[thorn bird]

A little snippet that perhaps illustrates what happens when your
Aviation Act is changed to "Foster and Promote" rather than "Safety regardless of cost"

Compare the pair.

Australia's Part 61 which imposes cost upon cost and the US Part 61 which actively seeks to reduce costs, yet still achieves better safety outcomes than we do.

This article also illustrates what happens when their regulator actually listens to their industry and responds to their advice, rather than branding them as the ills of society and ignoring them.

New FAA rule cuts costs of training and proficiency

JUNE 28, 2018 BY GENERAL AVIATION NEWS STAFF LEAVE A COMMENT

The FAA published a final rule June 27, 2018, that allows broader use of technology to reduce the cost of flight training and maintaining proficiency without compromising safety.

According to officials with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, these regulatory changes are expected to save the general aviation community more than $110 million in the next five years.

The FAA’s final rule includes many changes, particularly to Part 61, which were originally published in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) in 2016.

“Making aviation less costly is fundamental to AOPA’s mission, which is why we pursued these changes that will save the general aviation community more than $100 million over the next five years alone and help to make pursuing and advancing a pilot’s certificate more accessible to everyone,” said AOPA President and CEO Mark Baker.

The Part 61 overhaul will take effect beginning July 27, 2018, with all changes implemented by Dec. 24, 2018.

The changes will reduce costs to pilots in large part by leveraging advances in avionics, aircraft equipment, flight simulators, and aviation training devices.


The new regulations recognize the effectiveness of modern technology and ease past restrictions on its use to further reduce the cost of flight training, as well as proficiency maintenance. They are also crafted to give the FAA more flexibility to approve the use of advanced technologies still to come, AOPA officials note.

The FAA estimates that pilots and operators will save up to $113.5 million over five years (in 2016 dollars), with the most significant savings to come from allowing instrument-rated pilots, who use advanced aviation training devices (ATDs) to satisfy flight experience requirements, to enjoy six months of currency rather than two. That part of the Part 61 overhaul takes effect Nov. 26.

The extended currency interval will also allow instrument-rated pilots to use any combination of aircraft and ATD to accomplish the flight experience required for currency. The FAA estimates that these changes to FAR 61.57© alone will save pilots $76.1 million over five years.

In April, the FAA discontinued the requirement that commercial pilot and flight instructor candidates conduct their single-engine airplane practical test in a complex airplane, and the final rule published June 27 takes that a step further.
As of Aug. 27, commercial pilot candidates can use “technically advanced airplanes” in lieu of, or in combination with, a complex or turbine-powered airplane to satisfy the 10 hours of required training in these airplanes. This is estimated to save trainees $2.8 million over five years.

AOPA Director of Regulatory Affairs Justin Barkowski led the association’s effort to analyze and respond to the NPRM that preceded the final rule.

The points successfully pushed by the association include pilots being allowed to use a combination of complex, turbine-powered, and technically advanced airplanes to satisfy the 10-hour commercial pilot training requirement, instead of having to choose one of the three. Also, sport pilot instructors will be allowed to receive the required flight training hours in an ATD to obtain the endorsement required to teach instrument skills.

Barkowski said he expects the final rule to prompt discussion of what, exactly, a technically advanced aircraft is, and noted that the FAA drafted the final rule to accommodate advances in technology.

“Generally speaking, aircraft equipped with an electronic primary flight display (PFD) and multifunction display (MFD), as well as a two-axis autopilot, would qualify as a TAA,” Barkowski said. “The language in the final rule gives the FAA discretion to approve other types of TAA in the future without further rulemaking, but we encourage everyone to check the definition to see if your aircraft qualifies first.”

[P7_TOM]

BUT DOES DUTTON HAVE THE BALLS?
actually he has no choice

Larry Pickering

Four-time Walkley Award winning political commentator and Churchill Fellow, has returned to the fray over concern that the integrity of news dissemination is continually being threatened by a partisan media.

BLOG / FACEBOOK
Wed 1 Aug 2018 10:53:12 am/714 COMMENTS



When voters discovered that the objectionable little boy, Roy (who previously flummed the seat of Longman) had assisted Turnbull and the Stick Insect to knife Tony Abbott, they threw him out. They are not stupid. Therefore what should the message be for other suicidal Turnbull supporters?

                                             

Wyatt didn't do his homework

They too are due to be slaughtered at the next Federal election and their seats handed to Shorten without so much as a whimper!

                                                           

Likely leader

Peter Dutton, currently in the marginal seat of Dickson, adjacent to Longman, now has a life or death decision to make at the next joint Party Room meeting. He needs to challenge Turnbull… his hat should be flung on the floor along with Abbott’s, Kelly’s and Jim Molan’s (yes, a senator can chuck his hat in the ring). So too can Barnaby Joyce, but he will only be trying to talk sense to Liberal boneheads as he needs the Nats to reinstate him over the useless Michael McCormack first.

Peter Dutton, a fair dinkum Conservative, would win that contest, Turnbull would resign and again attempt to join the Labor Party. Once again Labor would reject him as a self-centred invertebrate.

                                                           

Must go now

He will then be confined to speaking at Lions' Club dinners where he would be free to wallow in his own bullshit in exchange for a few unconvincing hand claps.

Immediately on top of the Coalition’s “to do” list would then be to walk away from Paris, no, run like hell away from it, as other more sensible nations are doing, and slash immigration to a sustainable level with an emphasis on merit-based non Muslims.

Dutton would then can Turnbull’s stupid Snowy 2.0 nonsense and revisit Abbott’s plan to open up the north before China does, damming rivers and redirecting the Stick Insect’s donations of millions to Indonesia’s farmers back to Australian farmers as grants rather than loans.

   
Dutton would then set about doing the stacks of stuff that Abbott should have done.

To put the current political scene in context; voters detest Shorten, but Conservative voters detest Turnbull even more! The Liberal Party will die if it stays glued to the lunatic Left, just as Fairfax did.

So don’t argue with voters, just do it!

[Kharon]

Pickering’s take on the current round of schoolboy antics by those who supposedly have the best interests of this nation at heart. – HERE -.

Makes you though, don't it? Then there's 4G and 7D slobbering and weeping on Twitter - Oh, where's that bucket, quickly now...............

[thorn bird]

A short history of aviation in Australia and analysis of why its dysfunctional, rather brilliantly paraphrased by our mate, lead Balloon on the UP.

Perhaps some good could come from as many people as possible sending this to their local member with a reminder that an election is coming.



Hi 73.

The system of aviation safety regulation in Australia was originally based on the system of maritime safety regulation in Australia. Indeed, things like the ‘rules of the air’ - who gives way to whom in the air, what side to overtake on and the colours of aircraft Nav lights originate from the maritime collision regulations.

The system of maritime safety regulation in Australia was and continues to be, in essence, implemented through the Navigation Act and subordinate legislation under that Act, in the form of Navigation Regulations and Marine Orders. So, when aviation became a ‘thing’ the Commonwealth naturally passed the Air Navigation Act and authorised the making of subordinate legislation under that Act, in the form of Air Navigation Regulations and Air Navigation Orders. Flying machines and floating machines are just flying machines and floating machines.

Although I’m temporarily jumping forward to the present day, it’s worth doing so to note a couple of fundamental differences between the contexts of the two systems, which differences have resulted in what is now the most convoluted and complex aviation safety regulatory regime on the planet. (Don’t take my word for that: Talk to people who’ve flown in other countries. Print off the Civil Aviation Act, Civil Aviation Regulations, Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, Civil Aviation Orders, Exemptions that aren’t done by Civil Aviation Order, Manuals of Standards and see if you can work out what it means. The people who say the system of aviation safety regulation in Australia is not that bad are, almost invariably, people who have little-to-no experience in other countries or make money out of building and running the system and who, therefore, make money out of ever-more complexity.)

One of the fundamental differences is that the maritime safety regulator is bound to perform its functions in a manner consistent with Australia’s obligations under agreements with other countries. There are lots (and lots) of international conventions relating to maritime activities. SOLAS, STCW, MARPOL, Tonnage, COLREGS.... The aviation safety regulator is also bound to perform its functions in a manner consistent with the obligations of Australia under international agreements. However, the ICAO Convention is practically the only one relevant to aviation safety regulation. Further, and fundamentally importantly, the only obligation of Australia under ICAO is to notify of differences between SARPS and the domestic requirements in Australia. This is an open door for complicators and ‘safety’ zealots to come up with bright ideas to make aviation in Australia ‘safe’.

In short, the maritime safety regulator in Australia just gets on and does stuff in accordance with the international conventions whereas the aviation safety regulator in Australia spends its days cogitating over whether it knows better than what’s in ICAO SARPS. Lucrative for the cogitators; not so the regulated.

A related issue to the first is that the international conventions relevant to maritime activities specify pretty strict and limited circumstances in which exemptions may be granted. Exemptions are exceptional. However, exemptions are an essential part of the Heath Robertson contraption that is the Australian air safety regulatory regime. One of the most important questions that must be ascertained when flying in Australia is not so much “with what laws must I comply?” but rather “from what laws am I am exempt?”

The second fundamental difference has its basis in human psychology and a well-known and entirely uncontroversial phenomenon called “cognitive bias”. There are many forms of cognitive bias, but one is the human propensity to overestimate the probabilities of awful events, resulting in damaging rather than beneficial mitigation of those risks. Air crashes are such events. Germanwings is the most awful of awful events.

Each accident results in ever-more complex rules and restrictions, even if there is no causal and cost-effective positive connection between the rules and restrictions and the risk, because humans perceive the probabilities of air accidents to be far higher than they objectively are, and accordingly clamour for or tolerate responses that are more costly than is justified by the objective risk, or worse, are counter-productive. For example, there will be no limit to the individual rights sacrificed in the name of prevention of another Germanwings. Every pilot will be, presumptively, suicidal, and any hint of a problem will be considered a potential disaster, just to be “safe”. And few if any pilots will be willing to raise any issue that might be construed as a mental health problem.

Anyway, back to the evolution of the aviation safety regulatory system...

It is important to bear in mind the difference between the safety regulation of aviation on the one hand and the economic and international relationship aspects of aviation on the other. In principle, anyone who meets the safety standards should be able to fly wherever they like. However, there are economic and diplomatic and other consequences of letting people fly wherever they like, carrying whatever cargo and passengers they like. So there is regulation of these aspects of aviation as well.

Because of this difference, the safety regulatory and air traffic/flight services provisions of the Air Navigation Act, Regulations and Orders were ‘split off’ to become the Civil Aviation Act and CARs and CAOs, effective 1988. The licensing of scheduled international air services to and from and within Australia remained (and remains) regulated by the Air Navigation Act for economic and international relations reasons, and the safety of aviation within Australia became regulated by the Civil Aviation Act and subordinate legislation under that Act. The Civil Aviation Authority was also created by that Act. Note that at this point the air traffic control/airservices function was also part of the Civil Aviation Authority.

Then followed a number of controversies (about which volumes could be written) that resulted in the CAA being ‘split’ into the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and Airservices Australia in 1995. The theory of this split was that CASA would focus only on safety regulation and Air Services would focus only on the provision of air navigation-related services. The practical reality has been different, but the reasons (about which volumes could also be written) are not necessary to delve into for your purposes.

Although the desirability (some said the necessity) for reform of the aviation safety regulatory regime had been discussed and agreed in the abstract and some work done before 1995, the split of the CAA into CASA and Air Services, and the context in which that happened, provided impetus for a concerted effort to ‘reform’ and ‘simplify’ the aviation safety regulatory regime.

What was supposed to happen was that the Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 were to be replaced by the Civil Aviation Safety Regulations 1998, and that because the latter were going to be simple and outcomes-based there would be no need for CAOs or exemptions.

Over 20 years and a conservatively-estimated $200 million later, the outcome is a Heath Robinson contraption comprising the Civil Aviation Act, Civil Aviation Regulations, Civil Aviation Safety Regulations, Civil Aviation Orders, Manuals of Standards and Exemptions that, along with directions and other instruments, is many time the size and complexity of what it was supposed to replaced. Appallingly, the process is only about 30 to 40% complete. Even more appallingly, it’s never going to end. There is no longer the corporate competence to get it done - too many complicators and too few simplifiers involved.

Most appallingly, all of this has produced no causally measurable improvement in aviation safety that is justified by the price paid - not only in dollars for the ‘reform’ program itself but in the destruction of the aviation industry (though it must be acknowledged that ‘security’ over-kill and the sell-off of airports and aerodromes and their conversion into monopoly cash-cows and shopping centres have substantially contributed as well).

On the ‘hierarchy’, the Civil Aviation Act contains laws with which you must comply. That Act also contains a power to make subordinate legislation. The Civil Aviation Regulations 1988 and the Civil Aviation Safety Regulation 1998 are subordinate legislation containing laws with which you must comply. The distribution of subject matters between the 1988 and 1998 regulations has no connection with any coherent criterion. It’s just the random consequence of where the regulatory ‘reform’ process is up to. Remember: It’s all supposed to end up in the 1998 regulations in 1998, no 2005, no 2012 no.... (As I said above, it’s never going to end.). Some Civil Aviation Order impose conditions on AOCs and other are notifications of exercises of powers in the Act or regulations - for example, the CAO 95 series contains exemptions from compliance with the regulations. Manuals of Standards contain detail (lots of detail) about specifics regulatory requirements in the regulations. Then there’s a bunch of ad hoc exemptions, directions, approvals etc.

On the specific question of the AIP, the AIP is simply a compendium of various separate bits of information and exercises of separate regulatory powers. For example, the AIP contains the outcome of decisions by CASA in the exercise of runway width powers and the power to decide that the circuit direction will be right hand rather than the default left at a particular aerodrome. It also contains runway diagrams and aerodrome data. Charts... Immigration requirements.... It’s supposed to be the ‘idiot’s guide to flying to, within and from Australia’. There is no obligation to comply with the AIP as such. Rather, where a specific provision of AIP reflects a law or the exercise of some regulatory power, failure to comply with that provision will be an offence against the related law or regulatory power.

(That’s why I occasionally say “so what” in response to someone saying “AIP para X says” or “Jepps para y” says. Ultimately, the ‘rule’ in AIP or Jepps someone is quoting is not a rule unless it reflects a law or the exercise of a statutory power. A recent real example was purported restrictions published in ERSA on the use of airspace around Mildura. The restrictions had no basis in law and were therefore removed.)

Last edited by Lead Balloon; 25th Aug 2018 at 05:58.

[Gobbledock]

CX Pilot wages to be married to hours flown

The international race to the bottom continues. Has the Screaming Skull gone back to his Swires masters and reprised his role within the Star Chamber?

https://m.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/transp...ours-flown

[thorn bird]

"Has the Screaming Skull gone back to his Swires masters and reprised his role within the Star Chamber?"

Funny you should say that Gobbles.....rumour has it ????

[thorn bird]

Mobil Oil mark 2 perhaps?
From the ABC.

Investigation into mid-air engine failures yet to yield answers as pilots fear for their safety
By Kristy O'Brien
Posted Sun at 8:37amSun 30 Sep 2018, 8:37am



Photo: CASA has warned pilots operating R-22 or R-44 helicopters of the risks. (Landline: Kerry Staight)

The aviation industry is concerned someone will die before authorities determine what is causing a mysterious engine problem that has resulted in at least three mid-air engine failures in northern Australia.

Key points:

• Pilots concerned over lack of progress into engine failure investigation
  
• Fears changes to aviation gas, or avgas, could be behind the problem
  
• Link between changes and fuel sniffing should be probed, senator says
  

The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has warned a key engine component is wearing out much faster than it should, and has taken the step of urging pilots operating R-22 or R-44 helicopters in the northern regions of Australia — particularly those using them for mustering — to be aware of the risks.

Many in the aviation industry believe the problem stems from changes to aviation gas — with one senator worried it may have inadvertently seen an increase of fuel sniffing in remote Indigenous communities.

"It is highly dangerous, you've got to be able to rely on your machine when you are doing this sort of work, that's the bottom line," said John Armstrong, a veteran pilot with more than 40 years of experience.

"A couple of engineers have said we'll probably have to wait for someone to get killed before we get real action and that's what a lot of us feel."

"Most of the air maintenance organisation across northern Australia are particularly worried that we are getting nowhere with asking for assistance."

Though pilots have labelled the lack of urgency in resolving the matter "disturbing", the potential risks extend beyond mustering.

A worker at a commercial charter airline, who didn't want to be identified, said they were seeing the issue frequently, and have had engines return with serious damage.
Only luck, they say, has prevented a major accident.

'Get it on the ground as soon as possible'

Engineer Campbell Elliott has been working on choppers for more than 20 years, and says he has evidence of dozens of parts showing burn damage or erosion.

"Last year hit us big time and then this year has just been absolutely ridiculous, like widespread … so it's been a real issue," he said.

The problem first showed up more than 18 months ago, but the cause is still unknown.



Photo: Many within the aviation sector are suspicious of changes to aviation gas. (ABC News: Jano Gibson)

Many are suspicious of changes to aviation gas.

Lead content has been reduced from 0.86 per litre to 0.56 — however, the fuel company that supplies the North Viva Energy is yet to disclose when those changes were made or why.

The company is also yet to provide an analysis of what is in their fuel, despite repeated requests from the industry.

"We are doing a lot of research in terms of fuel which is an area normally outside of our expertise and jurisdiction to better understand the fuel supply and manufacturing processes," said Peter Gibson from the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

"If [pilots] do have a rough-running engine in flight they need to be very careful with the handling of that aircraft and get it on the ground as soon as possible."

Concerns fuel changes could increase sniffing

Part of CASA's investigation into the issue will centre around changes to avgas, brought about from sniffing in Indigenous communities.

Children as young as seven were experiencing lead poisoning after breaking into planes to sniff avgas in 2016.

A spokesman for the Federal Transport Minister Michael McCormack also confirmed "environmental and health concerns via federal legislation" prompted modifications.
However, in order to compensate for lower lead content, aromatics in avgas may have risen from 1 per cent to as high as 16 per cent.



Photo: Children were experiencing lead poisoning after breaking into planes to sniff avgas in 2016. (ABC News: Jano Gibson)

That has raised a red flag in Canberra.

"Aromatics in avgas increased and so we have seen a couple of instances of where there has been avgas sniffing, due as I understand, to the increase in the aromatics," Senator Rachel Seiwert said.

Senator Seiwert helped introduce legislation to mandate low aromatic fuel for cars in the Northern Territory in 2012, in a bid to reduce sniffing rates.

"If there was a decision made for that that has led avertedly to further sniffing occurring obviously we want to see that addressed," she said.

"So I think we need to understand if that has occurred what the level threat is what the accessibility is and take action."

While any investigation drags on, many are adamant a fatality is imminent.

Fuel distributor VIVA energy declined the ABC's interview request, but said in a statement:

"As yet, no definitive cause has been attributed to these engine failures and the matter is currently being investigated."

The ABC understands some aviation companies are now considering legal action.

[Peetwo]

Bailey's weekly waffle from the Oz -  

Unless you have a paid subscription to the Oz, most people would not be aware that former Hoody (ATSB - MH370)  protagonist Byron Bailey now writes a weekly feature article for the Friday's Aviation edition of the Oz. Mostly this appears to be a chance for BB to strut his fame and vast experience/ego as a former Sky God. Hence the reason I do not bother regurgitating his weekly waffle. However because this week BB's (waffle) is quite topical, to many AP/BRB/IOS members, I'll make an exception...  

Saviour flights hit the heights





BYRON BAILEY

General aviation has been suffering the death of a thousand cuts inflicted by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority over the past 30 years.

There is, however, one branch of GA that has healthy growth, and that is the aeromedical industry.

Angel Flights and the Royal Flying Doctor Service are well known to the public.

Not so well known are the flights of medical evacuations, medical retrievals and organ donor harvests.

Over the past 10 years since I retired from airline flying I have been involved in all three as well as private and corporate jet flying.

In the major resource centre of the Pilbara, centred on the city of Karratha, is a very busy airport, home to two medical jets equipped as airborne intensive care units. This, along with teams of pilots, doctors and paramedics, supplies 24/7 coverage for the thousands of FIFO (fly-in, fly-out) workers of the mining, oil and gas companies.

There are more than 30 rigs in the northwest shelf and medical recovery for an injured or sick worker is initially by helicopter to the Barrow Island industrial complex airport, then a transfer to a jet for the two-hour dash to Perth. Coverage is also supplied for the local area inhabitants if the case is beyond the capability of Karratha hospital.

I recently had a medical evacuation flight from Barrow Island to Perth for a worker who had a severe and sudden cardiac event.

On the flight to Perth the doctor advised me that the patient was critical so Perth air traffic control permitted us a straight-in, downwind runway landing to save time. The patient was whisked away in an ambulance for immediate and life-saving open-heart surgery.

Ideally placed at Gold Coast Airport is a Falcon 50 medical jet on standby for retrieval of Australian patients who are too incapacitated to return home on airlines.

This high-speed jet with a range of more than 5000km covers all of the South Pacific as well as southwest Asia and China. In addition to the on-board doctor and nurse, the team can call on the services of co-pilot Sandra Cabot, a doctor who spent eight months working in a hospital in north India, mainly delivering babies, and who happens to be the owner of the aircraft. She also has 200 Angel Flights to her credit over a long period of time in her Beechcraft Baron.

This is why it is important to have travel insurance that covers repatriation to Australia.

Young Australians doing adventurous activities that might cause injury and elderly cruise liner passengers who need to be offloaded for hospital admission in a foreign port are prime candidates.

However, most pick-ups are local inhabitants, with serious medical complications, from Noumea, Fiji, Samoa and so on.

Organ donor harvests are frequent and do not need a jet that is medically equipped.

There are more than 1400 people awaiting organ transplants in Australia. Because these transplants are done at specialist hospitals like the Royal Prince Alfred in Sydney, the logistics of the operation are complicated and need military-like precision.

When the tragedy of death occurs or a life support system is to be switched off, a major process kicks into gear.

Recipients previously identified according to priority and surgical teams that will do the actual operations are alerted and placed on standby.

The organ harvest teams of doctors and assistants are also activated so they can prepare their equipment. Police at the donor’s location and recipient’s base are used for priority transport of the organs and teams in both directions at both locations.

Pilots and staff involved in the aircraft operation are called out from standby.

This generally happens in the evening so that the organ harvest of heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and so forth, which takes about four hours, can be completed in order for the flight to land back in Sydney about dawn. The waiting police can then whisk the medical teams and their precious cargo to the waiting hospitals for what can be, for some patients, a life-saving event. The organs are usually transported in eskies with dry ice, but the heart can be transported in a machine that keeps it beating the whole time, from harvest to being actually transplanted.

The sadness of one tragic event can bring happiness and relief to many others. There are many patients waiting for donated organs, some of them for a considerable length of time.

The one thing that is clear is that there is an insufficient number of organ donors. People should be more actively encouraged to be organ donors, which is indicated on their drivers licence.

Vehicle crashes are a major source of donor material, but the ending of one life can mean the saving of several others.

Byron Bailey is a former RAAF fighter pilot and flew B777s as an airline captain.

Hmm...marginally more entertaining than the totally unbelievable weasel-worded confection in the Oz from the DAS Carmody Capers (see - http://www.auntypru.com/forum/thread-142...ml#pid9446 ) -   

However in terms of comments IMHO Wellsy nails it...  

Aeromedical is funded significantly by governments and major contracts - and angel flight is - while well intentioned - an issue which casa attempted to deal with but haven’t followed up on - having private pilots transport patients around - of which there have been two recent fatalities is a glaring issue within the industry which this article could have chosen to talk about ... imagine if proper GA, ie the mum and dad business (not the RFDS), with mortgages, got the angel flight work ... why don’t they? Because GA is business, paying wages, paying tax, paying airservices / landing fees... paying many of these costs that aeromedical doesn't pay ... and employing, training, maintaining fully qualified commercial pilots, safety management systems etc ... to keep the travelling public safe - which RAISES the costs of flying ... and no one wants to pay - so the solution is to less regulated private operations, less safe and wrap it up as a “charity”  ... this article
could have taken the opportunity to ask what is happening about why casa hasn’t acted to look at private operators without the safeguards of commerical operators are doing these flights ... but the article is yet another talkfest about the awesomeness of the author when he was in the left hand seat ... yawn

    
 MTF...P2 

[Gobbledock]

Some skin in the game....

Is Byron Bailey the son of Justice Michael Kirby?
They could alarmist be twins! They need to team up with Truss and Joyce and attend the same skin clinic.

‘Safe dermatology for all’

[Peetwo]

At last a good news story - 

Via the Oz: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/busines...c72520aa58

Brumby Aircraft helping win the race to surplus

Paul Goard and his father Phil with one of their aircraft in Cowra, NSW, yesterday. Picture: Graham Schumann

• SAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES
  JOURNALIST
  
  
• 11:00PM NOVEMBER 28, 2018
  

In a small hangar at the airport at Cowra in southern NSW sits one of Australia’s great small-business success stories, Brumby Aircraft.

The company has taken off in the past few years, signing a massive deal with a Chinese aviation corporation and going from a few planes designed and built in a shed to a $20 million factory in the industrial city of Fuping.

“Everything we did we’ve done ourselves,” said co-owner and co-founder Phil Goard, a 70-year-old aviation veteran. “It’s been a hard struggle, paying wages, getting as much done as we can.”

Brumby Australia is one of many small to medium-sized businesses working quietly behind the scenes, benefiting from an increasingly global Australian economy that is due to return the federal budget to surplus next year.

Scott Morrison announced on Tuesday that he would deliver a surplus in a fast-tracked federal budget on April 2, ahead of a May election. Treasury had forecast a $14.5 billion deficit for the current financial year, and a $2.2bn surplus next year.

“If you can get unemployment down to 5 per cent, you have the double barrel of lower welfare payments and higher payroll and ­income tax,” said Stephen Cartwright, chief executive of the NSW Business Chamber. “You have the two things operating favourably, you get a double lift.”

Mr Goard and son Paul built their first plane in the early 2000s as an experiment. It was effectively built off a napkin design after years of running a parts repair business at Bankstown in Sydney.

“I basically built the thing from my experience,” Mr Goard said. “I took it to the airshow at Wagga (in southern NSW) and got 10 orders.”

Four years ago, they ­approached the business chamber and were ultimately connected to the Aviation Industry Corporation of China, which makes everything from fighter jets to missiles but has recently moved into commercial and general aviation.

The joint venture meant the Goards brought their intellectual property, and AVIC brought the capital, staff and a factory.

The move is beginning to pay off. Mr Cartwright said trade deals with foreign powers had helped foster an environment that had helped businesses such as Brumby Aircraft.

“What it shows very clearly is Australia is an integral part of the global economy,” he said.

“This is a company that has historically focused on the Australian market.

“Suddenly they’ve found themselves exposed to a global marketplace, collaborating, creating a whole new market.”

MTF...P2 

[thorn bird]

Just occasionally an innocuous heading catches the eye which leads to an idle read which in turn leads the mind to cogitate on the meaning of life and everything ala the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy.
Of late, maybe indicative of approaching Alzheimer's, I have been mulling the why's and were-fore's
of the ongoing crusade by our aviation regulator to completely wipe out a whole industry, an industry abiet a small one, but none the less, productive and useful.
"Safety" was the mantra imbued into the act by the political class, perhaps because it struck a cord in their consciousness, the thought of raining aluminium too horrible to contemplate, especially considering it was such a rare event, the media sensationalised it for headlines.
They however failed to consider the ramifications of an unaccountable bureaucracy, running rampant with a single theme, "the Mystic of safety" by not adding checks and balances. Way back when, the industry complained the regulator was top heavy with ex military people with the military ethos of people do what their told if they knew what was good for them. This ethos worked for a time, largely because these military people held the vast amount of aviation knowledge at the time.
Probably the saving grace was that many of them were practiced, competent aviators. Although authoritarian they were generally respected, the complaint was they knew nothing of business nor the realities of. Thus aviation didn't exactly thrive as it did post www11in other first world countries, it just ticked along, producing a few well trained and experienced pilots for a trio of government protected airlines.
Times change, those accomplished and respected ex military aviators were gradually replaced with industry cast off's, smart enough to know that they would never gain the skills to be competent enough to "make it" within industry. They were imbued with the Sociopathic Authoritarian attitude, without the skills to back it up. As the world became more litigious the regulator found itself in need of lawyers.
Enter the Eastern Block legal eagles, imbued with the same authoritarian attitudes and the seeds were sown for the CAsA we know today. The Big R regulator, built on bullshit jobs for bullshit people producing bullshit regulations.



On the Phenomenon of Bullshit Jobs: A Work Rant by David Graeber

Printed: Issue 3 The Summer Of... August 2013 Estimated Read Time: 9 minutes


John Riordan
In the year 1930, John Maynard Keynes predicted that, by century's end, technology would have advanced sufficiently that countries like Great Britain or the United States would have achieved a 15-hour work week. There's every reason to believe he was right. In technological terms, we are quite capable of this. And yet it didn't happen. Instead, technology has been marshaled, if anything, to figure out ways to make us all work more. In order to achieve this, jobs have had to be created that are, effectively, pointless. Huge swathes of people, in Europe and North America in particular, spend their entire working lives performing tasks they secretly believe do not really need to be performed. The moral and spiritual damage that comes from this situation is profound. It is a scar across our collective soul. Yet virtually no one talks about it.
Why did Keynes' promised utopia—still being eagerly awaited in the '60s—never materialise? The standard line today is that he didn't figure in the massive increase in consumerism. Given the choice between less hours and more toys and pleasures, we've collectively chosen the latter. This presents a nice morality tale, but even a moment's reflection shows it can't really be true. Yes, we have witnessed the creation of an endless variety of new jobs and industries since the '20s, but very few have anything to do with the production and distribution of sushi, iPhones, or fancy sneakers.
So what are these new jobs, precisely? A recent report comparing employment in the US between 1910 and 2000 gives us a clear picture (and I note, one pretty much exactly echoed in the UK). Over the course of the last century, the number of workers employed as domestic servants, in industry, and in the farm sector has collapsed dramatically. At the same time, ‘professional, managerial, clerical, sales, and service workers’ tripled, growing ‘from one-quarter to three-quarters of total employment.’ In other words, productive jobs have, just as predicted, been largely automated away (even if you count industrial workers globally, including the toiling masses in India and China, such workers are still not nearly so large a percentage of the world population as they used to be.)
But rather than allowing a massive reduction of working hours to free the world's population to pursue their own projects, pleasures, visions, and ideas, we have seen the ballooning of not even so much of the ‘service’ sector as of the administrative sector, up to and including the creation of whole new industries like financial services or telemarketing, or the unprecedented expansion of sectors like corporate law, academic and health administration, human resources, and public relations. And these numbers do not even reflect on all those people whose job is to provide administrative, technical, or security support for these industries, or for that matter the whole host of ancillary industries (dog-washers, all-night pizza delivery) that only exist because everyone else is spending so much of their time working in all the other ones.

These are what I propose to call ‘bullshit jobs’.

It's as if someone were out there making up pointless jobs just for the sake of keeping us all working. And here, precisely, lies the mystery. In capitalism, this is precisely what is not supposed to happen. Sure, in the old inefficient socialist states like the Soviet Union, where employment was considered both a right and a sacred duty, the system made up as many jobs as they had to (this is why in Soviet department stores it took three clerks to sell a piece of meat). But, of course, this is the sort of very problem market competition is supposed to fix. According to economic theory, at least, the last thing a profit-seeking firm is going to do is shell out money to workers they don't really need to employ. Still, somehow, it happens.
While corporations may engage in ruthless downsizing, the layoffs and speed-ups invariably fall on that class of people who are actually making, moving, fixing and maintaining things; through some strange alchemy no one can quite explain, the number of salaried paper-pushers ultimately seems to expand, and more and more employees find themselves, not unlike Soviet workers actually, working 40 or even 50 hour weeks on paper, but effectively working 15 hours just as Keynes predicted, since the rest of their time is spent organizing or attending motivational seminars, updating their facebook profiles or downloading TV box-sets.
The answer clearly isn't economic: it's moral and political. The ruling class has figured out that a happy and productive population with free time on their hands is a mortal danger (think of what started to happen when this even began to be approximated in the '60s). And, on the other hand, the feeling that work is a moral value in itself, and that anyone not willing to submit themselves to some kind of intense work discipline for most of their waking hours deserves nothing, is extraordinarily convenient for them.
Once, when contemplating the apparently endless growth of administrative responsibilities in British academic departments, I came up with one possible vision of hell. Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don't like and are not especially good at. Say they were hired because they were excellent cabinet-makers, and then discover they are expected to spend a great deal of their time frying fish. Neither does the task really need to be done—at least, there's only a very limited number of fish that need to be fried. Yet somehow, they all become so obsessed with resentment at the thought that some of their co-workers might be spending more time making cabinets, and not doing their fair share of the fish-frying responsibilities, that before long there's endless piles of useless badly cooked fish piling up all over the workshop and it's all that anyone really does. I think this is actually a pretty accurate description of the moral dynamics of our own economy.
Now, I realise any such argument is going to run into immediate objections: ‘who are you to say what jobs are really “necessary”? What's necessary anyway? You're an anthropology professor, what's the “need” for that?’ (And indeed a lot of tabloid readers would take the existence of my job as the very definition of wasteful social expenditure.) And on one level, this is obviously true. There can be no objective measure of social value.
I would not presume to tell someone who is convinced they are making a meaningful contribution to the world that, really, they are not. But what about those people who are themselves convinced their jobs are meaningless? Not long ago I got back in touch with a school friend who I hadn't seen since I was 12. I was amazed to discover that in the interim, he had become first a poet, then the front man in an indie rock band. I'd heard some of his songs on the radio having no idea the singer was someone I actually knew. He was obviously brilliant, innovative, and his work had unquestionably brightened and improved the lives of people all over the world. Yet, after a couple of unsuccessful albums, he'd lost his contract, and plagued with debts and a newborn daughter, ended up, as he put it, ‘taking the default choice of so many directionless folk: law school.’ Now he's a corporate lawyer working in a prominent New York firm. He was the first to admit that his job was utterly meaningless, contributed nothing to the world, and, in his own estimation, should not really exist.
There's a lot of questions one could ask here, starting with, what does it say about our society that it seems to generate an extremely limited demand for talented poet-musicians, but an apparently infinite demand for specialists in corporate law? (Answer: if 1% of the population controls most of the disposable wealth, what we call ‘the market’ reflects what they think is useful or important, not anybody else.) But even more, it shows that most people in these jobs are ultimately aware of it. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever met a corporate lawyer who didn't think their job was bullshit. The same goes for almost all the new industries outlined above. There is a whole class of salaried professionals that, should you meet them at parties and admit that you do something that might be considered interesting (an anthropologist, for example), will want to avoid even discussing their line of work entirely (one or t'other?) Give them a few drinks, and they will launch into tirades about how pointless and stupid their job really is.
This is a profound psychological violence here. How can one even begin to speak of dignity in labour when one secretly feels one's job should not exist? How can it not create a sense of deep rage and resentment. Yet it is the peculiar genius of our society that its rulers have figured out a way, as in the case of the fish-fryers, to ensure that rage is directed precisely against those who actually do get to do meaningful work. For instance: in our society, there seems a general rule that, the more obviously one's work benefits other people, the less one is likely to be paid for it. Again, an objective measure is hard to find, but one easy way to get a sense is to ask: what would happen were this entire class of people to simply disappear? Say what you like about nurses, garbage collectors, or mechanics, it's obvious that were they to vanish in a puff of smoke, the results would be immediate and catastrophic. A world without teachers or dock-workers would soon be in trouble, and even one without science fiction writers or ska musicians would clearly be a lesser place. It's not entirely clear how humanity would suffer were all private equity CEOs, lobbyists, PR researchers, actuaries, telemarketers, bailiffs or legal consultants to similarly vanish. (Many suspect it might markedly improve.) Yet apart from a handful of well-touted exceptions (doctors), the rule holds surprisingly well.
Even more perverse, there seems to be a broad sense that this is the way things should be. This is one of the secret strengths of right-wing populism. You can see it when tabloids whip up resentment against tube workers for paralysing London during contract disputes: the very fact that tube workers can paralyse London shows that their work is actually necessary, but this seems to be precisely what annoys people. It's even clearer in the US, where Republicans have had remarkable success mobilizing resentment against school teachers, or auto workers (and not, significantly, against the school administrators or auto industry managers who actually cause the problems) for their supposedly bloated wages and benefits. It's as if they are being told ‘but you get to teach children! Or make cars! You get to have real jobs! And on top of that you have the nerve to also expect middle-class pensions and health care?’
If someone had designed a work regime perfectly suited to maintaining the power of finance capital, it's hard to see how they could have done a better job. Real, productive workers are relentlessly squeezed and exploited. The remainder are divided between a terrorised stratum of the, universally reviled, unemployed and a larger stratum who are basically paid to do nothing, in positions designed to make them identify with the perspectives and sensibilities of the ruling class (managers, administrators, etc.)—and particularly its financial avatars—but, at the same time, foster a simmering resentment against anyone whose work has clear and undeniable social value. Clearly, the system was never consciously designed. It emerged from almost a century of trial and error. But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working 3–4 hour days.

By David Graeber

[Gobbledock]

Michael James at it again.....

The former Chief Shonk of Strategic Airways has gone to the wall yet again;

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...e-collapse

These people are parasites and grubs. Put him in a boat with Peter Foster.

[Kharon]

The Bear essentials - Luv it.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1083251441936941056 HERE.

[thorn bird]

Australia slips in 'rule of law' rankings
Australia has slipped backwards in global rankings on adherence to the rule of law, with global results appearing to indicate a creep towards authoritarianism.

Daniel McCulloch

Australian Associated Press FEBRUARY 28, 201910:00PM

Australia has dropped out of the top 10 in global rankings on adherence to the rule of law, with annual global results showing more countries declined than improved their performance.
Australia now stands at 11th place out of 126 countries in the World Justice Project index.

The score places Australia second out of 15 countries in the East Asia and Pacific region, and also 11th out of 38 high income countries.
The country's best result was in "open government" and its poorest in "order and security".

New Zealand was the top performer in the region while the Philippines, Myanmar and Cambodia were the worst.
The index measures how the rule of law is experienced and perceived by the general public worldwide based on more than 120,000 household and 3800 expert surveys in the 126 countries.

It measures performance based on constraints on government powers, absence of corruption, open government, fundamental rights, order and security, regulatory enforcement, civil justice and criminal justice.
For the second year in a row, the scores showed a continuing negative slide towards weaker rule of law around the world.

Scores for "constraints on government power" declined in more countries than any other factor over the past year.
This measure tracks the extent to which those who govern are bound by checks such as an independent judiciary, a free press and the ability of legislatures to apply oversight.

World Justice Project executive director Elizabeth Anderson fears the worsening results point to a rise in authoritarianism.
"This slide in rule of law in general and checks on government powers in particular is deeply concerning," she said on Thursday night.

The second largest decline for the year was in the area of criminal justice, followed by open government and fundamental rights.
However, more countries improved in "absence of corruption" than declined for the second year in a row.

The top three overall performers were Denmark, Norway and Finland while the bottom three were the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Cambodia and Venezuela.

WORLD JUSTICE PROJECT INDEX TOP 10:
1. Denmark
2. Norway
3. Finland
4. Sweden
5. Netherlands
6. Germany
7. Austria
8. New Zealand
9. Canada
10. Estonia

WORLD JUSTICE PROJECT INDEX BOTTOM 10:
117. Pakistan
118. Ethiopia
119. Bolivia
120. Cameroon
121. Egypt
122. Mauritania
123. Afghanistan
124. Democratic Republic of Congo
125. Cambodia
126. Venezuela

Wonder how much CAsA contributed to our slide into authoritarianism?

[thorn bird]

Hoody gets his botty smacked, bone Idle naughty boy!!

Transport investigations not timely: audit

The auditor-general has cast an eye over the work of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau and found it inefficient.

Paul Osborne
Australian Associated PressMARCH 14, 20193:22PM
An audit of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau has found at no stage has it achieved its timeframe targets for complex or short investigations over the past eight years.
The auditor-general report released on Thursday found the ATSB had taken about 19 months to complete complex reports and 5.5 months for short investigation reports.
The agency had aimed to complete 90 per cent of complex probes within 12 months and 90 per cent of short investigations within four months.
"The ATSB has had quality controls and processes in place, however they have not been conducive to the timely completion and review of investigations", the auditor-general found.
The audit recommended the ATSB address the question of timeliness of investigations, report on the use of resources in undertaking investigations, establish more realistic timeframes and seek to benchmark against other similar agencies around the world.
The agency said in response it was going through a program to improve efficiency, boost its workforce and bring in new technology.
"The ATSB agrees with the recommendations in the ANAO report and has already begun implementing them," it said.
"Greater efficiency and effectiveness will further enable us to fulfil our important function of improving transport safety in an operating environment of continuing change in the aviation, rail and marine industries."

How come CASA never gets audited?

[Gobbledock]

CAsA get audited by ICAO. Pointless really as it’s all political and the last audit was a glowing endorsement of CAsA by Thor, superhero of ICAO who came armed with his trusty wet lettuce leaf. Gutless ICAO were a) never going to see anything see significant, and b) even if they did see something they would never expose it.

As for HVH and his ATsB joke, again, they will never complete any investigation in an expeditious manner because a) they have to show the report first to the operator, and b) they have to show it first to the Minister and his conga line of obsfucators, suckholes and spin doctors. That literally adds months and months to the process. Back and forth, more editing, more watering down, more generous amounts of wet lettuce leaves liberally applied.

It is wishful dreaming that anybody, any organisation or any entity will come in and properly expose our Government and its departments for what they really are. It will never happen.

[thorn bird]

Pilots, experts call out push to make CASA weigh costs of safety

By Patrick Hatch
March 19, 2019 — 12.00am

Pilots and aviation experts have expressed alarm that proposals to force Australia's aviation regulator to consider the financial interests of industry operators could compromise the country's air safety regime.

The role of aviation safety regulators has been in the spotlight following the fatal crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 last Sunday, with the US Federal Aviation Administration facing questions about whether it gives too much weight to the US aviation industry's profits.

The FAA grounded all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in the US on Thursday, two days after Australian and European authorities ordered the relatively new aircraft to stop flying.

The 737 MAX crises has prompted fresh scrutiny of a bill the Morrison government introduced to parliament last month that would require the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) for the first time to "consider the economic and cost impact on individuals, businesses and the community" when making aviation safety rules.

Small aircraft operators who claim their industry is being strangled by onerous regulation and safety compliance costs lobbied deputy prime minister and transport minister Michael McCormack heavily for the change.

"Safety needs to be the primary and overriding consideration," said Simon Lutton, executive director of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, which represents commercial airlines pilots.

We need to have an independent regulator whose role it is to enforce that safety - not be compromised or confused by cost considerations.
AFAP's Simon Lutton

“We have an excellent safety record in Australia and we need to have an independent regulator whose role it is to enforce that safety - not be compromised or confused by cost considerations.”

Aviation expert Neil Hansford, from Strategic Aviation Solutions, said the FAA's biggest concern last week appeared to have been "the Boeing share price and jobs in America".

“To commercialise the implementation of safety and operations regulations is not sound and could lean to the problem we have in the United States," he said.

He said that having to take into account the fact that "some people are going to go broke" as a result of necessary new safety rules "totally negates" the reasons of making the new rules in the first place

The changes have been designed to appease the general aviation industry - which includes including charter, pilot training, recreational and agricultural operators - which says it is being strangled by over-regulation.

Royal Flying Doctor Service chief executive Martin Laverty, who leads the minister's general aviation advisory group, said the change was a "step in the right direction".

“We at the Flying Doctors put safety above all else. We also have to be cost efficient in our flight operations. Legislative change to have the air regulator weigh cost whilst retaining safety as its key concern is a good step forward," he said.

Ben Morgan, chief executive of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, which represents about 4000 members in the general aviation including about 750 business owners, said the industry was in dire straits and that Mr McCormack's amendment did not go far enough to change that.
“Anyone who says they’re not on board with making aviation safety regulation affordable... is privy to signing a suicide note to our entire industry," said Mr Morgan.

“We’ve watched thousands in our industry go broke in the past 30 years for no reasons other than the minister won’t stand up and do his damn job."

CASA would also take into account the differences in risks that apply to different sectors of the aviation industry under Mr McCormack's proposed changes.

Geoffrey Dell, an air crash investigation expert and associate professor at Central Queensland University, said part of the reason CASA was formed in 1995 was to address conflicts between safety and commercial interests inside the transport department.
“It’s a huge step backwards and sadly we keep forgetting the lessons of the past," Dr Dell said.

"It’s just an additional layer of white noise that potentially prevents safety corrective actions being taken promptly. You don’t know how much safety costs until you have an accident.”

A spokesman for Mr McCormack said aviation safety would always be the government's top priority and it had consulted industry before introducing the bill.

“This has no bearing on immediate safety issues, where CASA will continue to be able to act in the interest of safety," he said.

A spokesman for Labor's shadow transport minister Anthony Albanese declined to comment on the bill.

Qantas, Virgin Australia, the Australian Airports Association and the General Aviation Advisory Group were all consulted on the changes and did not raise any concerns, according to the bill's explanatory memoranda.

Oh Gawd, where do you start with this one!


It's interesting and perhaps a tad sad that this Lutton guy from the AFAP seems to just not get it. How can decimating the bottom end of aviation possibly be in his unions interest?

The "Air Crash investigation expert"sounds like he's been watching too many Air Crash Investigators on the box.

The new bill introduced into parliament if you read it and interpret it properly its obvious its been very craftily worded to ensure that nothing is really changed, the status quo remains intact and CASA will continue with its inane hillbilly regulatory fraud.

For all CASA's amateurish regulatory madness Australia is no safer today than when they started. We remain way behind the USA safety wise.

What is "Safety"? How is it measured? Who sets the height of the limbo bar?. CASA sets the height based on what parameters? In reality safety is impossible to define, CASA sets the bar to suit themselves and their inflated ego's.

What is incontrovertible however is, over regulate and your industry dies as has been glaringly illustrated in Australia. If the industry dies what was the point of the regulation?

There has to be a balance between regulation and cost otherwise the country just does without aviation. An illogical proposition.

[thorn bird]

WOW!
Hot off the press:

"NASA TO LAUNCH ROCKETS FROM NT NEXT YEAR"

Hallelula!!!

Now let's look at the thirty thousand pages of Space Safety regulations.

Oh well, maybe the year after.

Na give it five years we didn't allow for all the manuals we had to produce nor the cost of getting them approved

Well maybe we might actually launch around 2030, seems like there's nobody in Australia qualified to approve them yet.

Give it another five years, seems like we forgot the environmental impact statement.

Oh no! the blue spotted tree frog lives around the launch sight, the launch would severely screw up its sex life.

Oh bugger someone found some rock art near the launch sight and the indigenous owners want 20 million in compensation.

Oh now we are really screwed CAsA is involved, they claim they should be the regulator with oversight because the rocket passes through the atmosphere to get to space.

At what point do NASA give up and go home?

[thorn bird]

Interesting little snippet from Forbes magazine.

Compare the pair,

Two first world countries, one with a regulator that fosters and promotes, the other with a corrupt, authoritarian regulator who trashes and burns.

Two alleged first world countries, one with clear concise regulations, administered with a soft hand and a level of trust in its industry to do the right thing because "Safety" is in everyones interest. The other with massive volumes of home grown hillbilly regulations that defy logic, are designed to confuse and are administered with an ethos that all in the industry are there with criminal intent and only the heavy hand of them as a police force can contain them.

Two first world countries, one who recognises that real expertise lies within industry, consults and acts on industry advice, the other who arrogantly considers they are the font of all knowledge and pays lip service to industry advice.

Two first world countries, one of which recognises that regulation alone cannot achieve better safety outcomes, they choose to mentor and educate industry which has and is achieving better safety statistics year on year. The other who treats industry with contempt, belittling complaints and advice, branding dissenters as the "Ills of Society" or their advice as merely "opinions", and sets their minions loose to wreak havoc, in the process their efforts doing nothing to improve safety and brings an industry to its knees.

Two first world counties, one who's industry as illustrated below is a valuable contributor to its economy, the other withering on the vine, its potential wasted, drowning in a myasma of red tape and political indifference


Know The Facts About Private Jets Before You Bash Them

Too often private aviation is an easy target for folks who want to bash the super rich, global CEOs or what they perceive as industries that are damaging the environment. Private jet users are of course an easy target, even though many of the same people who trash the industry use private aircraft, at least when they help them achieve their business objectives, which is the reason most people access private aviation.

Last month, 23 business aircraft arrived at Geneva Airport for the annual European Business Aviation Convention & Exhibition (EBACE) using sustainable alternative fuels, and key players such as Gulfstream have been testing them for close to a decade.

Of course, the drive towards reducing carbon emissions is just one aspect of the industry that its detractors aren’t aware of or choose to overlook as it doesn’t seem to fit with their narrative.
No Plane, No Gain, an advocacy group supported by the National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) and General Aviation Manufacturers Association (GAMA), provides data showing a multitude of ways the industry is an integral engine to the economy, which I am highlighting below:

- Business aviation supports more than one million U.S. jobs

- The industry generates over $200 billion in economic activity each year

- Private jets can access over 5,000 airports in the U.S. compared to only around 500 served by the airlines, one reason politicians use them. They are an efficient way to conduct business. You can visit three or four places in a day, a trip that might take an entire week using the airlines.

- 42% of business jet flights are to places with little or no airline service, and 80% of flights are into airports in small towns and communities.

- The same 42% of business aviation missions involve multiple destinations

- A single private jet can bring $2.5 million in economic benefit to the airport and community where it’s based.

- While the popular stereotype is fat cat CEOs flying on large cabin, luxurious private jets, 50% of the business aircraft fleet is turboprops and smaller jets, and in fact, top management is onboard less than 50% of the time.

- In fact, key reasons companies use private jets are employee time savings, increased productivity, protection of intellectual property and improved customer service, often flying replacement parts, including medical devices on an emergency basis, sometimes cutting hours off the time it takes the customer to restore service, or in the case of doctors, begin a life saving procedure.

- What’s more, there are over 15,000 business aircraft flights per year for humanitarian reasons, and in the past year, 38% of private jet pilots say they have flown humanitarian missions. Groups like Corporate Angel Network match patients who need specialized treatment with companies that donate seats on their flights to get those patients to their needed medical care. Some of the companies involved include American Express, BASF, Caterpillar, Dow, Flexjet, Geico, General Dynamics, Hertz, Honeywell, Home Depot, Intel, Lilly, Meredith, Nestle Purina, NetJets, P&G, Target, Valero and Verizon.

While detractors position private aviation as excess, the facts tell another story. Companies that use private aviation outperform non-users by 23% in revenue growth and 95 of Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Places to Work” companies use business aircraft. One last fact. It’s not just big companies that use private jets to make their business more efficient, 57% of business aviation users have under 500 employees.

The next time a pundit or politician talks about how private jets are wasteful, ask if they know how many jobs are connected to private aviation and how much the industry brings to the economy?

If you want two local market examples, Teterboro Airport in northern New Jersey supports more than 14,900 jobs paying $868 million in annual wages and inputs more than $2.3 billion into the local economy. Van Nuys Airport, in Los Angeles, generates $295 million in local, state and federal tax revenue annually. In other words, business aviation works for the economy, and not just for the folks flying on them.

[thorn bird]

Interesting little snippet by Ben Fordham on lasts nights sky news Bolt report regarding the costs of red tape.
People wonder why Australian domestic airfares are so expensive. Excessive red tape would go a long way to explaining that. A blast from the past by Kerry Parker included. Hopefully P2 can work his magic and get the podcast up here