I removed myself from the board of directors in or about 2005 out of frustration to the ruling Troika. (the words of Baxt, duties of directors came to mind). The place went to hell in a hand basket when that mob neglected their duties to the shareholders by accepting the ASIC in step with an expected increase in membership by becoming, (or trying to be) "the" accredited issuing agency. Not in the members interests obviously given it has become the revenue raising thing it was designed for. Prior to that it was run as a milch cow for wannabe globetrotters and phallic extenders.


Now, years later a bloke tells it as it is to the mob causing most trouble for the members and the head honcho of the antagonists becomes the victim and some Wayne Kerr's on PPRune decide it's all enough to give one the vapors.


Give me strength.


At last AOPA tell CAsA to get stuffed and Skidmore is the victim. Give me more strength and hallelujah to the tree huggers.


Coming from me, the fact that AOPA have been bold enough to question the wisdom of the gods, it is high praise indeed for Mark DeStoop. Long may he reign and long may other alphabet soup organizations be inspired by his attempts at getting heard on behalf of his members.

Well now that you Frank, have given this email such publicity AOPA will have to investigate this breach of privacy of a citizen and probably the person who sent it on from AOPA will lose their job, probably rightly so too.
But if it makes you feel better I'm sure you have no problem with your behaviour.

Folks,
It seems to me that AVM(Rtd.) Skidmore is reacting to the fact that AOPA has just had access to, and been heard, within PM&C. The new Minister for Infrastructure and Transport will be getting the message from "the boss".

Sadly, AVM(Rtd.) Skidmore has, in my opinion, previously made it very clear that criticism of CASA and individual officers of CASA is not acceptable to him. See his correspondence with Dick Smith, published on pprune, as one example.

Sadly, it would be reasonable to think that the underlying message of the Forsyth Report has not been accepted by the CASA DAS/CEO. We know, without shadow of a doubt, it has just bounced off the "iron ring".

CASA need wholesale "enforced cultural re-alignment", not defense of the status quo. In part, that is what "Eureka" is all about.

Tootle pip!!

The Skidmark...
 

"..that criticism of CAsA and of individual officers of CAsA is not acceptable".. to him.
Poor dear..he's reading from the McComic script. Is he a clone? Seems he is.:mad::mad:

If the kitchen is starting to heat up, its not before time..and if he finds that heat too much, he can always leave by the door or window.

While the CAsA gig for few years for the retiree may have looked good ...and very lucrative, you have to wonder at his 'due diligence'
A drover's dog could have smelled the rot in CAsA even before the front door.

But now he's in and sucked further in by the Iron Ring of long term trough dwellers, he'd better wake up to the new reality because the GA peasantry are talking back.:ok::ok:

We've had 30 years of having CAsA crap shoved down the industry's throat, NOW is the time for a major fight back.:ok::ok:
Because if we dont, GA is dead.:mad::mad:

Malcolm says its an exciting time and we need new ideas and innovation..so lets have it for Aviation because I want to be able to shout Eureka !!!:ok:

Yes, behaviorally the fight is on. Eureka!


Tally Ho!

Thanks for posting the link to the letter - it was very well written.

I can see why he resigned. AOPA have struck a nerve. Keep it up.

Struth. One question to AOPA is why has this taken so long?

Despite what I have written previously about this organisation, if they keep this up I am back in. Thanks for the link. If this is why Skidmore quit AOPA?

The Tragedy Of Mark Skidmore….
 

Well folks, I think AVM. Skidmore will live to regret his symbolic act of resigning from AOPA, assuming that the AOPA letter is the cause. The only people cheering will be the iron ring of reactionary CASA managers who have created the mess that is Australian aviation regulation. AVM. Skidmore has aligned himself with them either out of solidarity or disgust at AOPAs studied insolence in writing directly to a Minister.

What this action by AVM Skidmore means is that regulatory reform prospects at CASA are now officially dead, D_E_A_D because without government acceptance in principle of the actions proposed by AOPA, GA and recreational aviation is finished and AVM Skidmore has just refused to support reform.

I did predict this. AVM. Skidmore has been fobbed off by the oldest bureaucratic trick in the book - reorganisation. He will be ground down slowly by the bureaucrats , allowed to think he is making progress, achieving small victories. In later years he will reflect on the opportunities lost and will most likely date the start of his failure by his knee jerk reaction to the AOPA letter, after failing to prevent AOPA writing to the Minister in the first place.

AOPA is right. The Act must be rewritten. CASA needs to be broken up. The regulations need to be chopped up and replaced by FAA equivalents.

Hey aroa, as you would be well aware, you're not quoting Skidmore here but Leadsled's opinion! This is a whole new level of self-fulfilling silliness.

The sentiment of the AOPA letter is good, all of the points are sound. The 'Skidmore quitting the organisation' issue and the dreamed-up malevolent motives being attributed to him by some posters are totally separate things.

At the very least it's a conflict of interest for him to be a member if he's also high up in the regulatory system, which could just as easily be his motive for resigning as some imaginary demonic desire to kill GA!

Folks,
See the front page of The Australian this morning, and the lead article on page 7, this whole issue is now very public, and not limited to us aviation types talking to ourselves --- I hope.
Tootle pip!!

The section of the letter concerning ASICs is very relevant. Many airport operators have also expressed a desire to wind back the display requirements particularly at regional airports. I understand that the previous minister was receptive to the idea but clearly a few Sir Humphrey types got in his ear and he did something of a backflip on it.
Dick I believe knows more about this very point.

• Matthew Denholm
• The Australian
• April 5, 2016 12:00AM

http://www.pprune.org/cid:[email protected]
Tasmania correspondent
Hobart

Air safety boss Mark Skidmore has been accused of a spectacular “dummy spit” after quitting the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, apparently over its criticism of aviation red tape.

Mr Skidmore, aviation safety director at the Civil Aviation ­Safety Authority, sent an email to the AOPA at 8.02pm on Saturday advising it to: “Please cancel my membership with immediate ­effect as I no longer want to be ­associated with AOPA.”

Mr Skidmore did not give a reason for the resignation but it came a day after AOPA president Marc De Stoop met federal Major Projects Minister Paul Fletcher to present him with an expert briefing paper exposing “inappropriate … regulation that has decimated our once-thriving general aviation industry”.

Mr De Stoop told The Aus­tralian he was surprised and dis­appointed that Mr Skidmore, a former Royal Australian Air Force air vice-marshal, had ­resigned from the association.

“It’s unfortunate because it wasn’t a personal attack on Mr Skidmore; it’s just that we couldn’t get any significant traction (dealing with CASA),” Mr De Stoop said.

The 130-page “Project Eureka” briefing document is scathing of aviation bureaucracies, blaming creeping over-regulation for a dramatic decline in aircraft movements at secondary airports and in aviation mechanical engineering apprenticeships.

In a letter to Mr Fletcher, ­posted with the report on AOPA’s website on Friday, Mr De Stoop claims “government bureaucrats, through lack of understanding of the need for businesses to be commercially viable, have failed this industry”.

The letter quotes an author of the report, aviation safety expert Ken Lewis, as warning that CASA would seek to bury the document.

“The politicians will send it to CASA for guidance; CASA will then defer comment as long as they can, which will be after any coming election,” Mr Lewis’s ­advice reads.

Mr Skidmore fired off his email to AOPA the following evening.

Mr De Stoop said he did not believe Mr Skidmore’s resignation was an attempt to intimidate aircraft owners or pilots, but other aviation experts warned that may be the consequence.

Veteran aviator and former CASA chairman Dick Smith told The Australian he thought Mr Skidmore, who flies his own Globe GC-1B Swift, a stylish sports monoplane, was sending the wrong message.

“It’s outrageous that just ­because he’s an active general ­aviation pilot and for the first time in 10 years the AOPA actually criticises CASA, he as the director immediately resigns his membership,” Mr Smith said.

“It’s so pointed. Everyone will hear about this and the message will be, don’t join AOPA or identify with it.”

Mr Skidmore was understood to be travelling overseas ­yesterday; he did not respond to The Australian’s calls and emails.

Mr De Stoop said he understood that Mr Fletcher had been asked by Malcolm Turnbull to ­investigate ways that cuts to general ­aviation red tape could revitalise the industry.
AOPA represents 2600 general aviation aircraft owners and pilots in private, commercial charter and airline operations.

Mr De Stoop said its Eureka report recommended privatising Airservices Australia and using the proceeds to help revitalise the industry, while “radically” streamlining regulation.

A list of true luminaries... and Dick Smith! Is Marc De Stoop serious?

Firing off emails definitely has a better effect that just sending them...

One part of me sympathises with your position. The other part of me says you deserve everything you get. Dick's ranting, as said by someone else on the myriad other threads involving him, is just shooting himself/the cause in both feet with a shotgun. Skates has been there for a heartbeat in the big scheme of things and you are smacking him around like he's Fidel Castro. Pull your heads in.

Where can I get my hands on a "stylish sports monoplane"? For goodness sake...

Bloggsie,
Why would you doubt his seriousness?? Because you are not a "luminary"?? In my opinion, you certainly project certain characteristics of the Illuminati.
Perhaps Marc should be thanking AVM (Rtd.) Skidmore for his assistance in achieving such instant nationwide publicity for Project Eureka.

Arm,
My dear chap, drawing attention to AVM(Rtd.) Skidmore's written statements about criticism of CASA or CASA officers is simply not just "Leadsled's opinion".

Indeed, I was reminded by an old friend, just a few minutes ago, of an audit NCN/RCA/Whatever that said that the subject of the audit was an "anticasaist", so the idea that CASA is above criticism (and above reproach) is common enough within the ranks of the officers in CASA, and the troops in general.

Fortunately, being "anticasaist" is not yet a strict liability criminal offense, but give it time. Perhaps S.18C of the Racial Discrimination Act applies.

Tootle pip!!

This whole episode has prompted me to join AOPA. Hopefully they can apply enough pressure the politicians to consider the whole regulation situation..

Alex

Leddea, I know you secretly hold me in high regard, but that's not the point. Including Dick Smith in that list of Australian aviation luminaries is, in my opinion, not appropriate.

Now let me think, who was it that created the regulation-reform monster all those years ago?

Bloggsie,
As it all started in the modern era with the "Lane" report in the mid-1980, is this to which you refer? If so, blame "Dusty" Lane, Ansett DFO.

Or perhaps you are referring to the recommendations of Minister for Aviation Schwartz, in his report to Parliament on the Air Navigation Act, in 1966, recommending we adopt FAA style regulations?

Or the Darling Report (Labor's Elaine Darling, MHR) HORSCTs report into Sports Aviation?

Or perhaps the results of the "Seaview" and "Monarch" reports/ Royal Commissions and the Morris Inquiry that then Opposition Spokesman John Sharp, and then Opposition Shadow Minister for Transport, Senator Warwick Parer, put together as the Liberal/National aviation policy, "Soaring Into Tomorrow", in 1996.

It is true that AOPA (along with all the other alphabet soup aviation associations that were not unions) supported "Soaring Into Tomorrow", and John Sharp's CASA Review, 1996-1998 was the substantive result.

Tootle pip!!

Flew a helicopter solo around the world, 1st non stop balloon flight across OZ, flew around the globe by the poles, and more.
Get back to us when you've achieved a fraction of what Dick has.

History lesson..
 

AOTW... not quoting Leady at all.
Angry Man The McComic had a spray about exactly that in a Senate hearing in 2011.
Prob have a transcript buried in my CAsA archives somewhere.The **** Box.
Thus my statement.
His syntax and vocabulary got so tangled during his verbal vomit / upchuck he couldnt even complete the sentence... its a classic.
No pass for Pilot English there.!

And did he protect his illegal bastard staff ....indeed he did.!
Illegal behaviour tossed off as 'breaches of the CAsA code of Conduct' ....that silly document that is a sick joke.:mad:

And to get'em off the hook...cost the taxpayer 1/4 mil plus. Beyond outrageous.:mad:
But thats the Iron Ring and the 'public purse' for ya ! Anything goes. :mad:

You should pull yr arm in...its illegal to drive with aotw... and I'll bet there's a CAsR, instrument, directive, CAO or part with strict liability for doing it from an aeroplane as well.
Mind yr head.!