[Peetwo]

Half steam - thanks Minnie.

No one can be this purblind, condescending or cynical; not without help.  If this farce is a Skidmore brain fart, then the HR people who hired him need to be sued, or the senior mandarin who briefed them needs beating to death with Pink bats.  Whoever is advising the Skidmore-Twist child about survival in the real world needs some rectal readjustment.   Lets have a reality fix, an alignment with some form of grown up sanity:-

.."CASA Director of Aviation Safety Mark Skidmore and his executive managers will face the aviation community in a forum to discuss what challenges aviation safety faces over the next 15 years." Couple of points in there:-

  “[will] face the aviation community” etc. Not meet, not confer, not consult; but face as in face the music, of face down.  Either way guilt or combat implied.  Bollocks 1

..”[challenges] aviation safety faces over the next 15 years. Etc.  Not how we can move forward and progress.  Reality is just how is industry expected to continue to stay viable, despite the challenges presented by CASA lunatic regulations.  But the real clanger is no mention of how CASA intends to implement the changes recommended by Forsyth; DEMANDED by industry, authorised by the DPM over the next 15 months, those totally ducking ignored by CASA, Skidmore and his advisors.  Bollocks 2.

…”[Skidmore] says the forum is necessary because of the ever-changing landscape of aviation safety”.  Wrong again, the same things that have always killed aircraft, still exist.  Regulation and paperwork help the ‘regulator’ avoid liability and abrogate responsibility.  Not one single, solitary thing CASA have presented in the past 20 years has had a tangible effect on, or improved safety. Quite the reverse in many instances, especially in operational matters.  Want to discuss those?: No, perhaps it because you have NFI what they are.  Someone tell these halfwits we are striving to mitigate risks, not shag the elusive, mythical dragon of ‘Safety”.  Bollocks 3.   

.."[All] of us involved in Australian aviation face the challenges of change. Aviation is continually evolving in areas such as advances in technology, new approaches to safety or better ways of doing business," he said.   Oh yes; this through ever more complex, hidebound rule sets I suppose.  Rules which now need to go through a parliamentary process to be changed; three and four tiers of ever more complicated, rigid regulation, which cannot ‘move with the times’. Like the 2300 + pages of law in Part 61 (MoS is law dopey).  Bollocks 4.

…"[None] of us can afford to sit back and accept that the way we do things today will necessarily be the way of the future. "  Where has this fossil been hiding for the past 20 years, in a sheltered workshop, cocooned by luxury, adored by his fans and never having to shout a round.  Yes, comes the cry.  Then I recommend a strong dose of reality, one which will not be given because the industry is too ducking terrified to break wind lest the CASA goon squads turn up next audit and feed their entrails to Wodger for ‘attention’.  Bollocks 5.

.."[That] means we do need to look and think ahead about what is likely to change, what change will mean and how change can work for us."  NO IT DOES NOT, ‘We’ need to start by repairing with the broken promises and damaged hopes.  Has this ‘knuckle’ got any idea how much work went into the Senate inquiry into Pel-Air, how much effort was lavished on Forsyth, how much bastardry was used on Airtex, Barrier, Polar etc.  Fix that you (deleted).  Bollocks 6.

Aye well, no matter, wonder boy is going to fix her up, in three hours in Mildura of all places. Perhaps it’ll be foggy and he can have a captive audience from the surviving 737’s to fill out the original audience of four , (two pilots, the re-fueller and the office cat) before swanning off for an executive lunch, high fives all round and feeling of job well done.  Bollocks 7.

I can’t bring myself to delve into the dot points; not fair on the key board, which has survived yet another thumping. 

Has this bloody fool any notion of what he has to face down.  Not the upfront, happy, clappy, meet, greet and get him out of the joint type; but the tea room reality type, the board room despair type, the Chief pilot frustration type, the Check pilot liability type, the dark determined type; or even the those who detest vermin type.  Nope, none of that; not for this DAS.  Now famous as one who couldn’t hit the side of the barn, with a shovel full of horse-pooh with the wind behind it.  Someone, anyone, for pities sake tell him there’s real work to be done and stop buggering about with feel good road shows, tent revivals and tambourines.  FFS I can now even understand old Terry’s impulse to belt him one; and to understand anything that Terry did, is, of it ‘self, remarkable.

One of them has to go, either him who approves this condescending crap or whoever writes it. Seven counts of Bollocks more than qualifies for ‘the’ caption. 

Toot-toot.

On behalf of Sandy the following was his response to the Hitch article (above):

Sandy Reith •

No one who has any inkling about the appalling state of General Aviation and the CASA GA wrecking ball, incidentally which daily consumes hundreds of thousands of taxpayer and GA industry dollars, will go to another CASA gabfest waste of time meeting.
Never and not until we see a genuine commitment with reform regulation change in place.

The minimum, stress minimum, action required by us is the full implementation of the Forsyth report reforms. In addition we demand one specific reform immediately; the same medical requirements for private pilots as has just been enacted in the Congress of the USA. This one reform would show good faith.

To anyone who thinks this strategy is unproductive or unfair, you are invited review the facts, the demise of GA by a thousand cuts continues unabated and we have no better way of protest. In April 1989 they promised "more business-like procedures....with view to reducing requirements and their associated costs, to a minimum."

They have been dishonest, its now much worse, no quarter and no cooperation without good faith, and don't waste your time and money.

& also here on this Oz Flying article: CASA Directive "A Breath of Fresh Air": Rex

Sandy Reith •


Yes well of course Rex will gladly pat CASA on the back, a touch of gloss might help with Pelair casting long shadows behind the facade of smiling executives. Trouble is on the same page here we note that the CVD pilots are suing CASA and General Aviation is still on the ropes over Part 61.

CASA told us in 1989 that they were going to reduce costs to industry and to regulate in a more business-like manner. Wait until it happens before pouring on the plaudits, if you live long enough.

Which I also covered back here - Final Act of Bastardry & Betrayal. 

Update: Also hot off the Yaffa is this from Dougy:

Editor's Insights 9 July 2015

09 Jul 2015
Doug Nancarrow

The Dick Smith ‘push’ has brought out a US ATC expert Jeff Griffith to review our airspace and ATC services this week.  I believe the consultant, no doubt highly paid, and at least two reporters were flying around eastern Australia to places like Ballina to examine what’s happening and report on the problems as he sees them.

Also included was a session at Bankstown Airport where assembled GA was ‘briefed’ on the issues.

And the assault continues in the media, with News Limited journos getting at least three pieces published prominently in the past week, the latest today. The ‘push’ is seeing Dick Smith staying out of the headlines, but one after another GA people are trotted out to instance the dangers inherent in our airspace management or the cost burden of mandatory fitment of ADS-B etc. This week we even got a serve about the phasing out of NDBs, something that’s been around for the last 10 years.

And the blowtorch has been turned on CASA now too, with some of the chatterers declaring this week that DAS Skidmore has failed to live up to expectations and has been captured by the CASA culture. Whether or not such comments are on the mark, once again I’d like to see the debate held face to face and not ‘off stage’.
 
With Airservices, ATSB and CASA all being hammered one way or another now you’d have to wonder how long the Minister can stay out of the fray.

Err Dougy don't you think that is the point of the whole exercise, example see here from near the start of the Dick Smith campaign: Dick Smith QON on the UP (26 May '15)

Warren Truss – What Does He Believe In?

---

Can anyone advise me if, in the ten years Warren Truss has been either Minister or Shadow Minister responsible for aviation - he has ever articulated a view on any substantive issue that he believes in and that affects us in aviation? That is, has Warren Truss ever identified with one statement or one issue that he could be held accountable for?

Over the years I and others have given Warren Truss very thorough briefings on everything from airspace to rescue and firefighting, to Unicoms and Part 61 and the unique, costly ADS-B requirements for general aviation. Yet I don’t believe he has ever made one statement that illustrates his views on these issues. For example, has he ever made a comment about Part 61? Or the ADS-B mandate for general aviation aircraft?

Warren Truss is paid more than $300,000 a year and knows that, just like his predecessors, after he completes his term he will no doubt end up with a prodigious and highly paid position on the Virgin Airlines Board or chairing some type of fracking company destroying our valuable and productive rural land.

From time to time journalists phone me to ask my view on some aviation regulatory issue. I suggest they phone the Minister, but the journalists invariably don’t even know who the Minister is! Why a person would want to be in this important position but then actually not have any stated view that could help Australia is beyond me.

I am planning to give a number of talks around Australia and I want to know if ever in the last ten years Warren Truss (Deputy Prime Minister - unbelievable!) has made a statement in relation to aviation that he could actually be held accountable for. That is, I want to find out if there is one statement Warren Truss has ever made that depicts what he actually believes in relation to aviation. Or has he been cautioned by his political advisors not to go down that route, you know, in true “Yes Minister” style - i.e. the dishonest, never-say-anything-that-actually-means-something approach? But surely there must be something!!

or even earlier here: Nick Xenophon - The surrogate Minister for Aviation?? post#23

“If the government doesn’t do what it said it would do and remove red tape, then we’ll look at standing candidates,” he said.


“Starting a political party is the last thing I want to do, but if I have to, I will”.

The 71-year-old says he won’t be standing or putting money into the party, which has yet to be registered, just his time.

“We’ll have some good policies and some great young people as candidates,” he said.

Smith has long campaigned against the foreign ownership of Australian companies, and for a cap on population growth.

He says general aviation is being driven to the wall by over-regulation and desperately needs reform, but it’s being stymied.

“There a one-way ratchet of increasing bureaucracy. I see the industry, which I love, being destroyed by increasing red tape and costs,” he said.

“I was out at Bankstown [airport] the other day, where there were thriving flying schools, and now I’m peering into locked hangars.”

Smith says he reached the tipping point last year, when new compliance regulations for private pilots, known as Part 61, were introduced.

“It’s the complete opposite to removing red tape, instead adding millions of dollars in compliance costs for the industry, but with no safety reason.

“It will increase my flying costs by about $5000 a year and I’m just a private pilot. Now I can afford it, but this will further destroy an industry that could be employing thousands of Australians,” Smith said.

“The Coalition said they were going to do something about it two elections ago. I’m sure the prime minister is as frustrated as I am.”

Err...no further comment required...P2