Via the AP email chains:
Sandy Reith <sandy@reith.com.au> to 40 recipients
The CSF Instrument expires 18th of March, and General Aviation (GA) reform.
Marjorie and all,
Hope all have a Happy New Year and that the great works of Angel Flight (AF), and all it’s volunteer pilots who fly sick people to and from medical facilities, continues in strength and AF is relieved of unnecessary CASA restrictions on March 18th.
I’m afraid I did not put in a submission to CASA’s so called ‘consultation’ process about their invention of ‘Community Service Flights’ (CSF), partly due to submission fatigue, no conscious decision anyway and I’m reaching the stage where I think playing their game is prolonging the agony.
For example they asked submitters to write lengthy and detailed stories about their experiences and how the rules have impacted their flying for AF. And asked about increased costs or savings (choke on your weeties). Also by making such demands on the time of volunteers this may make being a part of AF less attractive. Same goes for the rest of GA, gets to the point who can be bothered?
If everyone refuses to consult or talk to CASA but instead makes all that effort into engaging with MPs I believe we’d get no worse from CASA. It might become plain to Parliament that there’s a revolt of some sort and maybe they need to do something.
Another angle would be to make submissions but send them to our MPs and get them to forward them. Parliament created the whole situation and is responsible.
There’s no doubt that without political action GA will continue down the drain. Good aircraft are being exported and flying training has collapsed, with the main activity in the low weight two seat category (RAAUS) now having a weight increase, which will reduce regular VH flying schools even further. Airports are being given over to warehouses and shopping centres while aircraft maintenance and flying schools are evicted from Australia’s most important GA airports, incredibly without thought to aviation being a strategic National security asset. All of which is mitigating against AF and mainstream GA.
No doubt there’ll be fewer pilots who will be able to fly for AF and it wouldn’t surprise that there’s a number of older owner pilots who will give up in the near future.
AF’s court case against CASA has exposed the lie that CASA had a safety case to justify it’s unwarranted new strictures and yet another category of flight (CASA is, I believe, embarked on a having costs of $350,000 awarded against AF). A private flight is a private flight and should not be differentiated. Any deviation raises complications and costs. What if I give a lift (actual case) to someone because their Bass Strait island home is threatened by fire? Is that a CFS type flight? Where does it end?
In the Information Age everyone has the opportunity to assess risk, there’s no justification for the CASA regulatory overkill which in reality is counterproductive to safety.
For our freedom and high standard of living, brought about by freedom and free enterprise, we have to fight back. Continuing restrictions on private flying will only reduce services, voluntary or otherwise and sick people will suffer the consequences.
AF Is perhaps the best obvious and a shining example of the usefulness of GA, something the general public can understand and is a great case to gain publicity.
Finally, the independent regulator model of CASA is an abject failure because there’s no accountability.
Expecting a cohort of Canberra administrators to devise rules and administer altruistically in the most efficient manner within a monopoly corporate structure, salaries unhitched from traditional PS scales, at the lowest cost to the aviation industry, all without political oversight is a pipe dream. Demonstrably it doesn’t work and thirty three years of the CASA disaster proves the point. Simply rubber stamped by Parliament, CASA’s working is an anathema to the Westminster system of responsible government. Until we have a Minister in charge of aviation through a regular Department of Government no substantive reform is possible other than an occasional patch up job.
Primarily it’s in the hands of Minister Barnaby Joyce, but Alan Jones might be a better bet.
Best regards,
Sandy
1989. Here started the never ending platitudes, promises and good intentions continually repeated, becoming worse than meaningless. So much so after thirty two years one wonders if outright lying would be a more accurate description of such pronouncements. We are subjected to the same insult, nearly word for word, every year, we are treated like idiots with no memory or brain.
![[Image: image_6487327.jpg]](https://auntypru.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/image_6487327.jpg)
ET CETERA… framed on my office wall.
MTF...P2
Sandy Reith <sandy@reith.com.au> to 40 recipients
The CSF Instrument expires 18th of March, and General Aviation (GA) reform.
Marjorie and all,
Hope all have a Happy New Year and that the great works of Angel Flight (AF), and all it’s volunteer pilots who fly sick people to and from medical facilities, continues in strength and AF is relieved of unnecessary CASA restrictions on March 18th.
I’m afraid I did not put in a submission to CASA’s so called ‘consultation’ process about their invention of ‘Community Service Flights’ (CSF), partly due to submission fatigue, no conscious decision anyway and I’m reaching the stage where I think playing their game is prolonging the agony.
For example they asked submitters to write lengthy and detailed stories about their experiences and how the rules have impacted their flying for AF. And asked about increased costs or savings (choke on your weeties). Also by making such demands on the time of volunteers this may make being a part of AF less attractive. Same goes for the rest of GA, gets to the point who can be bothered?
If everyone refuses to consult or talk to CASA but instead makes all that effort into engaging with MPs I believe we’d get no worse from CASA. It might become plain to Parliament that there’s a revolt of some sort and maybe they need to do something.
Another angle would be to make submissions but send them to our MPs and get them to forward them. Parliament created the whole situation and is responsible.
There’s no doubt that without political action GA will continue down the drain. Good aircraft are being exported and flying training has collapsed, with the main activity in the low weight two seat category (RAAUS) now having a weight increase, which will reduce regular VH flying schools even further. Airports are being given over to warehouses and shopping centres while aircraft maintenance and flying schools are evicted from Australia’s most important GA airports, incredibly without thought to aviation being a strategic National security asset. All of which is mitigating against AF and mainstream GA.
No doubt there’ll be fewer pilots who will be able to fly for AF and it wouldn’t surprise that there’s a number of older owner pilots who will give up in the near future.
AF’s court case against CASA has exposed the lie that CASA had a safety case to justify it’s unwarranted new strictures and yet another category of flight (CASA is, I believe, embarked on a having costs of $350,000 awarded against AF). A private flight is a private flight and should not be differentiated. Any deviation raises complications and costs. What if I give a lift (actual case) to someone because their Bass Strait island home is threatened by fire? Is that a CFS type flight? Where does it end?
In the Information Age everyone has the opportunity to assess risk, there’s no justification for the CASA regulatory overkill which in reality is counterproductive to safety.
For our freedom and high standard of living, brought about by freedom and free enterprise, we have to fight back. Continuing restrictions on private flying will only reduce services, voluntary or otherwise and sick people will suffer the consequences.
AF Is perhaps the best obvious and a shining example of the usefulness of GA, something the general public can understand and is a great case to gain publicity.
Finally, the independent regulator model of CASA is an abject failure because there’s no accountability.
Expecting a cohort of Canberra administrators to devise rules and administer altruistically in the most efficient manner within a monopoly corporate structure, salaries unhitched from traditional PS scales, at the lowest cost to the aviation industry, all without political oversight is a pipe dream. Demonstrably it doesn’t work and thirty three years of the CASA disaster proves the point. Simply rubber stamped by Parliament, CASA’s working is an anathema to the Westminster system of responsible government. Until we have a Minister in charge of aviation through a regular Department of Government no substantive reform is possible other than an occasional patch up job.
Primarily it’s in the hands of Minister Barnaby Joyce, but Alan Jones might be a better bet.
Best regards,
Sandy
1989. Here started the never ending platitudes, promises and good intentions continually repeated, becoming worse than meaningless. So much so after thirty two years one wonders if outright lying would be a more accurate description of such pronouncements. We are subjected to the same insult, nearly word for word, every year, we are treated like idiots with no memory or brain.
ET CETERA… framed on my office wall.
MTF...P2