[Gobbledock]

Nice work Peetwo, a tidy collection of articles, industry comments and tidbits relating to the often forgotten but highly necessary Whirlybird industry. To start with, the current growth rate of 0.62% is absolutely abysmal after the preceding years growth. Now as with any environment there are numerous factors affecting the Helo industry at the moment including belt tightening, the AUD, and the mining/resource slowdown, to be sure. However, the incessant and rampant molestation of the regulations including the Part 61 folly has caused the biggest damage. The Helo industry has been forced to grab it's ankles and a fully blooded CAsA has torn the industry a new one! Helo operations are extremely cost sensitive, most margins are small while outlays are high. All you need is Inspector Plod to come in armed with his red pen and comprehensive unworkable rule set and you end up with the current malaise - a section of industry haemorrhaging more than Farmer Truss's exit hole after a night on the brandy and vindaloo's.

I'm still willing to cut Skidmore a small measure of slack, at this point in time. It's still early days, he has some support in Boyd, and some of the whispers that I am hearing from around the traps of sleepy hollows executive structure is that the GWM are indeed trying to white ant him. So believe it or not that is a good thing! Why? Well it shows that Skates may just be trying to do the right thing. The GWM have never understood the industry coal face nor have they ever given a fist full of monkey crap about it. Then again they did that to Byron and Smith, so will evil triumph over good yet again? Going on past history one would say, unfortunately, yes. However in the past you didn't have someone like Boyd on the Board and you didn't have the same degree of senate pineapples that Nick, Fawcett and friends seem to have in their arsenal.

Personally I think this game has a few interesting hands yet to be dealt. Although this isn't the topic being discussed here, the fact that the CAsA/ATsB MOU has a very different 'wording' format to the previous one (those with a robust eye for detail will understand where I am coming from) could indicate that the 'previous author' who likely has a penchant for using intellectual PHD style writing as masturbation fodder, has been left mostly out in the cold when it comes to the most recent version. Will GA, the Helo industry and other aviation sectors survive the relentless CAsA buggery that has escalated in recent times? I don't know, the jury is still out on that one, but I do know that the clock doesn't have much tick left in it.

Cue the 60 Minutes stopwatch......tick tick tick tick