[Peetwo]

The Last Minute Hitch: 14 February 2025

14 February 2025

– Steve Hitchen

In a Federal Election year, a ream of funding announcements generally marks the starting gun to a serious pitch by the government to stay in power. Not that grants aren't given out regularly during the course of a government's term, just that they take on strategic meaning. Sometimes that strategy is not so clear. This week minister Catherine King released successful projects for the fourth round of the Regional Airports Program (RAP), but only for NSW. When questioned about it, the department spokesperson said further announcements were yet to be made, like I needed to have that pointed out. The department release included quotes from the minister, and from the sitting members for Gilmore (Moruya) and Eden-Monaro (Merimbula). Missing was any form of quote from the federal member for Farrar, a seat which includes Albury, Narrandera and Griffith. Farrar was plied with the most money of any NSW electorate. Gilmore and Eden-Monaro are Labor seats; Farrar is Liberal. Let's not give air time to the opposition, especially with an election so close. The muddiness comes in why NSW has been singled out for a special announcement unaccompanied by a list of grants for other states. I suspect it is attached to an electoral strategy to shore up support in that state. If that's correct, we may see further funding announcements as the election bandwagon rolls across other state borders.

"..GA is being ordered to make extinction-level sacrifice.."

Consultation and commonsense have tag-teamed CASA into scrapping the Bankstown Corridor idea. The design would have funnel training traffic into a corridor with a narrow girth and a ceiling lower than a POWs tunnel. That bought about a clear rejection from the aviation community, and CASA has taken that on board and binned the concept as published. Now, some aviation commentators are asking "why was CASA so stupid to design something so dangerous is the first place?" I can answer that: they didn't have a lot of say in the matter. The ALP needed to appease the Western Sydney International deity, and threw copious amounts of GA airspace into the volcano to do so, despite being told at blueprint stage that Bankstown would be strangled. Consequently, CASA's Office of Airspace Regulation is trying to come up with an airspace design that will allow Bankstown to breathe without compromising safety. The last one was bound to decrease safety in the Sydney basin, so tearing it up was actually the safest thing to do. But OAR is still working with the same raw materials, but now are expected to come up with a better idea mid year. If a better idea existed, they would have put that forward for consultation last year and not the design they did. WSA needs airspace, and that airspace has to come from somewhere else. At the moment, GA is being ordered to make extinction-level sacrifice whereas other airspace users in the Sydney basin like the ADF and Sydney International have surrendered little. A total re-think is needed for the OAR to come up with an inspired alternative, and that may mean having some harsh words with other airspace users.

It makes logical sense for AAHOF to schedule the induction dinner to coincide with Airshows Downunder Shellharbour. The air show will already draw a lot of people from all sectors of aviation to Shellharbour Airport, and holding the dinner at the same time will add some lustre to AAHOF, and further cement Shellharbour as a key hub for the aviation community. There will already be many in the aviation community at Shellharbour for the air show, so the AAHOF induction won't demand from them two separate trips for each event. Add to that, it will give people somewhere to go on the Saturday night that keeps them immersed in aviation rather than dispersing at the end of the day for dinner at a nearby pub or restaurant. On the years that ASDU is not held, scheduling the dinner will be trickier to ensure it doesn't foul the Avalon calendar. That shouldn't be too hard to do given that AAHOF and AMDA Foundation, which runs Avalon, have directors in common. And whilst we're on the subject: AAHOF hasn't any nominations for the Southern Cross Award yet. There is a lot of satisfaction in having your organisation permanently honoured alongside Qantas, RAAF, RFDS and other names luminous in the annals of Australian aviation. We should know; Australian Flying was so honoured in 2023. Get onto the AAHOF website and tell them right now why your organisation should have its space.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch

[Peetwo]

The Last Minute Hitch: 21 February 2025

21 February 2025

– Steve Hitchen

One of the hottest topics around the GA precincts of Avalon 2009 was the collapse the previous year of the Helicopter Association of Australia (HAA). There was plenty of speculation and opinion whipping around the exhibition about the whys and whats that deprived a growing industry of a collective voice. Four years later a new association rose, and continues to rise. The Australian Helicopter Industry Association (AHIA) is now one of the premier associations in general aviation, as evidenced by the respect they hold in Canberra, the momentum behind their biennial convention at RotorTech and the safety programs they promote. Associations are membership-based, but that doesn't absolve them from the responsibility of creating a product the market wants. That usually means getting the mix right and positioning the organisation at the very top of the expertise tree. AHIA has done a fantastic job of doing just that, and is now an association the helicopter industry, regulators and politicians can rely on. Other associations wondering where they are going could use AHIA as a template on how to get it right.

"..the coroner is not talking about criminal charges over the pilot being issued his RPC.."

The Victorian coroner's report into the Lucyvale Jabiru crash has not done any favours to the recreational aviation community. Unfortunately, that's not the coroner's fault; this one is an own-goal. The bombshell in the findings is that key people at RAAus have been referred to the Victorian Department of Prosecutions for potentially providing misleading evidence to the court. That's important to note that the coroner is not talking about criminal charges over the pilot being issued his RPC, just the way RAAus management dealt with giving evidence at the coronial inquiry. However, it would seem the pathway is open for the family to bring a civil case against RAAus, which has generated chatter around the community that a payout could break the organisation. I doubt it; it's because we humans are fallible and make mistakes that we have insurance. If the cover doesn't protect against something like this then what is the point of insurance? For me the worrying thing is the path RAAus management elected to take after realising they were exposed. I was once told that when it comes to a bureaucracy and a choice between a conspiracy and a monumental stuff-up, go for the stuff-up every time. So far, that has held true, and I am prepared to extend that to RAAus as well, but this incident is borderline. That's scary coming from a management team that holds the health of recreational aviation in their own hands. I can't see the membership being impressed by all this, and demands to do better are probably not misplaced.

Australian Flying's owner and publishing company Yaffa Media is 100 years old this year. For any commercial organisation to reach its centenary is a huge effort, and a credit to the Yaffa family, which still owns the business set up in 1925. Remarkably, Australian Flying has been in the Yaffa stable for 56 of those years. They bought the title as a stapled newsletter and developed it into a full-colour glossy magazine, complemented with an online presence. Other magazines such as Aircraft and Aerospace, Aviation Business and Flightpath also briefly flourished, but have since folded their wings as print publications came under pressure from the digital age. We're still here because the Yaffa family never lost faith that Australian Flying was delivering a product that perfectly matched the desires of the customer base. Whilst the last 10 have seen no less than eight aviation titles cease publication in Australia, we've never lost focus on what the GA community wants, and that is primarily a hard-copy print magazine. It hasn't been easy; there have been moments, but the Yaffa family has ridden every peak and trough of troubled waters. Ultimately, knowing how to do that is how you get to be 100 years old.

May your gauges always be in the green,

Hitch