Queensland Government
 

If you are currently looking for a position as flight crew, it's very simple! Just apply.!!
You can always say no later on; but once the application process closes, it's too late.

latest revolution
 

Director Safety and Quality actually retired to drive his Winnebago around the State and Oz. Change of management probably coming as the PSBA being broken up with the helo ops going to Polair.

Where did you get that info? Genuine question, not a sh!t stir. PM me if sensitive. Ex-POLAIR.

Highly unlikely that polair will merge with qgs

I don't think they can hire until the management change after 31 October?

For a start, because of the nature of the flying, operating under any type of an AOC or having a commercial operator involved will never work unless the pilot ranks are increased by a factor of at least four.

Al check
 

Al check email

I dunno about that...the Labor Pollies seem to like to get their backsides on the Govt Hawker 850 leather seats (Ironic since they slammed Joh BJ for the Hawker they labeled the “JOH JET” when he was around).

Swapped it out for a Westwind when Labor took power from Joh, but must have realised there was more bragging rights with a Hawker than a Westwind so swapped the swapped Westwind back for a Hawker. (Did that one have gold taps too?).

The Police Aviation side always seemed to be the poor (...super poor?) cousins to the Govt Aviation side.....Crime don’t pay I suppose, especially If you are writing the cheque and you could swan around in a very nice modern Hawker 850 XP (..ps..don’t forget to tell the passengers to hide the wine bottles, could be a little embarrassing to revisit “winegate” during the election.)

Is the Police Citation still working?..It always seemed busy years ago...a rego check shows it at 21 years vs the Hawker at 14 years...further proof that crime don’t pay.

I think the Citation is against a fence or in the hangar corner out of engine hours.

To run the Airwing commercially 601 is correct, need more pilots to cover 24/7.

They had a ex CASA chap create a Ops Manual ect to enable an AOC. Got as far as casa saying they are ready to give it a tick to start but Airwing ( QGA ) decided to let it rest. Management pilots came and went, some got as far as casa approval, some were taxpayer endorsed on Hawker then left, some endorsed on Citation then it ran out of engine time. One would guess the hourly cost to the taxpayer must be a lot higher these days. Maybe Lifeflight should take it over

Informative post Merle2.

Question....If the Citation IS out of action, and as it is a now a combined Air Unit under the QGAir Banner, if say an urgent Police Callout X BNE was needed to the regions would the Hawker be used, or is that left for ministerial duties?

Ministerial duties used to be near the bottom of the pile. Could have changed in the last 20 years.
Does a esky wanting to be picked up in Auckland still have it over a pollie in Wepia?.

Or a bottle of wine at Lockhart River...

The Hawker or King Air are used on police work as required and yes the transplant flights have highest priority.

As far as I know, no one ever tested the contents of the bottle - could have been water for all we know.

Like that for 30 years.

Yep Citation sold, QPS get to use the KingAir at times but Hawker is kept for others. Technically esky still has priority over pollies.

the dictators, sorry Managers, have own interests in mind. Very sad existence for crew. Morale is through the floor.

Oh by the way. How did they get an AOC with a HOFO that is not rated on anything that they have? How?

They haven’t progressed to activating the AOC as they delayed even though casa was ready to push button.
Management pilots ( advertised as Chief Pilot but no approval so really just another pilot at that point ) come and go. You can have a AOC with the CP not endorsed if you nominate a type expert on staff ( as I understand it ). Just to add for a oddity the “CP” gets less pay than a line pilot as far as I’m aware. Interesting setup.

So have they filled all the positions that were advertised recently?

If its government employees in government aircraft why would they need an AOC? You'd be crazy to go down that path if you didn't have to.

Crazy yes, but as explained to me a great way to create a new empire within the Govt and Casa were also keen to expand their control over large private operators. Win win for stupidity

I’m told it is the worst it has ever been now they have JG in control
He was responsible for more than enough damage in his previous positions.

Yep they have an AOC, issued in August I’m told. Now I hear that JG is even over ruling engineers. What a cluster.

Holder Name: STATE OF QUEENSLAND REPRESENTED BY PUBLIC SAFETY BUSINESS AGENCY
Town/City: PINKENBA
State: QLD
AOC Holder Country: Australia
Type of AOC: Aerial Work, Aircraft Charter, CASR 142
AOC Application Status: Issued
Issue Date: 21/05/2020
Expiry Date: 30/04/2022
Holder Name: STATE OF QUEENSLAND REPRESENTED BY PUBLIC SAFETY BUSINESS AGENCY
Town/City: PINKENBA
State: QLD
Type of AOC: Aircraft Charter
AOC Application Status: Issued
Issue Date: 26/08/2020
Expiry Date: 31/08/2021

New rumour is air wing is now part of police so I guess AOC will have to be corrected

Advertising for flight crew on AFAP website.

Cairns - B1900 maintenance assigned to third party. Sign of things to come?

They have been hiring crew and aircraft from a third party organisation as well. Would make a lot of sense to just contract the whole thing.

They've managed to privatise (sorry contract) helicopter rescue in Qld, at 30% more cost than the Gov rescue setup with the exact same aircraft and crewing. Would be interesting to see how much a private operator could screw out of the Gov for FW services as well. Possibly even the same profit-driven private operator. Love that Government money! Bottomless well to supply the endless trough.

Do you know the actual overall costs of the government operation, or are you just floating this to get a rise?

Also, how much downtime has the government operation had without penalties applied? How much aircraft downtime has the contracted company had by comparison due MX/crewing/whatever?

I don’t work for either but just curious.

RW services were recently reviewed by the Govt. Info from that.

That’s a pretty vague deflection. I know government rotary wing assets often have sat grounded for extremely long periods in years gone by with little to no recourse.

Had that have been a contracted operator, penalties would have been huge.

I’m not for, or against either model. Just pointing out what has happened in the past.

Looking at the fixed wing section they appear to be run reasonably efficiently. And given the nature of the work when there is a break down chartering out the work isn’t an issue. The only questionable part is, quite often when they are short of their own pilots they bring in contract crew from a 3rd party who are not QG air employees. How they manage to call it private ops is beyond me. CASA are unofficially turning a blind eye to the whole thing.

Not sure of the point you're trying to make, unless things have changed, flew for a private operator, maintenance, C & T etc was all done by the operators employees, pilots brought in from a commercial operator were a feature for many years to fill slots alongside the in house company pilots.

Not deflection, just not seeing any need to go chapter and verse on a Rumour Forum. You want more info, it's easy enough to find.

The contracted commercial profit making operator is subject to performance obligations and failure penalties BECAUSE they are a contracted, commercial, profit making operator. The Govt operator clearly is not and their KPIs suggest they do at least as good a job for a lot less tax payer money.

Rumour that funds for up to 4 new aircraft to be announced in the Qld budget.

Well that may or may not be true, time will tell. Things are only going from bad to worse, in the last few months 3 engineers and 2 pilots have departed from the FW side of house. Can’t stand the toxic environment any longer apparently. So who is going to drive and maintain the current fleet let alone any new cabs.

How would a commercial operator do this.
Fly a minister to Longreach and arrive midafternoon.
Settle in for the night. Get a call that the aircraft is required for a heart/lung retrieval from Nelson in NZ.

Plan and fly back empty to BN.

New crew plan the NZ flight.
Fly to Nelson.
Wait a minimum of 6 hours on the ground.
Sleep in the aircraft.
Fly to Auckland for fuel and Customs.
Fly back to Brisbane.

The NZ flight is way over the duty limits for any AOC operations.

How would an AOC holder conduct that flight.
Private operations is the only way to conduct that flight unless you positioned a crew in Nelson.
Organ retrievals do not give time to position crew.

The above is not fantasy. It does happen.

Could they not arrange for road transport of the organs to CHC to meet the aircraft as it lands? Makes more sense on every level when you take the constraints that you mention into account. Contrary to popular opinion, crews on Private Ops also suffer from fatigue.