It's not about "agreeing" it's about misrepresenting matters of fact with respect to the technique of benchmarking which is settled science.

You might be interested to know that there is an international association for air traffic control that regularly benchmarks all its members performance. Australia is not a member, funny that.

I benchmarked Telecom Australia against ITU benchmarks in a confidential review before they became Telstra and before they were privatised. The results were simply awful on all the metrics. Their response? " Australia is different". It wasn't.

To put that another way, I know special pleading when I hear it.

if you look at the sheer audacious incompetence that is CAsA the only similar precedent would be the rum corps of the initial settlement.

people I know see my posts here and ask why I hate the ex-raaf so much.
I dont.
in fact my brother spent his entire working life in the RAAF.
what I hate with a passion is government incompetence.

if you look objectively at the incredible misfit between reality and australian aviation legislation the cause of it all is that incompetent government ministers have hung their trust on the only flying heros the knew. the RAAF.
so CAsA and its precedents have almost entirely been staffed by the retired RAAF.

what would the RAAF know about civilian aviation? next to nothing is the answer.
they have never flown aircraft in a civilian environment.
they have never flown civilian aircraft.
they have never owned aircraft.
they have never maintained an aircraft they owned.
they have always flown in an environment of infinite money.

just as a barometer I asked my brother what he thought of Air Vice Marshall (retired) Skidmore now that he has become head of CAsA.
I thought the reply sounded like something something a fckuing muppet.

so 'arm out the window' why do you stridently support this corruption we know as CAsA?
it wouldn't be that you work for them out of the cairns office would it?

what I can never understand is that CAsA can't see how badly they have stuffed up.

No, it wouldn't. I've never worked for them, and the only dealings I have with them is to pay licensing fees and to see them on the odd occasion they come around to the GA outfit I work in.

I'm ex-RAAF but have also worked a good while in GA, and have seen both the good and bad on both sides of the fence, so to speak. There are plenty of ex-military types who have had a lot to do with civil aviation, so when I see prejudiced and quite frankly rude comments about how we're all bloody hopeless, I see red.

Dick, there is more than just number increase. The ratio of IT, HR, IR and managers.

Folks,
Anybody want to try a comparison with people to registered aircraft.
Or, in Australia, just active aircraft, which is about half those registered.
The comparisons ain't good!
Very roughly, FAA (not ATC) 24 aircraft per body, Australia about 8.5, based on BITRE estimate of active aircraft for 2015, and the FAA figure since the fleet wide rego/re-rego check, which eliminated most "hangar queens".
Tootle pip!!

Raptor,
Come to think of it, those FAA numbers cover a lot of bodies engaged in technical research and development, basic aircraft certification and many other tasks that CASA does not do, so the comparison makes us look even more inefficient.
Tootle pip!!

"Dick, there is more than just number increase. The ratio of IT, HR, IR and managers."

Half man half Tim Tam, CAsA have a tried and true principle they apply.
Its based on the principle of "Who checks the checkers" which basically means the industry has to employ twice as many people as needed to do any one job.

CAsA extends that principle to "Who manages the managers".
Unfortunately this would expand the employment of managers into infinity, obviously unsustainable, they'd run out of people to employ as managers.

They get around this by employing people as managers then after a suitable period of time they leave the organisation and become "Consultants" on vastly inflated remuneration, a win win situation for everybody.

They can keep their employment numbers down to politically reasonable numbers, and everyone gets a place at the trough.

Most pilots fly safely and don't break the law, either.

Kaz

As one who started flying commercially with an ops manual of around twelve pages, no chief pilot interview, I can attest that bureaucratic topsy grew exponentially. If anyone doubts that CASA is over manned and gouging then consider the following:-

My attempt to transfer my training AOC to a couple that operated my flying school. He was CFI, they used their own aircraft, same airport, same students, same training area. Would CASA just allow a transfer? Oh no, they were made to go through all the hoops, the whole nine yards. Thousands of dollars and months of total rubbish. Bureaucratic make work and fee gouging for not one iota of benefit. I am still disgusted at the treatment of this enthusiastic and conscientious couple, as they struggled to make a living out of GA.

Why not instructors free to instruct as in the USA, no unnecessary, super expensive and massive time wasting Air Operators Certificate paperwar requirements? Flying training is the bedrock of Australian aviation. Couple this much needed reform with the brand new relaxed medical requirements just enacted by the US Congress and hey presto GA can fly, jobs, aviation business and enough Aussie pilots so 457 pilot work visas will not be necessary. Growing the job sufficiently will mean more GA friendly voices and voters.

Good point Wren
 

I agree with your sentiments.

When I started to fly some 20-years ago, I came from a business background, which followed 20-odd years in the public service. On meeting casa, I had never seen such a poor attempt to "work-with" people as was demonstrated.

In coming to aviation with a technical teaching background, good mathematics skills, management expertise and a proper interest in aviation [not just flying], I hit a brick wall of casa staff who had no idea as to how to achieve reasonable outcomes, correct exams, supportive attitudes etc.

It has just got worse and worse, despite trying to interface and achieve improvements.

We must immediately, Mr. Jeff Boyd, as you have been given a very big baton to carry - give air to the ASRR [David Forsyth] report and quickly move on.

FAA/ NZ rules for all.

Advo-cate,

Hear hear! if not there will not be an industry for CAsA to regulate.

I'm in sunny Italy at the moment, but if someone can assemble some numbers from reliable sources we can start our benchmarking when I get back or sooner if you do it yourself.

Numbers: hours flown, movements cycles or flights, number of GA aircraft, regulator employees and contractors, pages of regulation, non conformances with ICAO. Accident rates, fatality rates, number of pilots, medicals, renewals, costs of regulator. For Europe, USA,,uk, nz and anyone else we can find. From that we can derive some benchmarks

Someone should look up international air traffic regulators website, confirm their benchmarking program exists, I think I found it did, get a hold of their benchmarks if available and apply them to AsA, then QON to Xenophon about why AsA isn't a member and doesn't benchmark and doesn't share those results with industry.

Hard data can then be perhaps rammed up the proverbial since benchmarks don't lie.

Enough ipad scratching, off to Perugia Tommorrow for a cooking course.

Wren, A key difference between USA & Oz instructor systems is that the FAA tracks pass/fail rates for each instructor who recommends a student for a test under Part 61. Part 141 instructing is more akin to the Oz system where the *school's* pass rate is monitored and the school is expected to monitor each instructor. Many schools are not 141 schools though, or offer both 141 & 61 training, so each instructor within the school is somewhat his or her own standalone Part 61 operation.

If an instructor operating under Part 61 has too high a fail rate then his or her instructor privileges can be removed. Similar situation for a school providing instruction under Part 141.

Dick said:

Dick, it's called a WGMTMTWKWTDW. (We Got More Taxpayer's Money Than We Know What To Do With).

Frankly, I don't feel we can be truly safe until CASA officers are paid $500,000 pa with $100,000 bonuses like that nice lady at ASA. :)

If only they were paid bonuses based on the size of the GA fleet and hours flown?

Yes. Now that's the best idea I have read for a long time!

Not really such a good idea Dick, The number of check flights required to keep crews and training personnel up to the requirements of Part 61 is already unsustainable for any company with a mixed fleet, with cross endorsed pilots.

All CAsA would do to ensure their bonuses would be to increase the number of checks per year. You'd have GA aircraft flying a thousand hours a year doing checks and 100 hours per year doing revenue flights. That's if your crew have had at least the past week off before the check, and get the week after the check off as well to meet the new CAO48 rules.

This isn't an easy comparison. While (based on the FAA Annual Report) you can identify the number of controllers, its not so easy to identify the equivalent roles to AsA in management, Navaid maintenance, etc. Also, The FAA employee numbers include many job functions that we have in the ATSB. It also has a certification function which is largely absent here. And in Australia, AMSA provides some of the services provided by the FAA in the US).

The 2014 report http://www.faa.gov/about/plans_repor...14-FAA-PAR.pdf lists: (CASA numbers from 2014 Annual report after /)

Total Employees: 45,543 / 871 + 4475 + 30 (ATSB) = 5376
No; of pilots: 600,000 / 36,158
No. of Airports: 540 / 191
No. of aircraft: 202,000 / 15,529

In aggregate the ratio comparisons are (USA / Aus)

aircraft per employee: 4.43 / 2.9
pilots per employee 13.2 / 6.7

So, we don't look so good.