[thorn bird]

Bit of a week around the media for aviation stuff.

Passing Strange???
Fridays Australian "CASA looks to US work on drone operation hazards"

Hmm?? doesn't this sort of fly in the face of the CAsA ethos that all the rest of the world is wrong and only CAsA knows what is right for all things aviation. I mean to say what would those damned Yanks know about aviation or drones?

The "Iron ring" have been spinning that ethos for years, terrifying politicians and the general public that if we started adopting things that other people do around the world that actually work, are cost effective and allow aviation industries the freedom to grow and prosper, these flying thingies would be falling out of the sky everywhere.

NO, far better to indulge our own arrogance and ignorance, siphon hundreds of millions of dollars from the public purse to produce mountains of gobbledegook regulations, that nobody understands, that patently have no bearing on producing actual safety outcomes, stifle productivity and growth leading to the collapse of a whole industry, but are very successful however in ensuring no liability or responsibility falls on them, rather than, god forbid, actually being smart and copying the best from around the world as the New Zealanders did.

Then there's "CAsA budget maintained due to "Complexity" in Fridays Australian aviation section.

Yeah right!!...only thing complex is CAsA itself. Given the decline in General Aviation, caused in a large part by inept overregulation, CAsA needs extra staff?? to do what exactly?? More PHD's and masters degree's?

One would have thought since flying training was chased offshore, to places like Canada and New Zealand, where sensible regulations apply, rather than our hodge podge of convoluted rubbish purporting to be regulation. Where commercial charter has virtually shut down burdened by overregulation, massive costs from rapacious property development sharks and all the other parasites feeding off the carcus of GA, CAsA would be looking at cutting staff numbers, still and all I suppose when the final nail has been driven into GA's coffin, these numpies will still be churning out masses of paperwork, having lots of symposiums so a few of them can talk to an empty room (consultation with ghosts minister).

Of most interest to the press seems to be the notion that Badgeries Creek airport development seems a tad over priced at $5 billion and a bit long in the making at ten years.

The Wagners reckon 3.5 and a couple of years is closer to the mark.

Still by the time all the government bureau's have siphoned off their fees for the myriad of approvals that will no doubt be required, management fees etc, and the unions have held the contractors to ransom, $5 billion might seem cheap.
Let a bureaucrat anywhere near a government project and expect the costs to more than double, just look at what happened with the "building an education revolution" or "Pink Batts"

The Wagner's are used to running their own race. Their project cost around $200 million and took less than two years, so a reasonable person would surmise a billion and three years would be reasonable, leaving out roads and rail, so their gambit of $3.5 Billion might seem like overkill but somehow I doubt it.

See Last Wednesday"s Australia Page 1 "Family flies a $3.5 bn bid to build Badgery's"

Or The Australian Infrastructure Federal budget page 9, "Badgerys has $5 bn for 2026 landing"

Or Thursday's Australian page 4 commentary "Doing what's best for the west."

Or Friday's Australian Aviation page 27 "Badgerys could echo NBN cost"

Or the Weekend Australian Page 1 "$5 bn for Badgery's? Their dreaming" them Wagners again!!

Good grief, haven't seen this much interest in an airport since Methuselah was a pup.