[Sandy Reith]

Well put, Wombat’s logic and the finer points about risk management in aviation puts perspective on the subject of safety and would be good reading for Minister Joyce.

We know there must be a new dynamic, it is not in our best interests to minutely manage, by criminal code regulations the private operations of General Aviation (GA), CASA must go.

We do need to be careful not to go backwards, we should be advancing, but without the old paternalistic ways of the Department of Civil Aviation, though that environment was at least workable and was without today’s excessive controls and enormous fees.

We need a new concept where we have the ‘road rules’ and not a lot more for private GA. In this era of information free choice should be given much greater weight and all pet theories about, for example training, should be counted as opinions which may be tested by aviators or not. Nothing succeeds like success, good methods will win out, and no information is spread faster than the consequences of failure. Innovation, experimentation and technology change our potentials to improve efficiency and safety, the old control mentality is not fit for a better future for Australia’s GA.