Horatio,
That means you are very fortunate, that you do not deal with different offices of CASA.

Just two examples might get the flavour:

(1) The Jeppesen service not acceptable as a source of information for en-route and terminal area operations.
(2) A maintenance controller in one region not acceptable in another.

And another one I have just remembered, a copy of ICAO Annex 11 not acceptable to meet the requirement to carry a copy of Annex11 on international operations.

Engineering-wise, I could go on for pages.

Tootle pip!!

Leafie,

I would 100% agree with you. It would seem ludicrous and outright impossible to have that happen………………….. except it does.

I can give you an an example of the countries leading engine shop, who when implementing their DAMP policy used the template provided by CASA, which was ideally suited to the task, and have a series of NCR's issued over it. It took much dummy spitting and calling in the previous DAS and cornering him before anything was done.

I could tell you about one lonely old not used paint tin at the back of a cupboard being used as the reason for shutting them down for a few weeks conveniently prior to testifying at a coronial too. But that backfired on them because the "fill in" blew them out of the water :E

They have form. You are lucky to have some sensible folk. No matter how well MS works, and he seems far better from my experience, there will be some out there who do not play the same ball game.

You also have another advantage in your skill set that wise men at CASA would admire and respect and the fools fear. ;)

A MOTION: Confidence or incompetence?
 

Skidmore had time before taking up his position to be fully briefed on the situation at CAsA. This included a plethora of Senate inquiries, the ASRR, Pel-Air, Part 61, the Regulatory Reform Program, the entire Industry in a state of lacking any confidence in The Regulator and the incumbent's arrogance at Fort Fumble.

The Forsyth Review has NOT been addressed and this should have been the simplest and quickest item on his agenda to garner some Industry support. Marc D Stoop, (AOPA President) also notes this in his latest report.

It is rapidly becoming apparent that he has no intention of doing anything except mouth platitudes and call for further input. Either this, or he is being instructed to do nothing and is therefor not in control of his or our destiny.

The Regulatory Review process is evidence of either a planned obstruction of a once vibrant industry, or those in charge of the revision are incompetent.

It appears to be an exercise in wasting taxpayers time and money. The costs with time eclipsing the money if an audit of failed industry economic input is taken into account.

I am now of the opinion it is incompetence and our problem resolution is simply to advise the fare paying passengers their air travel safety is being compromised by incompetence.

There are hundreds of examples and all one needs to do is find a common thread without recourse to individual claims.

I believe that common theme, be it in the courts, the AAT or by individual FOI or engineering oversight, vexatious intervention or other is...
INCOMPETENCE.

Skidmore will perish unless he addresses this claim in it's infancy and good luck to him with that. I can only support a vote of no confidence in him if he doesn't immediately address the existing vote of no confidence by the industry in The Regulator of which he is head.

The CASA Board need to know where industry stands on this matter.

Supporting a vote of no confidence is probably the most desirable way to take this out of the hands of Minister Truss who appears to have gone missing in action. My suggestion to The Moderators is to Poll this motion. The results either way will put to bed industry opinion.

I'll second that.

CC

Folks,
Duckie has put the link up for you, get in there and have your say, don't whinge and bitch after the Part 91 goes into place with all the nasties that are in there.
After all, sod all was said about Part 61 until it was too late!!
Tootle pip!!

Yep, an internet forum no-confidence vote ought to do it, all right.

I defy the possibility that anyone can fly an aircraft without transgressing at least one strict liability offence in the proposed part 91.

Lets start with fuelling alone as an example. Can't you just see inspectors running out to check your fuel gauges as you arrive somewhere?:

CASA can stick part 91 up its backside, period.

To put that a more polite way; the only response possible to the proposed part 91 is a complete No, Nyet, Nada, Nein - complete and total rejection of the entire draft. To attempt to cheese pare - nibbling round the edges of this turd in an attempt to make it palatable is doomed to failure as well as demonstrating, as Doubleyeweight points out, that we must collectively be suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome if we even try to reason with these bastards.

Start by removing all the "strict liability" clauses. After that it may be possible to have a discussion.

As for you AVM. Skidmore, If you think that there is anything in part 91 that does anything to enhance flight safety at all, then you are as bad as the rest of them.

I could go on about the excuses CASA may make for this "consultation" draft - that it is a lawyers "ambit claim" document and we didn't really mean it, but that is not the way to begin a cooperative discussion in a spirit of openness and good faith. You cannot get to a good result by starting from a draft like this!

Stick it up your arse CASA! That is my comment.

What!?

All that fuel stuff says, in essence, is that you have to have sufficient fuel on board to safely conduct your flight, and if you don't, you're doing the wrong thing.

Don't say that they don't need to legislate for common sense things - of course they do, just like there have to be laws for road speed limits and the like.

In an age of litigation, they don't really have too much choice to not close up loopholes.

"Sure I ran out of fuel, your honour, but I honestly didn't mean to."
"OK, fair enough - case dismissed."

AOTW: crap!

The regulation requires you not to use your fixed reserve on pain of criminal conviction!


I will not accept your invitation to debate this matter. CASA can stick it up its arse!

So, despite careful planning, etc. if I use just one litre of my fixed reserve (as determined by the CAsA inspector) then I am a criminal! Wow, I need to learn to wing walk so I can dip my tanks in flight!

(AOTW) Timbo,

I'm with Sunfish on this one.

For AVM Skidmore….from a voice form the past…Skates: Fix the bloody shambles Australian Aviation has now become. It is now an international disgrace.

cheers

That's right: If you land at your intended destination with 29 minutes' reserve, when you could have gone to a suitable alternate and landed with 30 minutes' reserve, you are a criminal (times 2).

Fortunately, no one's ever going to be able to prove it.

Ironically, the number of aircraft that suffer fuel exhaustion hasn't changed that much, despite what the rules used to say and now say. This will be just another change without a difference. Will the aviation community and the public be safer as a consequence of this 'reform'? The answer is a categoric 'no'!

That's the key point, AOTW: The silliness (and wastefulness) of a system which produces more and more rules and offences, with no change to the practical outcome.

Whilst I want to give AVM Skidmore the benefit of trust and judging by performance, he must realise CASA is the Telstra of the present day (ie reactionary, inwardly focussed, anti customer/client, the aviation community are the enemy, feeling CASA are there to service it's employees first and number one, etc). A 19th century bureaucracy at it's most reactionary.
He must not join them but needs to look at them from an outside perspective and a new broom must be weilded.
As said, CASA is an international and local disgrace. And as said above, look to NZ for an example of how to do it and how not to overcomplicate it/re-invent the wheel.

Here is what the current rule says:What is the safety risk created by this provision, the mitigation of which is the provisions of Part 91, and how, precisely, is that mitigation going to be achieved as a matter of practicality?

If there are no coherent answers to those questions, it's a completely pointless (and wasteful) exercise.

Exactly :ok:
As usual, a prudent pilot will do prudent things regardless of the rules. But If CASA find they want to nail some poor sod, they now have the tools to turn you into a criminal.

Just like the firearms game, a criminal breaks in to your house, steals all your guns, yet you get nailed for not securing them properly :ugh: Even though you complied with the regs to begin with. Of course the fact the crime knew who you were, where you lived and what you had because they had a copy of the registry, is no defence to you! :=

This country is slowly getting screwed up so bad by "legal departments" I think most people are headed towards adopting civil disobedience because no matter how good you are you are never going to win, so why bother.

Part 91 is going to be the same.

I know of two examples of vexatious prosecutions that began as a result of the accused doing nothing except refer to an FOI a "********". Both have suffered immense losses. I can't find anything in the regulations preventing one expressing such a wide held opinion.


It appears CAsA don't take criticism well either.

Folks,
Re. the 30m Fixed Final Reserve, that has a very interesting history --- but the ICAO intent is that the engine (s) will, at least, be running at touchdown. It's all about order of accuracy and normal tolerances for gauges, flowmeters etc, and actual fuel SG.

In fact, based on the record over many years, I actually strongly support the concept of FFR. It has been Qantas (and Boeing and IATA etc) SOPs for over 30 years, so CASA can't be accused of rushing it.

It is quite correct, and intended, that all operational reserves are on top of the FFR.

However, from a strict liability criminal offense point of view, how is 30 minutes calculated???

What the hell does "normal cruise speed" mean??

At the present time, the FFR and most other holding reserves are calculated at the holding fuel flow,(for FFR, at 1500') which you can "legally" calculate for a particular weight and flight conditions.

There is no shortage of similar nonsense throughout Part 91.

The bloke who is now the Project Manager is not responsible for creating the present Part 91, he is one of the "good guys" in CASA, but please read the whole thing, including MOS, and comment --- bury him in comments.

Tootle pip!!

I found one single solitary thing in the part 91 draft that was good.

for bloody years now I have had problems logging in to naips to get a weather forecast.
evidently I use naips so infrequently that my password times out.
so every time I try to use it I have to reset the password.
but...
according to the guy in airservices I got to assist me one time my licence number is so old it is outside the range of licence numbers that the software deems to be valid.
so on every attempt to reset the password it refuses me as an invalid user.

throughout the part 91 draft there is a BOM website address that I was never aware of. it allows access to aviation weather forecasts bypassing the schemozzle that is naips logins.
(Australia's official weather forecasts & weather radar - Bureau of Meteorology).

finally!!!!

I'm not inviting you to debate, Sunfish. However, you're reading it wrong I think, and going off half-cocked on your rant.


It says in essence, you must:

1. Not take off unless you've planned to have your fixed reserve remaining at the destination

2. If in flight you won't have your fixed reserve remaining when you get to the destination and an alternate is available, you must not keep going to the destination

3. If you are going to land with less than your fixed reserve and you have a radio, you must declare an emergency.

So what is it about landing with 29 instead of 30 that turns the circumstances into a crime and an emergency?

The people who run out of fuel under the current rules are going to run out of fuel under the new rules. There are plenty of ways to ping the pilot now (setting aside all of the real hurt they're gonna get when the insurance doesn't respond ...)

What practical outcome does the proposed new rule achieve that isn't already achieved by the current rule?

And I note the irony of 20+ years of work on outcomes-based rules that produces a prescriptive rule to replace an outcomes-based rule. :ugh: