[Peetwo]

Dear Minister look what you have inherited -

To follow on from this post - Aerospace Innovation in 21st century - where the FAA seem to understand the importance of promoting & revitalising General Aviation to the health of the industry as a whole, today Ben Sandilands focusses on this Dick Smith post off the UP:

Get out of aviation before you lose everything

---

I’d like to re-emphasise what I’ve told many people and that is there is no light on the horizon and many tens of millions of dollars more is going to be lost in general aviation in this county before anything is done about it.

I’ve just returned from a trip in the Caravan from Bankstown to Mornington Island and back. Basically every airport is dead, I see a totally dying GA industry.

To show you how bad it is, I’m trying to get rid of my aircraft. I put the CJ3 on the market about 6 months ago when one of the aircraft of about the same hours sold for about US $4.6 million. Since then I have reduced the price twice, now to US $3.9 million and can’t get any takers.

One of the problems is the high cost of fitting ADSB in Australia and also a flight data recorder, both unique Australian requirements. The prime reason I’m selling the aircraft is if you get a minor fault – let’s say the mercury battery in the FMS goes flat, the aircraft is grounded for many weeks as Collins no longer have a presence in Australia and so the unit has to be sent to the USA for repair. This is going to happen more and more. I couldn’t even get the Winslow life raft serviced here and had to spend over US $3,000 shipping it as dangerous goods to Singapore.

I had a meeting with the Director of Aviation Safety at CASA, Mark Skidmore when he first started over a year ago and gave him a list of about 20 items, some truly simple to fix, many of which could save money for the industry. In the intervening year not one item has been addressed, I haven’t even received a phone call from anyone as CASA to ask about any of the ideas.

The OneSKY project is most likely going to be a disaster with hundreds of millions of dollars being written off and charged to the industry.

The ADSB requirement for all aircraft that fly in cloud, coming in next year is unique in the world – no other country has deemed that to be affordable. It’s pretty clear that Airservices under Sir Angus Houston will not budge on this mandate, even though they have maximised profits by not putting in many ADSB ground stations.

When Warren Truss actually leaves the Parliament, he’ll be praised by both sides of politics on what a great person and politician he is. This will give a message to any other politician how to act in an important folio like transport.

That is do nothing.

Take my advice now and get out before you lose even more.

And Ben's opinion piece:

Dick Smith says “get out of general aviation now”

Ben Sandilands | Mar 10, 2016 9:46AM |

Dick Smith flying his Longranger over the east coast of Tasmania

It’s a fair bet that almost no-one who flies on scheduled airlines in this country knows what ‘general aviation’ really is.

But it is the critical foundation (although one that is being weakened by technology) of the aviation food chain. A sick GA sector affects the ultimate health and skill base of piloting, training, maintenance, and skills retention.

Which is why a call by entrepreneur Dick Smith yesterday for those in private aviation to get out now before they lose their money is cause for some concerned discussions.
Mr Smith outlined his reasons in this post on Pprune, a discussion board that attracts some well known and respected voices in the airline and general aviation areas, as well as inevitably, a lot of trolls and f*ckwits.-

GA isn’t an activity that speaks with one voice, and seldom says anything that can be readily understood by the political and media estates, which is bad news in a world where everyone tends to talk in dot points, slogans and assertions to fit into social media formats.

The basis for Mr Smith’s concerns, which have not gone unchallenged in the Pprune discussion, is unwise over regulation that is placing crippling financial burdens on general aviation.

What if anything should regular users of airlines be concerned about in this discussion? The answers may include skills and aircraft piloting and maintenance standards.

Although it doesn’t appear at this stage to be part of the shouting that is going on over this topic on Pprune, the world’s airlines are increasingly run by management school disciples who really couldn’t care less if the first officer seat at the spear tip end of one of their 180 passenger jets is occupied by an enthusiastic young man or woman who couldn’t actually fly a small piston engined Cessna 172 and has never had to exercise judgment when challenged by weather or mechanical failure while using a short dirt airstrip.

The pressure in airlines is for legacy pilot skills to be considered less important than the correct management of automation and computer flight system in scheduled operations, because ‘nothing’ ever goes wrong with them.

Once the GA stream of skilled pilots is throttled back to zero, the inconvenience of considerations about mature aged pilot skills, and the remaining regulatory emphasis on experience and training, will disappear.

General aviation in Australia is unfortunately often seen as an impediment to realising the real estate value of small airports close to major city airports and the faith in becoming a pilot through theoretical studies and computer management skills may well be ahead of what is reasonable and prudent.

Much hangs on the sort of debate Dick Smith is trying to bring on, even though it will escape close scrutiny over its pros and cons, in what now passes for general media

MTF..P2