[Peetwo]

Update: Basic Class 2 medical reform.

Via Oz Flying :

The Basic Class 2 medical standard means some pilots can go to their GP for an examination.

AOPA applauds CASA over Medical Reform
30 November 2017

AOPA CEO Ben Morgan has praised the Civil Aviation Safety Authority over the new medical standard to be introduced next year.In a statement released today, Morgan thanked CASA for the new Basic Class 2 standard, which enables some pilots to be examined by a general practitioner rather than a DAME.

"The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of Australia extends our sincere thanks and appreciation to Mr Shane Carmody, Director of Aviation Safety, CASA regarding the Basic Class 2 reform announcement today," Morgan said.

"The new Basic Class 2 reform is a major win for Australia’s general aviation community ...

"The new Basic Class 2 medical will enable thousands to return to flying and will bring an end to decades of contention between CASA AVMED and the pilot community. This reform will serve to help enable general aviation revitalisation and signals that our national aviation safety regulator is listening and responding.

"The AOPA Australia views CASA’s decision to base the Basic Class 2 medical on the Austroads commercial vehicle driver standards to be fair and balanced and commend CASA on enabling the use of general practitioners, which will enable pilots to access medical assessments at thousands of locations across Australia."

Morgan also said that AOPA would work with CASA in the future with a view to having IFR and NVFR operations included in the new standard.

Read more at http://www.australianflying.com.au/lates...wJ3HCF1.99

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And comments -


Mike Borgelt

If that is the best that AOPA can get as a result of their lobbying it shows how ineffective AOPA is. Might have been better to wait a few days before commenting, Ben.

This is nothing like real medical reform as in the UK and USA and is an absolute minimum change designed to give the impression that CASA has done some reform without it being significant and Ben Morgan has bought into it.

Unfortunately this is the last opportunity for probably a decade or more for significant change.

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Benjamin Morgan

Mike,

Rather than throw a hand-grenade at me, would you like to explain why this reform is not a major step forward?

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matty


This is brilliant! As a PPL holder with a heart condition, this means i can simply do the exercise stress test once per year as required by Austroads - and as required annually by the treating hospital anyway - rather than the raft of time consuming and expensive addiitonal tests such as Holter Monitor, Stress Test, ECG, Chest X-ray, etc etc CASA currently require and which saw me move to RAAus. Bring it on!!

& spin'n'bulldust from Comardy Capers, via the Oz:

Clearing the air on pilot health

12:00amSHANE CARMODY

Reforming an aviation system that has been in place for decades is no easy feat.

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& a comment in reply from Sandy...

Thanks to the Oz and Annabelle for keeping a spotlight on the much blighted industry of General Aviation.  The proposed changes to aviation medicals would be a real reform, though seriously flawed,  and is welcome;   like a thimble full of water to the man dying of thirst, middle of summer Central Sahara. 

The most incomprehensible element is to exclude the right to fly Instrument Flight Rules and Night Visual Flight Rules. Therefore introducing, for no reason, an inducement to lapse one’s expensively obtained higher and safer flying ability, the IFR Rating. Of the Night VFR, this is often a stepping stone to the much desirable full instrument rating. A night rated pilot has a better utility of his flying ability and tends to fly more often. From the extensive records of the USA it is well known that the greatest safety measure is recency. Well practised pilots have far fewer accidents. Why then discourage them?

Advanced countries like the US and UK have sensibly already instituted less expensive and more practical private pilot medical requirements based on the fact that the ordinary driver’s licence standard and a degree of self reporting is sufficient. But true to form our independent Commonwealth Corporate continues to be the world’s expert regulator, and is  bent on forcing its latest tranche of excruciating costly and unworkable set of strict liability criminal sanction rules down the throat of what’s left of GA, but throwing us the promise of a bone next year. They keep saying this, they’ve been on a never ending make work system of rewriting the rules at massive expense for 30 years, its an art form. 

Without a raft of other reforms coming pretty quickly GA will continue to diminish and so any later reforms will have less effect. 

Pity my poor industry, grasping for anything, hoping against hope for rationality. Alex in the Rises. 

Finally from Hitch again in this week's LMH...

Yesterday's announcement of the new Basic Class 2 medical standard is not CASA's reform of aviation medicine in total; it is only one part of it. The AVMED department has been a worthy target of reformists in GA for at least 15 years, mainly because it has been a heavy burden on pilots for decades, and was only getting worse. High DAME costs, a lack of DAMEs, ludicrous questionnaires, bewildering decisions and processing fees for doing not a lot robbed AVMED of any credibility and isolated it from the aviation community. Various CEOs promised reforms and delivered nothing, so Basic Class 2 represents the first real improvement to an AVMED system that needs a lot more improving. Basic Class 2 captures a very large chunk of Australia's private pilot operations–less than six pax, VFR, piston engine–but it still has limited value in some areas. Aerobatics, for example, are not allowed on Basic Class 2. Asking around CASA, I was left with the impression that what they have done is reform the low-risk areas first whilst they try to gather information about how the Austroads standard will effect IFR, NVFR and aerobatics. Personally, I believe that evidence will show there is no reason why pilots can't fly almost unrestricted on the Basic Class 2, but that's something we all have to leave CASA to work out for themselves.

"..AVMED may be in for somewhat of a complete overhaul.."

Another part of the announcement was that some commercial operations will now require a Class 2 medical only, whereas before a Class 1 was needed. The big two are commercial ops without fare-paying passengers and flying instructors. Here CASA has recognised that ops like aerial ag and helicopter sling loading doesn't carry the weight of risk to general public that RPT and charter ops do, which is nice piece of commonsense; we've been asking for risk-based regulation for years. The whole idea of Class 2s for instructors is probably to allow CPLs and ATPLs who can't maintain their Class 1 to stay in aviation, locking in all those hours of experience rather than losing it all. But what we have to consider is that all this is only intent at this stage: there are no timelines and as yet CASA hasn't worked out how it will all function together, and what the real impact will be. However, having your GP do your assessment and CASA leaving the decision in the hands of your doctor is what we've been asking for. And there is more to come, I feel; AVMED may be in for somewhat of a complete overhaul.

But to many in the aviation community, these proposals are like being half-pregnant. Rather than go for a complete self-certification system like RAAus or the new FAA BasicMed, CASA's has based Basic Class 2 on a standard that is still reasonably rigid and still requires pilots to attend a medical centre. Because it's not the solution many wanted, they see it as just more rubbish regulation coming from Canberra. But there is another way of looking at it: Basic Class 2 will mean less cost impost both in doctor's fees and in the processing fee paid to CASA. It will mean people who don't have a DAME within cooee of home can wander down to see Dr Jones in the mainstreet for their medical, and it will mean the doctor seeing the patient is the one who gets to decide if they meet the requirements of fitness to fly. It sounds awfully like reform to me.

Read more at http://www.australianflying.com.au/the-l...yPx3qyt.99

MTF...P2