[Peetwo]

Heads up miniscule; a history lesson & more free advice(cc DPM Barnaby) -

It would appear Byron Bailey has given up on chucking rocks on Beaker's MH370 chook-house shed (good thing to, that line of attack was getting tedious ); now at least BB is on strong ground to use his many decades of experience & observations both domestically & internationally in aviation, to help support the GA industry fight-back against nearly 3 decades of bureaucratic suffocation under the guise of the 'Regulatory Reform Program'.

Courtesy the Oz today:

Australia should have adopted US aviation rules

Byron Bailey
The Australian
April 29, 2016 12:00AM

Thirty years ago nearly every country town was serviced by a regular commuter service — typically by 10-seat general aviation aircraft.

My first flying job after leaving the air force was piloting an 11-seat Nomad between Sydney (Mascot) and Maitland on a regular schedule. I also flew a regular scheduled service from Wollongong to Essendon in a Cessna C421 pressurised twin.

These flights were always full and the general aviation scene was booming.

Bankstown was also very busy with all the training and business aviation. I left Australia at the end of 1985 to fly for an overseas airline. I returned 20 years later to a shattered and depleted general aviation scene and Bankstown practically a ghost airport.

So what happened in the meantime?

The year 1988 happened, that’s what. The Aviation Act! The beginning of the modernisation of Australian aviation regulations by CASA, as ordered by the government, to align them with ICAO and other first world countries.

CASA should just have adopted rules from the US Federal Aviation Administration — which has a far better safety record than Australia — but they didn’t. Hubris of the CASA bureaucrats and their attendant legal department decided they were up to the task.

I now quote a senior industry official: “Ask any person participating in aviation today for a single reason why aviation is in such a mess. The answer is always the same: impractical regulations and standards that are unique to Australia.”

Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent, resulting in industry confusion and bankruptcies because of massive, unsustainable compliance costs — and there is no end in sight.

Senior management of these semi-autonomous agencies (CASA/ASA/ATSB) have little or no commercial in-house expertise, as evidenced by the present head of CASA, Mark Skidmore — a former fighter pilot with apparently no civil flying experience.

An example of what CASA and ASA have forced on the industry is the mandated installation of ADSB five years ahead of the US, knowing that overseas aircraft manufacturers were not prepared for such required installations. This will saddle Australian owners and operators with massive costs to ensure compliance, being the first in the world, as guinea pigs.

Just when you thought things could not get any worse, then came the attempted revision of Part 61 “Pilot Certification” in September 2014.

We now have, at an alleged cost of $200 million, 3000 pages of what a senior US FAA official described as gobbledygook. In the US, pilot certification runs to 100 pages and the New Zealand rules come in at 89 pages.

New Zealand revamped all their aviation regulations after a royal commission and the result is widely used and admired by other countries. Australia, however, is saddled with a regulatory nightmare that is forcing the industry to collapse.

Industry heavyweights have decided enough is enough. Desperate times call for desperate action. Concerned aviation insiders that care about the future of general aviation have organised a public meeting in Tamworth on Friday, May 6, with the Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, Transport Minister Darren Chester and that great Australian and aviation expert Dick Smith.

Both these ministerial portfolios were formerly held by Warren Truss, who appears not to have had any leverage over CASA/ATSB/ASA. Also attending for the defence is CASA chairman Jeff Boyd. The aim of the meeting is to prevent the collapse of the industry by requesting government intervention on a range of matters, the most pressing problem being the scrapping of the totally unworkable and ruinous Part 61.

A former chairman of the International Air Transport Association Safety Committee and retired Qantas group general manager of Safety gave the following advice, based on many years dealing with CASA.

“From my experience I can assure you the politicians will send the proposed material to CASA for ‘guidance’. CASA will then defer comment as long as they can, which will be after any coming election. CASA comment to the politicians will be ‘we are analysing the document and while we think it has some merit it is not a document drafted by experienced and proven regulation drafters such that exist within the professional ranks of CASA’.”

   
And Dazzles if you choose to ignore the ticking of the 60 minutes clock Creampuff, of UP fame, gives a free insight into how it will pan out for you and your Coalition buddies as long as PAIN & the angry Alphabets can draw breath & bang on a keyboard:

CP - More power to your arm, Ben.

Some paradigm issues that I suggest you take into consideration in your strategic thinking, so that any momentum you build and effort you are making are focussed where it may have some chance of having some effect.


The practical reality is that while ever the Coalition and Labour effectively take turns in government, they both win every election. Each 'side' merely takes its turn to feast on the treasure of the body politic.

These days, the job of the bureaucracy is to protect the relevant minister. Whether that happens to result in something that's in the public interest is a matter of mere coincidence. The bureaucracy is effectively now a support system for the political advisers for the ministers who come and go, no matter to what party they happen to belong. The political advisers decide whether the minister is happy or sad, and that determines whether the bureaucrats keep their jobs.

Both 'sides' effectively abdicated their responsibility for the aviation industry to the bureaucracy a couple of decades or so ago. This makes ministers and their advisers happy, because they can disclaim responsibility for aviation regulation on a bi-partisan and 'public interest' basis. That's why the bureaucracy proceeded to build (and continues to build) the enormous, complex mess that is the aviation regulatory system. My view is that it is now impossible for anyone to work out what the amalgamation of the Civil Aviation Act, 1988 regulations, 1998 regulations, Civil Aviation Orders, Manuals of Standards, Directions, Determinations and, most importantly, exemptions, actually means as a matter of practicality. It's now mainly a life support system for all the people who build and continue to build on the mess: The bigger the mess, the longer it will take them to clean it up (on six figure salaries, year after year).

Some of them seriously believe they are making a positive contribution to safety. Many of the people in AVMED would fall into this category.

This abdication is also the explanation for why nothing changes despite all of the matters identified by Senate Committees and inquiries and reviews and coronials etc. Witness all those Senate enquiries that don't result in the Senators walking into the Senate and voting to give effect to the strong opinions expressed during Committee hearings. It's just pantomime.

Short point for you: Don't bother wasting energy on the tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber. The only glimmer of hope for GA lies in the laps of independents like Nick X.

Therefore, I'd suggest it would be very worthwhile finding out whether Tony Windsor has any knowledge of the plight of GA, any sympathy for the plight of GA and any inclination to use his vote to support change to improve the lot of GA. If the answer to each of those questions is 'no', meeting with and talking to Chester, Joyce and Windsor is - in my opinion based on the observation of the similar circumstances have arisen with depressing regularity over the last couple of decades and more - a complete waste of your and everyone else's time and energy. Focus has to be on the people who are actually prepared to legislate for change. 
   

"There was movement at the station airport for the word had got around.."  

So Dazzle when you can take time out from your twitter-verse photo opportunity & selfie  tour (& stop listening to your CASA mole), you might like to get your immaculate head around what will be coming at you at the Tamworth corral a week from today - or not...





MTF...P2