to take them. The odd one maybe.

Toatally agree the new age ones have lost that 707 look and feel.

The current style of the magazine is very much a propaganda document by CASA, extolling the virtues of CASA at the expense of most everything else...

Totally agree - I barely even spend 2 minutes reading the current one when it turns up.

I was a student reading the crash comics on the flying school lunch table and they left a fair impression of what not to. Nowdays they show that if you look pretty, you don't even need to do up your tie.... :rolleyes:

The difference now is the internet - most of the reports are there on atsb.gov.au et al. I do agree that this is not as accessible as the old mags, but it would be a hard $$ justification to fill a mag sent to every pilot repeating this information.

Also - maybe I am cynical but if all the crashes are published in a mag, hey that would not look good for our industry would it? :hmm: Is this another motive?:cool:

I have a large pile of crash comics from the 60s to the 80s and they're a great read still.

I remember looking at a FSA mag that arrived with a intro to the small group (4 or 5) of people who put it together and my first thought was 'They don't look like they have 4000 TT between them'.

Therein lies the problem I think. Have any of them ever spent significant time in the real world of aviation or is their knowledge mostly theoretical?

And by real world I don't mean the circuit/training area/training navs ex YSBK.:ugh:

Hey, thats the best cover that magazine has ever printed!

Yep still got all mine just missing a few early ones. I don't keep the new ones though. Lost interest when I read an article that proported to be a conversation on some issue between an instructor and trainee and soon realised it was all made up. They lost the plot when they were given the OK to get involved in 'pilot education' and now express opinions and pet theories. Wish they would just report facts.

Aviation Safety Digests
 

The older ones were a far better standard, change is not always for the better.


Tmb

The Flight Safety Magazine- your industry dollars at work. When I was working in a more remote part of the Territory back in the early 91, I came across a COMPLETE collection, yes even No. 1 Air Safety Digest. As far as I am concerned they are priceless. From when I first started in '85, I considered them a fantastic source of hard earned lessons. The editorial content and narrative offered much more than reading a sterile ATSB/AAIB report on the net. They brought the story to life- that is what made them the resource that they are. One day I will get around to digitising them, but that will only be to get them reprinted in hard copy. I guess we can chalk the demise of the ASD up to another victory for affordable safety. :hmm:

ASD
 

Yes, I have a complete collection from No1 dated July 1953 and I agree it is priceless. Have to agree with the above posts, especially the eager wait for the ASD to turn up in the mail and the frustration when it was late!

Sadly the demise of the ASD and the creation of FSA is the result of user pays and the failure of the Government and its respective departments to understand the value of providing such a journal. I seem to recall the ASD winning some international awards. Mac Job was an outstanding editor with a passion for the job. Sadly no body like that around now and the ATSB only gets a bit of a "shared" magazine.

Of interest is the following quote from the final edition of ASD #150 in 1991:

Mind you I think this Canberra speak was another way of saying we really don't want to pay for it any more!!

And of course we all know that the S in CASA should really be an "R". It is more about regulation than safety!

Sad...:sad::sad:

They were a great mag - I used to work with some of the authors from the old DCA days. One former editor still writes for Australian Aviation Magazine (Macarthur Job) AUSTRALIAN AVIATION MAGAZINE - STAFF & CONTRIBUTORS

Some article extracts from the late 60s can be found at the links below:

http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/Sk...st%20Jan68.pdf
http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/In...st%20Jan68.pdf
http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/Gl...st%20Jan68.pdf
http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/Co...st%20Mar68.pdf
http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/Co...st%20Mar69.pdf
http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/Co...st%20Mar69.pdf
http://www.aeros.com.au/Downloads/Fa...st%20Mar69.pdf

Once I approached a govt dept (can't remember if it was BASI or CAA) to put these old ASD's on DVD's, so that we could all access this valuable information.
Answer was mainly as to who would be responsible for it. ie no it's not our area..it must be somebody else. Talk about Yes Minister.
Just let me know if you want to transfer ownership of a full set.....to me :ok:

When I was a kid in the 80's, most kids read Archie or Batman comics - I read Dad's copy of the BASI Journal! I realised I was aerosexual at a young age...

Totally agree. FSA is missing the point. I have to get my fix off the ATSB website now.... but the thing I miss most is the Swamp cartoon strip that used to be on the last page!

Shame we cant lobby the powers that be to adjust their format to reflect what the avaition community is craving - solid information instead of a glossy advertisement. Just my opinion...

AGS99

I'm no expert on copyright but I thought that Commonweath Govt copyright on published materials expired after 25 years. If that is correct, then all the old Digests could be scanned and legally made available on the Internet or on DVD.

Any interest?

1st Class Reading!
 

I have only 8 years of aviation experience and have never seen the 'Crash Comics' as discussed. I find the FSA publication dull reading.

I downloaded the .pdf files as above and find them compelling and relevant. Why can't we get access to these old publications on CD or by direct web download? They are truly 1st class reading. :ok:

Regrettably I do not have a full collection of the old ASD and wish I did! I remember that the old Gliding Club at which my late Father used to instruct recieved the Digest regularly and I always read them.

Like Compressor Stall I barely spend a few minutes reading the current mag. Generally turn to the IFR quiz and do that.

I'd be in that!:ok:

Pprune has surely taken over the role as an online aviation comic? :rolleyes:

An idea
 

Right - here's an idea.

We get a list of every issue of the old crash comics and post this in sticky a thread.

We find a free web hosting service (or a server with data to spare).

Those with crash comics put up a post stating the issues that they will scan to pdf. Maybe only a couple at a time - this saves doubling up. When complete they are uploaded to the webhosting service for all to peruse.

Then the first post on the sticky thread is amended to reflect those that are scanned. In time we should get the whole set.

Mods, how bout this for a plan?

Tinpis
 

You are right again. Prune IS a valuable communication medium. Sure, there is some rubbish on here, but there is also a lot of good stuff. This should be the subject of a whole new discussion, on another thread

I have a lot of safety digests, and yes everything else had to wait when my ASD arrived. Nothing else got done until I had read it.
ASD had FACTS, well researched. Sure, the autumn issues had lots of articles abou icing and bad weather,with the coming winter in mind, and the summer issues concentrated on things like density altitude, aeroplane performance and required strip lengths etc.
One time there had been a spate of helicopter accidents and the ASD carried an article saying that Australia's helicopter fleet would all be crashed in the next few years if something did not change. That certainly got the attention of the helicopter operators.
But it reported FACTS.
I was absolutely disgusted with an article in FSA which told the story of a pilot who flew a fully loaded chieftain into known icing conditions with a malfunctioning engine, climbed to 10,000 feet and shut it down. He then had trouble controlling the aeroplane, and descended below LSA in cloud. I think he and his pax were lucky to survive.
The headline for this article was"THE RIGHT STUFF"
This was blamed on incorrect rigging of the flaps in the "up" position, and the "old" instruments. (ATSB found no fault with the instrument system.)
I think FSA is a propaganda medium, like my TV set.

excellent idea!

hosting is not an issue - easy, free immediate hosting these days through such places as rapidshare etc.

I remember back around 1995 doing a gliding course at Adelaide Soaring Club, one night I was bored & stumbled across quite a collection of ASD's in the club bar. Needless to say, I devoured just about every edition I could while I was there. Fantastic reading.

I dream of having the opportunity to one day have an original hardcopy set like some of the lucky buggars posting here have... I'd settle for just being able to get access to the content on digital versions though :ok:

Interesting.

A lot of things started to go down the drain in the CAA about then ;)

Captain Midnight

Thank you - for those comments. I agree. It was the focus on 'cost recovery' and the obsession of others to make sure that the industry paid for regulation. A very interseting concept.

I was the Director of the then CAA Safety Promotion Unit when this happened (although on secondment to the AMATS team) and I worked with many editors of the ASD. I had joined BASI Safety Promotion in 1983 and worked with some good people including Harvey Ritchie, Allan Stephens (in BASI) and then later Dave Robson, Al Bridges and Roger Marchant (in the CAA). However, Mac Job was always the benchmark.

I couldn't believe it when the CAA (based on the fact that safety promotion did not earn income) decided to abolish the Unit and the ASD.

I took a package in January 1992 - yet some nine months later they suddenly decided that they had made a mistake and reintroduced the Safety Promotion function and introduced the FSM which was a totally different concept.

I had all of my ASDs from 1974-1991 bound in hardcover - three volumes. Roger Marchant has written in my last (no. 150) To xxx who got me into all this 11/11/91 - the date of the implementation of the first phase of AMAATS.

I wrote to the CEO of the CAA (the NZlander) and suggested that he might have owed me and my staff an apology given he had abolished the unit - caused havoc to people's lives as they left employment etc and sought new careers only to see the unit reestablished.

I think he replied but it was not memorable.

:ugh:

Back in 1969 I was seconded to the RAAF Directorate of Flying Safety and almost immediately thrown into the deep end with absolutely no training and told to get my backside to East Sale where a Macchi had gone in and both pilots dead. I was told to arrange my own transport but get there quick and have an interim report out within 72 hours days in case any political issues came up in Parliament. My boss was Wing Commander Jack Kinnimont DSO DFC and Bar who flew obsolete Brewster Buffalo's against the Japs. A delightful chap.

A Dakota got me to East Sale and I was led like the sacrificial lamb to the wreckage of the Macchi by the Commanding Officer CFS Jimmy Wilson. He was glad to have a DFS "expert" on the scene. Little did he know I didn't have a bloody clue where to start. DFS produced it's own equivalent of Aviation Safety Digest in those days and that was also one of my jobs. It was called "Spotlight" and the content was mainly text with appropriate photographs and was distributed to all RAAF Units. We also did "Crash Critiques" and I did one on the Macchi accident. The RAF produced a much superior product which it called "Air Clues"- but we did the best we could considering we were amateur journalists as well as pilots.

"Spotlight" magazine is still the now Department of Defence primary aviation flight safety magazine. But like the present Flight Safety Australia magazine it has become the domain of graphic designers with double page pictures with colour ridden slogans. One article I have in front of me from Spotlight is called "When the bubble bursts" and the colours are quite blinding in the apparent form of the sun bursting and a Hornet just escaping the holocaust and next page a series of bullet points headed "What factors reduce margins between the bubbles?"

The magazine cover is a klaidascope of colour with a dramatic depiction of a pilot wearing his crash hemet and a seemingly bionic eye with the huge headline "Humans in the Machine." Page 25 is a full page copy of of a Defence Poster 2007/14 with a odd looking character holding his or her head and looking totally stuffed with the title "Are you getting enough?" and further down it says in large print "Quality sleep is essential in maintaining physical and mental wellbeing." It states the bleeding obvious...

Across the page is a depiction of a chap in a yellow shirt, black trousers, red and black striped tie and a airline type eye cover (the idea is he looks tired but seems to me he is enjoying a rest in Business Class) because he is sprawled in an arm chair and at the bottom of the page it says the article is courtesy of the Flight Safety Foundation Aero Safety World.

Of course there is a centre-fold with a weird scene set up like a computer game and its called "Pilot Skills Tester - High Intensity Game -fun for player with good skill level and at the bottom of the childish graphic design artwork it says "Prioritise the pilot skill inputs on the left, right and above, when faced with flying challengers and avert "dropping an egg" - dropped eggs lose points. The winner keeps flying with all their eggs in their basket."

Huh??

At least Flight safety Australia is not THAT bad..

It is surely time for the producers of these magazines to go back to basic good journalism and offer quality flight safety information which includes real accident reports where pilots can learn from others' bitter experience. Captain Marvel type glossy pictures and silly slogans do nothing for the cause of flight safety.
Directorate of Defence Aviation and Air Force Safety please take note.
All this wasted space which could have been filled with a thoughtfully written accident reports. Seems Flight Safety Australia and Spotlight have both gone the same road of mediocracy.

Actually from a personnel viewpoint, I would suggest some rot began to set in years before that in the 1980s when all of the DCA/DOT/CAA Central Office functions were progressively relocated from Melbourne/Tulla/Essendon to Canberra. Canberra was such an unpopular destination that the Department/Authority lost hundreds of highly skilled and experienced personnel in all areas - ATC, Airworthiness, Airways Engineering, R & D, etc. Whilst a lot of good people did re-locate, a lot more actually resigned, transferred to non-aviation jobs, or took retrenchment/early retirement packages.

Apologies for being off thread.

The Airways Museum at Essendon Airport may have a full set of the ASD. I'll try to find out if they have any plans for digitizing them.

I don't know guys the FSD is pretty handy for me, I reckon I get about 2-3 mins out of it, pure enjoyment, it gives me a nice warm fuzzy feeling, as I watch it burn in my wood heater !:E

The Melbourne Trading Post suffered the same fate in a funny sort of way. Once upon a time those that used to read it cover to cover ( I know I used to every fortnight) would have realised that there where no adverts at all, purely for selling S/H, very little commecialization but now that publication too is crap !

PPRUNE is the best, lies, funny stories, sad stories,facts, BS, slinging off at each other, better than watching the idiots at a Parliment sitting !:E



CW

Licence holders
 

Also the early safety digests were only distributed to those involved in the industry, so they did not have to worry about frightening the pax .Tthe articles weere factual (or as near as you will get)

Now we get stories about how the heroic regulators, thier delegates and service providers are bravely saving the australian public.

My plan is to drop a line to the Editor of Flight Safety Australia asking her to have a long hard look at the content of her magazine. The comments from Pprune contributors to this thread will be included in the letter (letter - not email) as well as a few well chosen copies from my personal collection of Aviation Safety Digests for her to read.

The improvements I would like to see include a marked reduction in CASA/ATSB promotions, ideally no commercial advertising, deleting of Service Difficulty Reports (Airworthiness Pull-Out Section), scrubbing of aviation medicine section (it's all on the internet anyway) and a return to the general format and content of the former Air Safety Digests with their accent on well written and interesting accident and incident reports. In other words, cut the flashy graphics and brilliant coloured pages with fancy slogans.

If Pprune readers could add a few of their suggestions to make FSA more readable, it would give the editorial staff of FSA something to get their teeth into. I am not holding my breath on this project, but nothing ventured, nothing gained..

The present junk-mail thing that appears in the letter box is a disgrace.

The good old Safety Digest is still the best , plenty off good reading and well written articles. At least they had the balls to go and cover accidents in depth and give a true account of what went wrong. The old Safety Digest started to go downhill in the mid 1980's. Anyone remember the cocked up story on Twin Comanche undercarriage systems that was an article in one the late 1980's issues and was totally incorrect and they tried to cover it up!


Barkly1992 the Guru from Dick's AMATS team

Stationair - No.

You must have been 20 at the time.

Tell me about the story - I will look up the article and will make an informed comment on who tried to cover anything up. I was the manager at the time and will recall the details.

Certainly from time to time editorial mistakes were made - but haven't we all made those?

Barkly

Probably 5 years ago I was part of a 'focus' group that CASA wanted about Flight Safety Mag at one of those CASA pilot forums they put on.

The complete agreement of the focus group was to make it like the old crash comics, which towards the end as you know ended up being basically a BASI publication.

CASA basically said at the time it was BASI that withdrew from the publication and that they then started the flight safety mag in it's place, but it wasn't their place to do a 'crash' comic really because that was the ATSBs role not CASAs.

Just after they stopped the old BASI publication I called their office and asked for any back copies they had available, and they mailed out free of charge probably 40 of them back from years ago - I guess as others have noted times have changed and if you want to find it, all the data and more is on the ATSB website, but the problem is a lot of people just can't find it, or won't read it unless it's right infront of them.

I found some of the info in those old BASI mags fantastic - as the saying goes - 'learn from the mistakes of others because you won't live long enough to make them all yourself'.

As for the advertising, yup it's a pain but remember your dealing with cost recovery CASA, quite simply these days without the advertising the mag simply wouldn't exist because they wouldn't be able to justify the cost of it.

Also CASA was always keen to point out that the magazine is not just for pilots, it's also for engineers and flighties as well, whereas the BASI mag was basically just for pilots.

Puff

I am sorry you are wrong.

The ASD was transferred from BASI to the Flight Standards Division of the then Dept of Transport/Aviation in 1986. If you look at the nature of the magazine - it changed somewhat but not significantly from how it was written by the BASI editors. The one thing that we did do was to pick themes for each quartely issue based upon areas of need identified by an analysis of the accident and information data provided by BASI.

It was abandoned by the Civil Aviation Authority in 1991 - not BASI.

Wrong also about the target of the ASD - look at the issues during 1980s and 1990s - there is a wider focus and includes LAMEs and flight attendants. I suspect the problem is that no one from CASA went to the library and read them.

Barkly

EDITED TO ADD:

What you may be talking about is that I think BASI started a new Flight Safety Magazine after the ASD was abandoned and they then ceased to produce this when they were absorbed into the ATSB prompting CASA to take over the FSM.

Now that sounds right - I think!

:\

I was about to fall on my sword on the basis of your obviously far greater knowledge of the subject, but yes I was probably a little unclear in my discription of the BASI publication because they are all boxed away in the garage, can't remember it's actual 'title'

The prior publication was a little before my time but I certainly had been given some hand me down copies so i was aware of it. IMHO the BASI publication was fantastic.

Mods, how bout this for a plan?

great idea. Centaurus and I have discussed a scanning exercise on and off .. between what he and I have in archives we should have a good sample of the crash comics. Can't see any reason why we couldn't put a scanned set linked in, say, the tech log sticky so that everyone can have access. Probably need to get the nod from CASA re copyright.

C and I are overdue a coffee so this will be an agenda item ...

Totally agree Centaurus. I started getting the Crash Comic in 1970 and what a brilliant publication it was. It simply reported known facts, no points to be made, only deduced by the reader. No ads, no propoganda, just well written information. I now flick and chuck the current mag. As someone wrote earlier, change is not always good.

Talk about a walk down memory lane!
 

I have EVERY copy of the ASD and treasure them immensly.
Many great lessons there, and is a bible of sorts to those of us who sometimes heeded the message and are still around.

A large part of it was no doubt due to the work of Mac Job, but a large part was the way the piloting fraternity was viewed by both those within and those outside the industry. At that time we could land at any airfield, get fuel and not pay landing fees or massive callout charges.

However, time moves on and I suspect that most of us who swoon over the ASD are from the eras past also.

It is now different. A different set of people read the rag but the message is still pertinent, though it needs to be framed differently to appeal to a different group.

I think we do the people who try hard to put forth entertaining educational material a disservice by belittling their efforts by us trying to resurrect an age that's unfortunately long gone. :{

Better to try to be constructive and suggest ways in which it CAN be made better.

Sad, but get over it.

The good old Flight service Units always had numerous spare copies sent to them to pass on .

ZeeBee

That's a fair comment, if you can define the target group for FSA.

I learned a heck of a lot about flying by reading a neighbour's Crash Comics in the 60's/early 70's. Stood me in very good stead when I finally got my student's license and beyond.

I find little of practical use in FSA, which you could put down to it offering little that is new to an old timer, I guess.

But number 2 son, age 16 and aiming for a career in aviation, also finds it tedious and of little interest.

So who the heck is it aimed at?

Good post Zeebee but I reckon a lot of aviators or would-be aviators - young and old - would still find interest and education in the ASD if it was available online.

JT, if copyright still exists, then it would reside with the Commonwealth of Australia through the Commonwealth Copyright Administration (CCA) body, rather than CASA per se. (CASA might just give you the runaround). My non-expert interpretation is that the copyright may have expired after 25 years from publication but I could be wrong. The Copyright Act also has general exemptions for 'fair dealing' etc which pprune might be able to utilise.

Flying with mags switched off??
 

I remember one of the air safety magazines described how a C150 flew from Moorabbin to Essendon, and the pilot phoned to say he had a flat battery. The instructor tried to describe how to hand start the engine, and then thought better and said "stay there, we will come over to you."

So they took off for Essendon in a twin commanche and soon found all sorts of electrical things not working properly. They had to manually lower the gear, and discovered they had a flat battery when they landed.

The article went on to say that the cause of the flat battery was that the pilot had taken off with the magnetos switched off and that pilots must pay more attention to the checklists so they could be sure the magnetos were switched on and the battery was charged.

I had a big chuckle about that, and also wondered how sick that battery must have been to not have enough power to get from Moorabbin to Essendon.

The credibility of the magazine was destroyed, and that was the last edition. it was not just a typo. The whole article was rediculous.

I can't remember which magazine it was. I think it was the BASI one.

Good one Bushy that was the article I was referring to!

Much arse covering by varoius people, and excuses included that it was written that way to see if people trick to see actually knew their aircraft sytstems.