[Peetwo]

A message from Dick - "Get out, get out now!" 

Sent: Friday, 30 October 2015 4:21 PM
To: All@ios.com.au
Subject: from Dick Smith re: Industry raises concerns with CASA about delayed regulatory reform processes 

Dear All 

It’s not the slow pace of Reform at CASA, it’s the fact that they are still heading towards adding to costs.
 
For example, we know the disaster of Part 61 when in a little over a year’s time every single aircraft that flies IFR will have to have ADS-B fitted.
 
No country in the world has such a requirement.  Even in the USA where there is a requirement for ADS-B from 2020, that’s another 4 years away. 
 
There is no requirement for ADS-B to be fitted for aircraft below 10,000 feet in D, E or G airspace unless the aircraft is within 30 nautical miles of a Class B zone, such as Los Angeles or San Francisco.  This clearly means that most small aircraft that operate either IFR or VFR will not need ADS-B in the USA.
 
I was lucky enough to have an hour with the CASA Board on Thursday, 15th October 2015 and even though the Board seemed keen on getting a delay with this ADS-B mandate, it was quite clear that Mark Skidmore has no intention of giving any type of delay or dispensation.

Remember, there is no measurable safety issue being addressed because we have never had two aircrafts in cloud collide in this country.
 
Please pass on this email to everyone you can.  I absolutely recommend that people get out of aviation as quickly as they can, sell up their businesses and close down because any damage now will be minimised compared to the damage that is going to happen because of the dogmatic attitude of CASA between now and the next 4 years.  The damage will be horrendous, far more businesses will go broke and lots more people will be out of work.
 
It is quite clear with Mr Skidmore, because of his military background, that there will be no measurable reforms in relation to removing unnecessary costs.  There is no suggestion that the Minister will put any pressure on to allow a viable General Aviation business and even if the Minister does not stand again, I have not seen the slightest suggestion that his replacement has an understanding that major cost reductions must take place if the General Aviation industry is to remain viable.
 
AOPA have asked for a delay in the introduction of the mandate for ADS-B for all aircraft that fly IFR and they have got nowhere.
 
On my recent flight in my Citation to Longreach, I was forced below flight level 290 on the last 300 nautical miles of the flight, even though the controller told me there was no traffic that could require the change in altitude – I was flight planned and operating at flight level 400.
 
As you can see, it is nothing to do with safety it is all about sheer bastardry and destroying an industry.  The people at Airservices are worse, they have no understanding of how their costs for unique requirements can effect General Aviation.
 
I have presently got my Citation on the market and plan to sell my other aircraft.  I would suggest everybody does the same if they don’t want to lose very large amounts of additional wealth and resources.

Regards

Dick 

Dick Smith
Phone +61-2-9450 0600
PO Box 418, Terrey Hills
Sydney  NSW  2084  Australia

Well that's depressing

Gobbles, Dick Smith taking his bat, ball, flying toys & pulling up stumps - BOLLOCKS! It is simply not in his DNA. IMO Dick is simply disappointed that his initial campaign has fallen on the very deaf ears of one inept Miniscule that is obviously totally disengaged with his constituency the Bush. 

IMO Dick needs to re-energise his batteries, redirect & refocus his campaign on decimating the man and his party who could actually do something about this impasse that is symptomatically destroying an industry. Kharon highlights how Dick should refocus his campaign (careful Dick "K" can be a little pointed.. )

ADSB as bait.

I can agree with Dick on some of the points made above, not all.  ADSB is not ‘the’ killer.

His comments on the CASA board and Skidmore are spot on, as it happens.  Once again we see the results of a weak, toothless, disengaged Miniscule; an emasculated Board, a McComic look alike running the show (only more venal, disingenuous and duplicitous) fully embracing, fostering and promoting the very culture which is in dire need of reform.  

I must avoid specifics, to protect sources, suffice to say, if ever the Senators or industry heavyweights catch even a glimpse behind the subterfuge and understand exactly what is truly going on inside the core, they would be stunned.  The Board is stunned, stalemated and discovering just how powerless and inutile they truly are.  You may discern the facts for yourself; watch the way small things are managed, it will give you all the clues.  Alternatively, follow the CVD story – all there, writ large.  It will not be ADSB that kills this industry; it will be Truss, Skidmore and Aleck sitting in clover watching the slow, agonising death throes, enjoying the show.  

ADSB is a sideshow, a distraction to suck attention away from the Forsyth review and it’s non implementation, to cover the introduction of a rule set which is unbelievable and the protection of the chosen few.  

The time taken by the Senate committee to even get answers to QoN, let alone useful truthful answers gives you an idea of how the game is played.  By the time any of this disgusting rule set gets within a country mile of an inquiry – it will be too late.  Far too late for this industry.  Industry must bear some of the blame, for sitting by, protecting what they have, so afraid to rock the boat that they passively accept rape as inevitable, even settle back to enjoy it.  

Sorry boys and girls, but ADSB will not kill off this industry; it will be the law, the new law, the enforcement of that law, the selective interpretation of that law; and, prosecution under that law which sounds the death knell.  

Enjoy ‘em while you got ‘em; can’t fly ‘em around a prison yard.

Toot toot.

  
Bravo Ferryman - I think 

FACT - General Aviation is a major lifeline of the Bush.

Regional & Secondary Airports and the GA aircraft that use them provide many essential services - mail, freight, jobs, medical services (Flying Doctors, EMS Helos, Angel Flight charity etc) - to local communities. Without the town airports, people from the Bush become that much more isolated,  businesses stagnate & eventually towns shrink and die - FACT.  

Next - Dick needs to get back to what he does best, disseminating the 'message' to the common man. Like he did so eloquently here:

Senate Inquiry - ASA Performance 18/08/15 - Dick Smith Part II

[u]Senate Inquiry - ASA Performance 18/08/15 - Dick Smith Part III [/u]

Senate Inquiry - ASA Performance 18/08/15 - Dick Smith Part IV

From off the AP..  

Nick Xenophon - The surrogate Minister for Aviation?? #23


Thought I'd rehash on here a comment post I put on Ben's excellent run of articles related to PelAir..

PAIN_P2

Posted March 25, 2015 at 8:21 am | Permalink
Top comment comet! Especially this bit…

“…This is the reason politicians look at the airlines as their masters, and not the travelling public. It’s the reason why airlines in Australia can get the government to do their bidding. And it’s the reason that the fiercest objection comes from an independent politician, who doesn’t receive those party ‘donations’, while the big parties sit on their hands…”

Almost as good as this from Ben’s Crikey insider article…

“…What about the Pel-Air crash anyhow? Where is it at?
Where to start? A rotten-to-the-core safety regulator, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, hid the truth about its own culpability in setting up the administrative vacuum in which Pel-Air was able to break dozens of rules or obligations; the safety investigator the Australian Transport Safety Bureau tried to pin it all on the pilot; and the ATSB’s Canadian peers told them they had screwed up, also revealing in passing that the final report was preceded by turmoil within the ATSB as it wrestled with its direction in the final months before it was released.

That ATSB report is now being redone, unfortunately by the ATSB, possibly adding to the damage this episode has done to Australia’s air safety reputation, and to the lives of all onboard the Pel-Air flight, including Bernie Currall, the patient, who died earlier this month…”

Bravo Ben!

On the auntypru.com forum there are several threads dealing with the whole PelAir debacle but for those with an interest for AAI forensic examination this one will be of most interest – The search for investigative probity: http://auntypru.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=10&pid=236#pid236

Cheers P2

Then I noticed this article from Business Insider Australia - [/url]Millionaire adventurer Dick Smith is threatening to get into politics

Australian-made advocate, adventurer, pilot and one-time electronics entrepreneur Dick Smith is threatening to launch a political party aimed at the Senate unless he sees reform at CASA (Civil Aviation and Safety Authority) and in the government’s general aviation policy.

 Smith announced during the launch of the Salvation Army’s Red Shield Appeal today that he has registered the business name The Dick Smith Party. The adventurer and pilot, who founded Dick Smith Electronics, and went on to launch Dick Smith Foods in 1999, has been a vociferous critic of the Australian aviation industry’s regulators and told Business Insider he was frustrated by the bureaucracy and its rules.

“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, [url=http://www.casa.gov.au/scripts/nc.dll?WCMS:PWA::pc=PARTS061]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....

Now you may not agree with all or some of Dick's ideas - on the administration of aviation safety in this country - but there is no denying that he has got it right in large parts throughout that article... 
 
Maybe Dick you should be talking to Nick it sounds like you might have a few things in common... 

And also off the UP:

Dick Smith (from the heart ):


Philby, Burgess and Maclean in the Aviation Bureaucracy?


camber3 – you are basically correct when you state,

Quote:
 “I've heard it's a party to address the country's sustainability problem worsened by population growth levels, lack of foresight in planning, plus reduction in bureaucratic red tape”.

About a year ago the people involved in the Sustainable Population movement asked me if I would lend my name to a political party they were setting up. Their pretty thorough research had shown that they would get a couple of senators up if they had my name tied-up with their Party. I refused because I believe having more and more political parties is a disaster for our country – especially considering that some of them seem to be pretty loopy.

However, times have changed and I’m so bloody angry at the way the present Government is destroying general aviation – an industry I love.

Yes, I can assure you I can afford all the extra costs of Part 61 and just about everything else they throw at me. However, for me to walk around Bankstown Airport and see the hangars locked-up of businesses that were once thriving makes me feel sick.

I have been “duchessed” for the last fifteen years by people in the bureaucracy. In fact, I am beginning to feel that within the aviation bureaucracy is Philby, Burgess and Maclean. Remember after World War 2 the British and American intelligence services could not work out why, despite an enormous amount of work, they could get nowhere in the espionage game. Of course it was because these three and others within their organisations were undermining everything they do.

No, I am not suggesting there is a “traitor” or “communist supporter” within the bureaucracy, but I think there are at least three people who have been there for years and have deluded themselves into believing that no changes are necessary. This delusion has become so overpowering that they do everything they can to stop the move to reducing costs.

And they are successful. We have a Government that said they are going to reduce unnecessary costs and red tape when clearly the opposite is happening in aviation.

Yes, the substantial interest of mine is the fact that politicians tell us we can have perpetual growth forever in our economic system when anyone with any brains knows this is impossible. We have to actually live in balance.

Of course any party with the name “Dick Smith” this will be the major issue. In other ways it will be very much middle-of-the-road as I am. However, if they are going to use my name I will make sure they have a damn good aviation policy including that of the Coalition two elections ago, viz

Quote:
Australia will become a leader in the world in flight training and recreational aviation bringing tens of millions of dollars of overseas export income to Australia.

Of course, this would all be completely solved and I would not have to lend my name to a party if the Government did what it said it was going to do, but for some incredible reason I don’t see this happening.

To see the locked-up hangars at Bankstown storing junk and knowing that tens of thousands of jobs could be provided around Australia is nothing short of criminal as far as I am concerned.

The Philbys, Burgesses and Macleans may have deluded themselves into deriving some form of satisfaction but they have certainly been successful in undermining an otherwise viable industry.  

Time gentleman (& Ladies)..time!
& from about page 3 off the P7 - SHAME for Truss.

Dick I truly understand your frustrations & your disappointment with your latest meeting with the Board & Skidmore's diabolical attitude to your (& industry) concerns - it is simply gut wrenching to watch an industry you love be decimated by bureaucratic & government apathy...

However you knew it wouldn't be easy, that's why you registered your party in the first place is it not? You now know the target - the dopey Minister & his beloved National Party so let's bring it on...


MTF...P2

Ps An Dick stay off the UP you know it only frustrates you..