[Peetwo]

REX COI on UAV/RPAS -

If you ever wanted to witness a greater contrast to the excellent forthright evidence given by the representatives of AusALPA, one cannot go past the insipid (read 'soft cock') performance of the nominated REX HF Muppet Mr Tessarolo... - see HERE

The brevity of that particular session perhaps highlights the weight given by the Senators to the quality and significance of the evidence as presented by REX.

This however should not be surprising given how politically conflicted, therefore potentially regulatory captured, the REX Group and by default the RAAA currently is...

Senator O'SULLIVAN:  But we need one voice on this. It would seem to me that this little yellow sheet of paper does not go far enough. There are the rules that your pilots operate under, and drone manufacturers can fit their rules into a sheet of paper that the Chinese do and put in the box. It is not even that long. That is the contrast that we have got. I do not think that they are adequate or sufficient. I think they are grossly insufficient. The only message I have got for you is we need all of you in this space to really have a thorough review of what is going on and join us, if you are as concerned as we are with respect to the circumstances.

CHAIR: Does Rex say it is okay; you 'do not see any problems'?

Mr Tessarolo : We did not say 'we do not see any problems'.

CHAIR: Sorry, they were my words.

Mr Tessarolo : There is room for improvement.

CHAIR: You said it was 'adequate'.

Senator O'SULLIVAN:  No, he said 'it may be sufficient', which was what attracted my attention. You said 'that while the current regulations may be sufficient …' I am asking you to review that language because nobody we have heard from thinks the current regulations 'may be sufficient'.

CHAIR: So you, Mr Tessarolo, are the general manager of the human factors group. What is a human factors group?

Mr Tessarolo : The human factors group of Rex comprises group safety compliance, engineering, QA, dangerous goods and the human factors training of pilots.

CHAIR: So when you were writing your submission, did you consult your pilots? Did you ask them? Or did you just have a team inside your area that wrote it?

Mr Tessarolo : We had a team inside our area. This was actually written in consultation with one of our board members, who is knowledgeable in the space of RPAS.

CHAIR: With the greatest respect, I do not know who your board member is but I would much rather hear from the pilots themselves. When we have the most senior pilots in a Australia's aviation industry sitting before us, all as one saying 'we have an issue' and when we have former Qantas chief pilot, Chris Manning, now at ATSB saying very clearly 'anything in airspace—'

Senator O'SULLIVAN:  And the air traffic controllers are saying it too. The only ones who might think things are okay are those who do have an interest in the unmanned aircraft space. They think everything is hunky dory in most instances. I too think you need to really go back and take a more critical look at the question with your pilots. They are the ones in the box seat.

CHAIR: I am a little bit alarmed. Anyway, you have got that message. If there is a different submission, we will take that submission late once you have spoken to your pilots. We would be happy to hear from them too should they want to appear. What system exists within your company to report drone violations? How does Rex do it?

Mr Tessarolo : Since 11 June 2016, we have had five events reported within our safety management system. The one on 11 June did not actually involve a Rex flight but involved a UAV that was spotted by an off-duty Rex pilot approximately 0.7 nautical miles from the threshold of runway 29 at Orange. The other reports actually did involve Rex aircraft. Effectively before December 2016, before CASA introduced their drone complaints form, there was no real system of identifying and reporting these to CASA. We reported these to CASA but just through our safety liaison people and then we just reported them to the ATSB.

CHAIR: That does not surprise us, particularly after CASA's very poor performance in front of Senate estimates a number of weeks ago when they referred to our concerns as: 'Why are we worried? There has not been an incident yet. It would be virtually like a bird strike.' So that does not surprise me one little bit.

This is my last one. In your submission, you talk about how you would be prepared to report the sightings of drone activity, which you have just told us. But, under the CASA and ATSB reporting regime, they are described as non-reportable events. If you have done the right thing, or your pilots have done the right thing, and reported it, do you get any feedback, or will someone just say, 'Thank you very much; check you later'? What happens?

Mr Tessarolo : From the ATSB, we have not actually received any feedback. I did receive from one CASA inspector, I believe—I am just delving into my memory with this—just a response saying that he will pass it on. From one report that we submitted using the actual complaints form, we just got a series of very generic questions about the drone event, but clearly we could not provide any answers, because it is almost impossible to provide those answers.

CHAIR: It has been proved very clearly—and ATSB have been very keen to work with us; there is no argument about that—that they have no idea who owns these things. There is no registration or number plates on them. There is no technology that says, 'This one flying by is owned by little Billy Jones down the corner there, who should be at school rather than flying his drone around the airport.' Thanks, Mr Tessarolo.

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And perhaps the best dismissal line from that whole disappointing session   :

CHAIR: Mr Tessarolo, thank you for your time, and we look forward to some feedback from your pilots.

Mr Tessarolo : Thank you. That is noted.

 
"..We had a team inside our area. This was actually written in consultation with one of our board members, who is knowledgeable in the space of RPAS..."

The above short Tessarolo statement is interesting in the context of the following quote from the latest Ferryman post on the PelAir thread (see HERE): 

– The final report will (must) most certainly present ‘just the facts’; but only those related directly to the incident. While this is reasonable, fair and proper; it will not answer the questions of many. We know, essentially, the what’s and why fore’s, we have an inkling that the CASA oversight and audit process was ‘over easy’, we know the system was slack and lip service only was paid to the Safety Management System and pilot ‘education’. We even know that the Sydney CASA ‘approved’ by acceptance, the operation as it stood. Manning’s report will, no doubt, reflect this, with all the trimmings. All well and good and, by the way, it is what the ATSB should have done many years and millions of ago.

The 'board member' referred to is none other than one Ronald Bartsch (aka Iron Bar off the UP)...  - https://au.linkedin.com/in/ronbartsch

Chairman

UAS International

February 2014 – Present (3 years 6 months)
Free drone seminar : drone friends hope you can make it - dinner after - need to register now https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/unmanned...5?ref=ecal

http://southpac.biz/rpas-lead-auditors-course

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...Ron is an independent Director of Regional Express (Rex) Holdings Limited and Chair of the Board’s Safety and Risk Management Committee... 

Independent my ass -  

It is also worth noting that before Iron Bar in 2010 became a 'independent' director for REX he consulted directly to REX on the implementation of their SMS and before that was the CASA Manager responsible for oversight of all Sydney based airline AOCs, which included REX:

Manager Airline Operations

Civil Aviation Safety Authority

March 1996 – June 2007 (11 years 4 months)Sydney, Australia
Regulatory and safety oversight of all airline AOCs and MROs based in Sydney including Qantas Airways, Regional Express, QantasLink

Hmm...no further comment -  


MTF...P2