You are not wrong, but the flying school would be the main beneficiary of the ILS. It enhanced their sales presentation to their potential Chinese Airline customers and would save them money having it at their home base OCTA.


Other beneficiaries would be training organisations in Ballarat, Bendigo, Melbourne, Adelaide and others places that would flock to Mildura, creating airspace congestion and hazards for all GA & RPT flights.

The Federal Government money was promised at election time by the Nationals desperate to hold onto a safe seat after Sugar Daddy & Old Daddy’s controversial behaviour. Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack said “It happened because Anne Webster, The Nationals' Candidate did not let up. It happened because she continually rang me and rang me and rang me and phoned me and said, "For goodness' sake, we need this. We need this not just for our region, we need it for our future. We need it for the young pilots who need to be able to train here. We need it so that pilot training schools can relocate to Mildura."

$2 million from the Feds, $1 million from the council owned Airport & the other $1 Million from the council. Everyone is happy, Anne gets her seat in the House of Representatives, Nationals Keep the Mallee and IAA can close the deal with the Chinese Airlines.

But are they, local GA community don’t want it, Airlines don’t want it local residents don’t want it. The economic benefit is highly debateable the flying school shareholders are probably the Chinese owner or Chinese companies. How much money ends up in the local economy. How much will Mildura Tourism suffer because of this foreign owned entity.

The only hurdle left was to get the last $1 million from the council, when you have lots of money even it is allegedly embezzled that is easy, you just buy a Mayor. So, the MRCC Mayor Simon Clemence became the CEO of a flight school.

Anne Webster had previously announced the Fed money stating that the CAT I ILS would allow aircraft to land in fog, so it must be true because at the council meeting the Councillors that spoke for the ILS said this is about safety Aircraft will be able to land in Fog.

Deal done a couple of farmers think it is a good idea, no research or consultation let’s spend $1 Million of taxpayer's money.

I heard there’s a few 172s up for sale

Yup, 10 I believe

Only 10? There were initially 8 172s with an additional 48 ordered for progressive delivery over 2020/21. They clearly don't want to flood the market and depress prices.

Not to mention there was no community consultation. Deals done behind closed doors.

Community consultation about what?

About the International Flying School starting at MQL which is owned by the council - hence ratepayers. All hidden agenda

You need to take off that tin foil hat.

I smell disgruntled (sacked) employees!!

Not really. They are disgruntled for a reason. The truth is coming out.

Certainly, looks that way, but someone mentioned 35 instructors, 6 HOOs and a company name change every 3 months in the last 10 months. Must be something going on there.

Mildura flight school operations Compliance
 

Can anyone on here explain how an instructor can fly 90 or so hours at night without NVFR and not lose their license or attract a severe penalty(including whomever authorised him to do so). A couple of hours I get, but the amount this individual flew is a blatant breach and makes a mockery of the legislation surely?

That's a question for CASA, assuming this place was audited surely they would have picked up on this? If so did they choose to ignore it (imo I highly doubt CASA would choose to just ignore it) or this actually wasn't a case and is just baseless accusations?

They obviously knew what they were doing as the aircraft didn’t fall from the sky!

It’s still VFR, but it’s at night... you can hardly lock them up for that. Sounds like a paperwork thing rather than someone not possessing the required skills and or experience.

Anyone who holds a licence should know that flying VFR at night without NVFR Rating or IR is ..... totally illegal

Dude...........FFS, are you serious?

So does anyone here know if the instructor in question had an IFR rating?

Like I said and Strainer has eluded to, it sounds more likely to be a paperwork type error.

The poster doesn’t mention if the instructor was flying at night or instructing at night either.

I get told a lot of things in aviation, the most surprising ones are: “the regulations are grey about xxxx”, or “ I know the regulation says X but you can do Y”, or “the regulator doesn’t really mind”, or “I know it’s technically wrong, but just do it anyway”.
‘
To that I now add “it’s just a paperwork thing”.

Not being a sky god and considering that these are ultimately matters of criminal law, I find this deeply unsettling.

Sunfish et al, read the above. It says that the instructor did not lose their license or receive a severe penalty. If it was “totally illegal” etc, then perhaps what the poster (I note their first post in pprune) has written, then maybe it was BS, or indeed as I said, “just a paperwork” issue. By paperwork I mean signed off to do so.

There’s a big difference between not actually holding a NVFR rating, versus holding one and teaching others to do so!