[Peetwo]

Another one for the McDonaught aviation shamelist - ASICs?? - 

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To whom it may concern:-

Policy damage to Australian General Aviation, security card and flying training considerations.

As a ten thousand hour professional General Aviation (GA) pilot, and having held Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) approvals for scheduled passenger services, charter and flying school, I have the background to assess the damage to GA from the imposition of the Aviation Security Identification Card (ASIC), and extreme bureaucratic overreach, through my fifty two years flying experience. 

The ASIC:
This was introduced as a method to combat the potential threat of a terrorist attack following the 9/11 aircraft highjack (Government also introduced another ID card known as an AVID, the use of which is, by reading the CASA website, extremely vague and with ambiguous explanations. Hence this card is unrecognised by airport operators and is of very limited use). 

Irrespective of reputation, working history, the individual’s age, aircraft ownership or length of time of flying licence validity, all private and commercial pilots must have an ASIC in order to;  

1.  Apply for and gain their initial Pilot licence. 

2. To be able to legally access hundreds of ordinary airports that serve towns and cities Australia wide. 
These airports are where you find most of GA maintenance facilities and the few left flying schools which need to be accessed by pilots for compulsory recurring pilot reassessment (CASA requirements).

The ASIC is valid for only two years. 

Cost is $283. 

This does not include the recurring (biennial) cost of assembling various paperworks, including one’s birth certificate each time, then travelling to and from the limited number of designated centres to present one’s application in person. 

Considerations:-

1.  No similar requirement in the USA, home of 9/11.

2. The ASIC is an extreme measure with no known effectiveness. 

3. The cost is a severe disincentive to gaining and maintaining a flying licence, particularly for younger aspiring pilots. 

4.  Firearms licence and passports, 10 yrs. 

5.  No such ID for some other forms of transport, ie, a truck driver could take explosives into populated areas. 

6.  At each ASIC issue and renewal there is a Police check. Are we to assume that there is no continual surveillance of criminal or potentially criminal behaviour of pilots in between the two year period? Hopefully, there is a continual and coordinated exchange of information across all policing bodies. If so then one must ask why every two years for the ASIC police check? 

7.  Aircraft operators without a current ASIC are not allowed to fly into most airports for their aircraft maintenance or recurrent training.  In addition those towns miss out on other business that pilots and their passengers would bring to their towns. 

8.  If Government persists with the ASIC, at least an increase in the period of validity would be sensible. 
Why not increase the validity at each renewal? Perhaps institute a significant increase of timescale for aircraft owners and Commercial pilots, thus creating incentives for participation. 

9.  Compounding the problem, General Aviation is in severe decline due to CASA’s unworkable, very expensive, inappropriate and unfinished rewrite of the rules (31 years and counting). Rules which have been unwisely migrated into the criminal code, with proof of culpability being strict liability, thus no ameliorating circumstances for a defence, and a strong incentive not to report safety issues. 

There are criminal offences and heavy punishments for a number of matters that don’t even rate a mention in the safest and most efficient GA environment, that of the USA. 

10. Replacing the ASIC with a photo licence should be all that is required, to be displayed or kept on person. 

Photo comparison; flying school required manuals and approval process. USA - Australia.

USA, single blue book in front.....,......................... $14.95
Independent instructor approval process...............  None, no cost. 
Timescale......zero


Australia, all other books are CASA required manuals..... $900 for publications, plus in house authored manuals. 
Additional application and bureaucratic process fees to CASA that cost many thousands of dollars (including credible reports of over $50,000).
Timescale........months or years. 

Sandy Reith

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Via KC & RT in reply:

..Just impossible to change the culture. In 2001 internal discussion were being had to accept the pilot licence instead of an ASIC card.


Pity, all those that cared about the industry have left the bureaucracy since then.
 
Ken C

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Under part 61 you cannot get a license or rating without a current medical. How is that relevant to demonstrating your competance under supervision?  In the same breath the examiner must also have a medical as compared to the US where a flight instructor or examiner does not need a medical if the student has one and has gone solo. Here in Australia they want it every which way.


What's more you cannot teach ground school without holding or previously held an instructor's rating. We have a gentleman in our office who spent over $150k getting his licenses and instructor rating only to fall ill just before completing the final flight instructor flight test. He  holds PPL and CPL and passed all the theory - including to be a flight instructor. So now because he has no medical, he cannot sit the flight test and he cannot teach the theory due to no instructor's rating, despite having passed all the theory components and therefore being qualified to teach it to others.

How is it possible this reform process has taken 30 years and yet the results are so woeful? It serves no safety benefit to put these restrictions in place. It just puts barriers in place which add cost and complexity.

Richard.

MTF...P2