[Peetwo]

Via Sandy off Facebook: ref - https://www.facebook.com/sandy.reith.31?...ZflVgmjZrX

Original post: 

Sandy Reith
31 July · 


My GP passed me fit to drive heavy vehicles commercially, ie buses or trucks two years in a row so I could fly on a Basic Class 2 (restrictive private flying medical certificate).

CASA’s AVMED section stopped that certification avenue on a technicality (curative operation 18 years ago) and invited me to undertake a full blown CASA type medical, standard private flyer Class 2.

Notwithstanding CV19 I’ve had to make trips to Geelong for medical testing that was not medically indicated and therefore not Medicare applicable.

Due to some unavoidable circumstances, including having to make appointments with a CASA accredited doctor, all this has taken several months, not allowed to fly my own plane.

I have passed all tests and the results were sent to AVMED last Tuesday week. I rang AVMED last Tuesday to inquire when can I expect my certificate, no news to date.

This whole saga is completely without rational basis, there is no safety case. There are several thousand low weight category pilots flying who do not require any medical examination, simply self declaring fit to drive a motor vehicle.

I have been denied my right to fly for no good reason, spent upwards of $800 and many hours for no good reason.

The Morrison government talks “red tape reduction,” but it is apparent, so far, that it doesn’t have the willpower to take on the entrenched bureaucracy particularly in the ever increasing number of virtually unaccountable independent Commonwealth corporate administrators and regulators.

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Some comments in reply:

Mike Smith I'd love to think the government would seek to appoint a new Director of Aviation Safety with a mandate to remove red tape. The economic fall-out from the Covid-19 pandemic should spur governments to encourage industry growth through reduced bureaucracy.

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William J Hamilton Folks, The CASA "driver's license medical" is the driver's license medical you have when you are NOT having a driver's licence medical --- in total contrast to the FAA scheme --- which was, after all, modelled after the Australian (then) AUF, now Recreational Aviation Australia system, as the original precedent. But with FEWER restrictions. In short, the CASA "driver's license" medical was never intended to work, as Sandy and many others have found out. The answer, standardise on the long proven ( 40 years??) AUSTRALIAN non-CASA aviation medical system for all private operations and instructional flying.???

And a recent Sandy response;

Sandy Reith By dint of spending the whole day on the phone to AVMAD and others, plus a dash into Colac for one last completely unnecessary piece of paper, my Class 2 finally arrived. I will thank the AVMED officers who took my several calls because they kept their cool and listened politely to my numerous points, at length, about the obvious faults and the bad consequences of the present CASA policies, even in other areas such as the destruction of flying training and disincentives to gain or maintain the IFR rating. One of them agreed that the risk to the general public of a medical incapacity was probably worse on the roads than that occurring to a pilot in flight. However she offered the thought that CASA was protecting the pilot who can’t ‘pull over’ like a sick car driver. This seemingly plausible argument falls apart when one notices that around 10,000 RAAus pilots have been self declaring for more than 30 years, no problem. Similarly the USA private pilot standard, which sensibly allows IFR, no problem, actually that USA reform brought around 17,000 pilots back to flying GA and is recognised as a real success and boost to GA.

Come on you CASA people, it’s not hard, put your country and fellow Aussies before your power games, egos and ladder climbing by being the harshest and most unrelenting GA basher. You could start tomorrow introducing easy medical reforms, independent instructors same as USA, and stop Cessna SIDs. Then get your Minister to rid us of the useless and extremely costly ASICard ($283 every two yrs) or at least make it valid for longer periods for good behaviour or years of industry participation or additional qualifications like instructor ratings. This would put incentives into the system. Another, buy a plane and get say five years between check flights. Get instructor rating and never have to do another.

We must have reforms now, urgently.

Finally to you RAAUS people don’t think this doesn’t matter much to you. If you are stuck with 600 or 750 kg and the rest of GA virtually dies, you will never fly charters or IFR or take your growing family with you. You will find it impossible to progress and no doubt as VH ends up in the tip CASA will come after your dollars with it’s fee gouging ways plus submerge your ops with thousands of pages of regulations all inappropriately migrated into the criminal code with strict liability for ease of prosecution just the same as current VH. GA. Cheers!

MTF...P2