[Peetwo]

The Last Minute Hitch: 2 May 2025

2 May 2025

– Steve Hitchen

PAGC CEO Kevin Elliott likes to describe his air show as being a very different experience for the Australian public. That's pretty fair considering PAGC is the only air show in the country that isn't held at an airport. Although Elliott and his team take aviation to the masses by staging it in front of a general public environment, not having it at an airport means that airports are removed from that experience, and in the case of general aviation, that's not necessarily a good thing. I think it is defendable to say that most of the non-aviation public in[b] [/b]Australia would never go to a GA airport just for the hell of it. They go there to get on aircraft and travel to somewhere else. If they don't have that need, I think the majority may have never been to their local airport. Holding air shows at airports puts airfield infrastructure and capability on display, and creates a connection with communities. It shows them what they didn't know they had. PAGC won't make that connection, but it will inspire in other ways. Air shows need to be loud, exciting and colourful to generate awe in the people watching, and you can't argue that it doesn't do that. GA will get some spin-off from that with the expected presence of Freedom Formation, a display of energetic and precision can-do from pilots that exemplify the best of GA. Having that in front of the public is alone enough reason for GA to cheer on PAGC.

"..they need to reduce or eliminate long-term aircraft parking.."

The last thing general aviation operators in the Sydney basin need is for Sydney Airport Corporation to kick them in the guts when they're already on their knees. With Western Sydney Airport proving an insatiable consumer of airspace, Bankstown Airport is already struggling to find enough oxygen to survive. If that wasn't enough of a burden, SAC has waded in and flagged very heavy cost increases for operators at the Sydney GA precinct that will further impede the sector's survivability rating in and around the city. What SAC has employed is a tried-and-trusted tactic gleaned from the GA metro airports' strategy book: discourage GA by making it financially unviable. These new charges–open for consultation until 19 May–are designed by SAC's own words to "disincentivise" long-term parking on the GA pad at SYD. Basically, operators will pay $60/hr for the first three hours, but will incur a full-day fee of $3220 if the aircraft is parked for so much as a minute over three hours. At least SAC has been honest with their justification: they want to bring the charges in line with the rest of the airport and "promote efficient use" of the airport. An insider hinted to me that this could be about expanding facilities for regional airlines; they want the ground the GA pad is on. To grab that, they need to reduce or eliminate long-term aircraft parking, leaving short three-hour stays to hot-bunk the remaining space. But will three-hour stays match the profiles of the average business aviation mission? The onus of flexibility in this case is not on SAC, which means the business aviation industry will have to devise a wicked strategy to get around this, or start issuing customers Uber vouchers from Camden.

The good news from this year's Federal Election is that at 1800 tomorrow night it's all over! Almost universally, this campaign is regarded as the most lack-lustre, say-nothing, do-nothing, poke-your-tongue-at-the-other-person, poor excuse for electioneering there has ever been. And through all of that, all parties have been able to get through without uttering the word "aviation". Most notably, the Coalition has been absolutely silent. I know they've received my questions because phone calls confirmed that, but their lack of response leaves the entire industry with no option but to speculate. With that prerogative in my hands, here's a bit of my own speculation. The Coalition kept away from aviation because–right or wrong–they have no counter to the ALP's white paper. Don't start a fight if you don't have the weapons to win it. And is there actually a battle to fight anyway? The ALP is very much on the side of GA transitioning to sustainable energy (and nothing else), the Greens want to kill-off aviation completely and all other parties seem to not have the word "aviation" in their vocabularies. We have no friends in parliament, evidenced by the fact that the 47th parliament had no Parliamentary Friends of Aviation group. For the Coalition to have taken an opposing stance and thrown their weight behind GA would have been a strong point of differentiation. That they didn't do so is indicative of the lack of value they (and all other parties) place on our future.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

Comment:

Eyrie

2 days ago

The problem with going to your local GA airport is that you likely will not see anything. The high fences and barbed wire make them very unwelcoming and it is difficult to even see anything on the airport. Why bother?

Follow up to Sandy's corro last week:

You; Susan McDonald;W. J. R. (Bill) Hamilton;+11 others

Editor-at-Large, Australian Flying

The Civil Aviation Safety Authorities’s campaign for general aviation pilots to make a Pledge for Safety. 

Steve, 

Personally I think it’s outrageous that CASA should ask us about a pledge for safety when the boot is on the other foot, no question. 

What a colossal cheek when CASA has induced thousands of PPLs into the low weight category which aircraft are not as safe as are heavier and far more capable VH registered aircraft. It’s obvious to any one that the 600kg limit is utterly wrong for numbers of missions that these aircraft are put to in regular private operations. People have died in these aircraft due to their inherent unsuitability for Australia’s long distances and windy conditions. 

Hence the mooted change of the low weight recreational aircraft from 600kg to 760kg, but CASA can’t bring itself to implement the change because it implies recognition of the completely wrong model of governance. 

All flying operations should be controlled through a Department with Minister in charge via graduated system because it’s not the role of government to hand off governance to monopoly bodies simply to avoid work and responsibility. 

What hubris is on display here when CASA has wrecked the flying school industry by creating the most unnecessarily complex, time consuming and costly regulatory regime beyond any rationality. A cursory investigation of the systems in other countries, particularly the USA, shows that our sclerotic regulatory overreach is not only unnecessary but also counterproductive. 

I’d be saying to CASA you pledge to have the Act changed by simplifying your regulations and to revert them to misdemeanour status and delete the proviso of strict liability in line with our British style of justice of proportionality. 

Then CASA should pledge to Glen Buckley total restitution of his flying school and provide him with proportionate compensation for CASA’s unconscionable treatment against him. Similarly an apology and compensation for Les Woodall and a plea to the court to rescind his criminal conviction, and any such convictions unfairly obtained due to the strict liability provision. 

And CASA should pledge to use risk analysis and the experience in other GA countries to determine standards, including medical standards, instead of saddling us with unique and crippling Australian regulatory over reach. 

Finally, all citizens have responsibility to respect our laws. Will we be required to make such pledges in every area of civic life? What’s next, shall we be exhorted to report any possible bad thinking or possible regulation breaches by others?

CASA disrespects everyone in GA with this abhorrent Big Brother style of pilot denigration. 

No doubt CASA will list those that have signed and those that have not for future reference when deciding who to favour and who to prosecute.

Cheers,      Sandy

---

From Spencer Ferrier:

Dear Sandy, Steve and fellow participants,

Sandy's points are sound.  I do recognise that the learn to fly industry has fundamentally morphed into a few major private/institutional Schools, but that is because of the requirement to produce airline pilots in large numbers with equipment that demands major financial investment.  From my view of the NSW School system, that same event has occurred, with the major Private Schools now taking over elite school training.

Four matters that are of concern require attention.  While there is a real need for high standard, technically advanced, professional employee pilots, there also remains the need to encourage operations for those whose career path is other than employment with major air carriers.  The need to provide training for business, non-employee and business operator flying and recreational airmanship, remains both important and under-addressed.  We do our airline training pretty well in Australia, and the trend noted above is consolidating the technical demands upon pilots in the commercial high-value airline industry.

While the history of the learn to fly industry shows it to be emerging for professionals and for those who can meet the costs from private means, there needs to be some kind of effort made to introduce capable and willing people into a more open and not quite so regimented system for learning to fly, aircraft operation and entry to instrument flight.  This is my first area of concern. This brief statement hides the technical, legal, administrative and personal issues that require attention.

The second issue is the weight of so-called lightweight aircraft.  The aircraft in this category are too light and thus, fragile.  These aircraft need to be bigger and heavier.  While properly maintained and managed lightweight aircraft, of the style of those in RAAus, can operate safely under limited conditions, they are not robust enough to manage the strain of less than professional piloting. The aircraft can do the job, but the margin of strength, and capacity to withstand operator shortcomings is wanting.  This arises from limited-skill pilots, and less than regimented ground staff.  While our rules require vigilance in maintenance, piloting and ground handling, which is indeed mostly delivered, my exposure and experience leads me to the belief that extra weight and thus robustness should be added to machines in this class.  Having regard to the utilisation of such machines for initial training and operation on a casual basis presents the trainee-casual pilot with an aircraft that is nowhere near as customer-friendly as it ought to be. 

I have operated other types of airframes, hang-gliders and parachute gliders.  I do not extend my comments to those, specialist, non-transport airframes, as I do not have adequate exposure to their nuances. 

Third, we are reaching the point of saturation with legalism.  There are too many laws. Operations mix with too much legalism including the encroachment of the Insurance industry into pilot operating standards.  I am aware of the need for aircraft owners, operators and maintenance to accommodate a rising standard of technical understanding.  Aircraft and systems are constantly developing into safer, flight. 

The rules, procedures and penalties, including the ever-present latent threat of penalties is an issue that requires to be addressed in favour of the non-lawyer, non-expert owner/operator. 

IFR operations ought to be available to Recreational operators.  The advent of high-quality electronics of all styles should be a harbinger of relaxed albeit limited access procedures to enable private, business aircraft to achieve their purpose, which ultimately must be to transport people usefully from one place to another, not necessarily to or from major sealed airports.

Yours sincerely,

Spencer

Sandy's response:

As addressed,

Spencer thank you for thoughts and advice. Following on and expanding these themes I would add the following:-

Flying training.

The foundational activity that also spurs and spreads employment in the market for aircraft and design innovation, manufacturing, maintenance and the rationale for airport upkeep.

Training in Australia is prohibited unless Part 141 authorised, unlike the ICAO Annexes which conceive of Part 141 only being necessary for special courses, such as ‘straight through’ courses with a lower aggregate of flying hours to complete a higher licence.

An instructor in the USA can teach immediately after obtaining the qualification.
There is no fixed syllabus, but the testing for licence is thorough.

Many pilots that used to progress to the airlines used to gain their licences from the numerous regional flying schools that have now all but disappeared because of legalism. Many of those same pilots took their valuable real life flying experience with them to the airlines.

As Spencer puts it legalism is excessive in our system. General aviation has largely died in the bush, excessive regulation has caused an extraordinary loss of regional and outback flying schools, literally hundreds have gone.

National security and General Aviation.

GA is not just crucial for outback and regional transport in our sparsely populated continent. The ability to save time and avoid, at times, hundreds of kilometres of unmade corrugated roads, sometimes flooded, sometimes risking fires, is an  obvious advantage.
In a wider context aerial mobility is a National strength for our security. Whether the transport of goods, personnel, aerial agriculture, or for surveillance and mapping, all the abilities, requisite skills and infrastructure around aviation need to be recognised.

It now all comes back to the National Parliament and we need a Members of Parliament “Friends of General Aviation Group” to foster three basics:-

1/. To promote and foster the growth of GA, and put aviation back into a Department.
Direct Ministerial responsibility is an  indispensable principle of a Westminster style democracy. 

2/. An airports policy to protect Commonwealth airports from non aviation uses.

3/. Delete the ASIC.

Regards to all,      Sandy

Illustration, flying school and charter Australian ‘shelfware’ costing $thousands and months or years to have approved, versus $25 book of rules for the same USA operations.

Plus from Bill Hamilton:

Sandy,

Sadly, as I was informed by a "potential Teal" and  a Green, at a recent "Meet the Candidates" night, all aviation except emergency and essential services should be shut down, so severe is the "Climate Emergency".

The Labor candidate did not disagree.

I am sure you will have all heard about the 20yo Victorian AFL player who died at training. The local Labor claims it was  caused by "lethal humidity" caused by the "Climate Emergency".

An Associate Professor of something or other at UMelbourne said that the "Climate Emergency" is so severe that we are on the verge of having to evacuate norther Australia.

This will come as a surprise to my friends at Atherton.

This nonsense was on the ABC.

With this sort of ratbaggery, what chance has GA got of even getting a look-in.

I barely recognize Australia any longer.

Best regards,

Bill Hamilton

Sandy in reply:

As addressed and apologies to those I’ve added to this thread for not including you previously.

Thanks Bill, yes you’d have to say there’s plenty of crackpots about but I don’t think the current ‘climate’ will last for a lot longer.

We can’t see the future but feel good doesn’t put bread on the table, and if China starts to look a little more acquisitive or aggressive then National strength will suddenly take centre stage.

I know these are a ‘perhaps’ arguments but sometimes the pendulum swings and quite quickly therefore it’s incumbent upon us to push for reform with specific policies.

One thing for certain, GA must have a basic platform, and I will argue that having aviation put under direct Ministerial control is the first principle reform without which there’s no chance of practical reforms being sustainable. 

Government taking responsibility is the key.

Cheers,    Sandy

MTF...P2